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The decision by a federal jury in Missouri on Tuesday has sent shockwaves through the real estate industry, with many anticipating a fundamental change in how Americans purchase homes.

A jury ordered the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and some of the nation’s biggest real estate brokerages to pay almost $1.8 billion in damages after finding they artificially inflated commissions paid to real estate agents.

The class-action suit was filed in 2019 on behalf of 500,000 home sellers in Missouri and some border towns. The jury found that the defendants “conspired to require home sellers to pay the broker representing the buyer of their homes in violation of federal antitrust law.”

NAR and the other defendants could be on the hook for more than $5 billion if the court decides to award the plaintiffs treble damages, which allows plaintiffs to potentially receive up to three times actual or compensatory damages. The NAR said it plans to appeal.

News of that appeal was shared with the nearly 1.6 million Realtors in the U.S.

Premier Valley Realty Owner Brian Domingos, president of the Fresno Association of Realtors, said Friday the organization is taking this as an opportunity to reaffirm with consumers the value Realtors bring to the market.

The NAR structure with state affiliates including the California Association of Realtors offers exposure through the Multiple Listing Service, the real-time online database of homes and properties for sale.

The case centers on the commissions that are paid for real estate agent services, and how they have been paid for more than 50 years in the U.S. — by the seller of the property to their agent and the buyer’s agent.

Domingos said that could shift as a result of this decision.

In addition to possible caps on commissions, regulatory changes emerging from this decision could put homebuyers on the hook for paying their real estate agent on commissions of 5-6% or more of the total transaction.

The result could mean the cost of purchasing a home becomes even higher.

“That’s a challenge to buyer affordability,” