Grading Time! The 2025 Predictions

How did I do with predictions for this year?

It is always a mix of pleasure and dread looking back on predictions made a year ago about what would happen this year. Of course, it’s a bit easier when you try to make predictions sure to be wrong, or your money back (does not apply to VIP subscriptions), but still… I do enjoy tracking how well or poorly I do on these.

Here’s where we stand after 15 years:

• 2010 Predictions: 6 for 10 (.600)

• 2011 Predictions: 4.5 for 7 (.642)

• 2012 Predictions: 2 for 7 (.286)

• 2013 Predictions: 4.5 for 7 (.642)

• 2014 Predictions: 3 for 7 (.429)

• 2015 Predictions: 2.5 for 7 (.357)

• 2016 Predictions: 1 for 7 (.143)

• 2017 Predictions: 2 for 7 (.286)

• 2018 Predictions: 1.5 for 7 (.214)

• 2019 Predictions: 2 for 7 (.286)

• 2020 Predictions: 0 for 7 (.000)

• 2021 Predictions: 3.5 for 7 (.500)

• 2022 Predictions: 1.75 for 7 (.250)

• 2023 Predictions: 0.5 for 7 (.071)

• 2024 Predictions: 1.5 for 7 (.214)

• Lifetime Batting Average: 36.25 for 108 (.335)

Let’s see how my 2025 predictions performed.

1. The Association and the MLS Divorce… Finally… — Yes

I suppose this predictions was eventually going to come true. Now, to be fair, the MLS and the REALTOR Association have not formally finalized their divorce papers, but look… when NAR finalized its new 3-year strategic plan at NAR NXT in Houston this year, they more or less made it obvious that the two are at least separated, and headed to final divorce. And at least one significant MLS/Association declared their own divorce in 2025.

I wrote about that strategic plan here and wrote:

Take a step back and what you see is that NAR is exiting the MLS business completely (or if not completely, then as close to completely as is possible.) Just about everything important is pushed to “local discretion.”

Clearly a big reason is that NAR doesn’t want to get sued anymore for anything related to the MLS. The MLS, a natural monopoly with monopoly market power, is the reason why NAR gets sued in antitrust after all. Exit the MLS, and NAR leaves behind most if not all of its antitrust liability. The MLS takes all that liability onto itself; that’s what “local discretion” means.

I can’t help but wonder—selfishly perhaps—what could have been if NAR had accepted my call for a divorce of the MLS and the Association back in 2016. How many billions in damages could have been avoided? Would compensation be illegal in the MLS? Could we have avoided all of the turmoil and disruption of the past couple of years?

Well, NAR has arrived at that place anyhow. I think in large part because NAR leadership recognized that the MLS was going its own way, with or without permission. Whether NAR repealed Policy Statement 7.7 or not, the MLS was making local rules eliminating the REALTOR requirement. Whether NAR repealed Policy Statement 7.87 or not, the MLS was gonna do what it wanted. NAR simply did not have the power to compel the MLS to do anything, so saving face by pretending that it is now allowing the MLS to have local discretion is… well… saving face.

You can argue with me if you want, but I think I called this one correctly at last. 2026 might show us the clear and convincing evidence of the divorce, but I’m taking this one as a win.

2. The DOJ Sues NAR & MLS PIN — NO

This one seemed good to me in December of 2024. I mean, Trump had won a landslide election, and was coming into office swearing to do all kinds of stuff.

The DOJ had been signaling all along that they were done with using proxies and supporting civil lawsuits, especially after NAR dared to sue them in federal court. Add in the naming of Gail Slater and Harmeet Dhillon to high positions in the DOJ, and I figured the DOJ was going to come at NAR and MLS PIN directly.

The hiring of Roger Alford early on in the Trump Administration was, I thought, a sure sign that the DOJ was going to bring the thunder.

Somehow, everything changed over the first few months of the administration. Not only were there spectacular failures/walk-backs like with DOGE, but the DOJ appeared to have gotten some kind of a memo to stop enforcing antitrust all that strongly. Alford and Bill Rinner were fired in July after tensions within the antitrust division. And it doesn’t look like the DOJ is all that interested in anything real estate.

We can theorize as to why and what changed, but fact is only those on the inside know what went down. Besides, what is important is that things have changed, not necessarily why they changed.

So no-go on what looked so good as a prediction early on in 2025; I got this one flat out wrong.

3. Heartbreak for the Proponents of Clear Cooperation Policy — YES

In 2024, when I made the prediction, I thought it had more to do with big lawsuits like PLS.com v. NAR, and Top Agent Network v. NAR, as well as what I expected would be a more activist DOJ. Those would then lead to settlements with those litigants and with the DOJ to force practice changes.

None of that happened. Yet I still got this one right.

Because NAR itself eviscerated CCP with the newfangled MLOS policy with the DMEL implementation. Now, yes, I know some people can still pretend that CCP is a viable policy in light of MLOS/DMEL, but we know that it is not because Zillow decided to step into the breach that NAR left by bringing ZLAS down.

That, in turn, has created all sorts of turmoil in 2025, including Compass suing Zillow because of ZLAS.

Either way, Zillow doesn’t do ZLAS if NAR had not weakened CCP so much as to be useless. Which means that proponents of CCP did indeed have their hearts broken.

Got this one right.

