The big news in the real estate world: The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has settled a lawsuit alleging antitrust violations related to their commission practices. This settlement, costing $418 million, addressed claims that NAR’s policies led to inflated commission rates, affecting the competitiveness and costs in the real estate market.

Before, sellers usually paid a 6% fee, split between their agent and the buyer’s agent, but after the seismic settlement, those fees could be cut by 50%. Resulting in lower house prices on the market.

The stock market felt the ripple of this news, with companies like Zillow and Compass seeing their shares drop because of the potential cut in agent commissions. Meanwhile, homebuilder stocks like Lennar and PulteGroup got a nice little boost.

And it’s not just about lower costs. This change is expected to challenge the traditional way of doing things and possibly leading to innovative new business models in real estate.

Here’s what could happen in the real estate world after the settlement, hypothetically:

Buyers will not be prepared to pay out of pocket agent commission fees, resulting in less buyers on the market. They may also not be able to understand the value of having an agent, at least enough to pay for their service.

You might have to resort to charging either a flat fee, hourly rate, or commission contingent to the close of the property. Buyers who agree to pay your fee will probably expect more from you as they are coming out of pocket for your service. But you can also label these clients as serious and qualified since they are willing to invest more funds into the search of their next home.

Buyers will start to shop around for service rates. Whereas before, their only deciding factors depended on referrals and if they trusted you enough to know the market and the buying process. Now, they’ll probably go online, and call a couple of agents to compare costs, adding another factor to their decision making process.

Newer agents will probably charge a very low rate but could result in a lot of mistakes, costing the buyer more money than they initially expected.

Agents will feel like this structure change is too challenging and not worth pursuing. So they’ll drop out of the real estate industry, making it a little less competitive.

Agents who have tons of knowledge, experience, and value will be able to dominate more local markets. They’ll have to really showcase their value and service to align it with their service fee. At this point, an online presence will be very crucial because buyers won’t just go off your postcard or flyer, they’ll want to see your resume or portfolio.

Real estate brokers will create more teams so that if they land a client, there will be plenty of agents on board to take care of a task if one agent isn’t able to.

Being that educating buyers on paying for agent fees will be a new challenge, I’m estimating that agents will believe it’s easier to go for sellers since the process will remain the same.

It’s possible that loans for agent commissions will be put in place for buyers who are not ready to pay in cash for the service.

Change in real estate always feels like disruption, but only those that are able to adapt and pivot will survive. Take this opportunity to be one of the first to adjust and innovate with new processes and ideas.