Average Real Estate Commission, Buyers Agent Rates – 2020 Report

When people think of real estate commission, they often think of 6%, 5%, or 4.25% (what we charge as our max. rate). The public is not generally in their mind dividing commission between the sellers agent and buyers agent. But in the vast majority of real estate transactions the commission is split between those two agents, and it is not typically split 50 / 50 like many would assume. No, each listing has its own commission rate that is offered to the buyer’s agent. All real estate commissions are negotiable, there is no set standard. What I’m providing here is research on the local commission rates offered in Portland, Oregon using the data available from RMLS, our local MLS provider where buyers agent commission rates are posted.

If you’re looking to sell your home and are curious on what the national commission rates are, we have that too! Go here for our 2020 real estate commission averages report. This will include both buyers and sellers agent commission together (not broken down).

Buyers Agent Commission Rates in 2020

Well, it is obvious. 2018 through 2020, as long as we’ve been creating this annual report on commissions, the most common commission rate offered to buyers agents in our area is 2.5%. Very few times is any other rate offered. The 2020 data set comes from all sold detached homes in the city of Portland proper from 01/01/2020 until 7/13/2020 as recorded by RMLS. Previous years are also recorded samples from RMLS and you can find our reports on this site. The four most commonly offered rates are: 3%, 2.7%, 2.5%, and 2.25%, but the 2.5% figure outweighs them all by far.

Here is the raw data from each years sample:

Buyers Agent Commission Rates for Million Dollar Luxury Properties

The commission the buyers agent is offered does drop a little when we look only at properties that sold for a million or more. Using the same set of criteria as mentioned above, after increasing to that price point we get:

• 3% was offered twice, or less than 1% of the time.
• 2.7% was offered once.
• 2.5% was offered 282 times or 76% percent of the time.
• 2.25% was offered 70 times or 19% of the time.
• Other rates were offered about 4% of the time.

We charge 4.25% max. commission to sell and offer a cancel anytime policy for no charge.

Our top seller’s agents charge 2% and offer 2.5% to the buyer’s agent to create a 4.25% max. Not only do we charge a reasonable commission fee, less than the 2020 national average commission rate to sell, we pay more to market our homes on Zillow, Realtor.com, and other sites so they show higher in the search results and / or are viewed more often. On top of that we pay extra to list our homes on multiple MLS systems in Oregon and Washington to reach the greatest number of licensed real estate agents that could sell your home. Of course we include professional photography, 3D home tours and more at no additional charge. See everything we do to sell homes faster and for more here.