4. The Three-Way Agreement Goes Away — Sorta? 0.5

This is one of those predictions I make year after year, and get it wrong year after year. 2025 was no exception.

Well… actually, it kinda was.

To be sure, NAR made preserving the Three Way Agreement its most important strategic goal in 2025 and beyond, but fact is that I am personally aware of so many conversations and plans happening right now due to NAR exiting the MLS space that I can’t entirely ignore it either.

Truth is that the Alabama REALTORS and Phoenix REALTORS situations got people wondering, and as 2025 progressed, more and more locals started to see which way the wind was blowing.

So while the Three Way Agreement did not actually go away in 2025, it is headed to death row… which means I think I’m giving myself 0.5 on this one.

5. Mass Consolidation in Brokerage — YES

Okay, hear me out on this one.

Last year, I thought the acquisition of @Properties by Compass was the big deal that would trigger a wave of acquisitions by everybody not named Compass:

Do they just sit back and allow Compass + @Properties to plunder their agents using “internal inventory” and market share to do so? Of course not. So what do they do?

Well, if you are Coldwell Banker Realty (#3) or Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Chicago (#5), you have got to be looking really, really hard at Baird & Warner (#4) as well as Dream Town Real Estate (#8) and others in the top 15, no? If you are eXp Realty (#10) and you want to remain competitive in recruiting in Chicago, don’t you also have to do the same?

And the thing that those three have that most of the others in the Top 15 do not have is money. Lots and lots of money and access to capital, as publicly traded companies. Hell, HomeServices can just go ask Uncle Buffett for cash to do acquisitions.

I think they go an acquisition spree to defend themselves against the monster that is Compass. They have to. Even if they are the biggest fans of CCP — like eXp Realty is — they have to get far more market share in major markets across the U.S. if they are to compete with Compass for producing agents.

Well, they didn’t do any of that. So on that point, I suppose I got the prediction wrong.

However, the entire industry was shocked when Compass announced that it was acquiring Anywhere. That was the shocker of 2025, and a deal that changes everything. And that deal is bigger than if the other big guys went after the #20 brokerage or whatever. Compass-Anywhere is almost a bigger ‘wave’ than all the other ‘waves’ combined. So there is that.

Plus, I did write that a wave of consolidation will begin in 2025, and I think Compass-Anywhere is proof of that. Plus, as a result of that deal, I know for a fact that companies are in fact looking at all kinds of mergers, acquisitions, partnerships and other combinations.

You might disagree, and I would understand, but I think I got this one right.

6. Commissions Fall For Real — NO

Uh yeah, I got that completely wrong.

In fact, not only did commissions not fall for real, they actually went up:

The average U.S. buyer’s agent commission was 2.43% for homes sold in the second quarter in 2025, up from 2.38% a year earlier, according to Redfin.

Commissions tend to decline as home prices rise, since a smaller percentage on an expensive home still results in a large payout. Redfin’s latest analysis for the quarter ending June 2025 shows that pattern has continued after the rule change.

• Homes under $500,000: Average commission of 2.52%, up from 2.45% a year earlier — the highest rate for this tier since late 2023.

• Homes between $500,000 and $999,999: Average commission of 2.34%, up slightly from 2.31% a year earlier.

• Homes priced $1 million or more: Average commission of 2.21%, still below 2.24% a year earlier.

A separate April analysis by online brokerage Clever pegged the average buyer’s agent commission at 2.67%, up from 2.58% in the previous year.

We could speculate as to why that happened, and debate whether this is the free market at work or worse: naked and open steering… but that’s for another day.

For today, it is enough to say that I got this prediction 100% wrong.

7. NAR Repeals the Speech Code — YES

I predicted last year that the Trump Administration, under Harmeet Dhillon at DOJ would pressure NAR to drop its unethical Speech Code. Well, maybe they did and maybe they didn’t, but fact is that NAR did more or less repeal the Speech Code in June.

On June 5, 2025, NAR’s Board of Directors approved changes that:

• Removed explicit references to “hate speech,” “epithets,” or “slurs.”

• Replaced them with a prohibition on “harassment,” defined as unwelcome behavior creating a hostile, abusive, or intimidating environment affecting access to equal professional services or employment.

• Limited enforcement to conduct in a REALTOR’s professional capacity (e.g., real estate-related activities or business association), no longer covering purely personal activities.

• Encouraged following the Code in all activities but restricted disciplinary action to professional contexts.

The most important, of course, was the restriction of 10-5 to a REALTOR’s professional activities. Victims of NAR like Wilson Fauber, who was sanctioned for a social media post of a Bible verse, would never have gotten screwed over under the current version of 10-5.

It has taken too long, and left too much destruction in its wake, and those who pushed for it and enforced it have not yet been held accountable, but at the very least, the Speech Code itself has been repealed.

I’m taking a win on this one, as everybody in real estate will also take a win.

Conclusion

So… my score for 2025 predictions ends up at a monstrous 4.5 out of 7 (.642). That is troubling in a way since those were supposed to be predictions sure to be wrong. Then again, it is kind of cool to have been more correct than not. I am sure my next round of predictions will go back to being mostly wrong.

Still, 2025 is all but behind us as Christmas is just around the corner. Real estate will remain chaotic afterwards, and my predictions for 2026 (which are coming soon) will surely be wrong.

Either way, I do wish you all a very Merry Christmas, real gratitude to all my subscribers, and hope for peace on earth and goodwill towards all.

-rsh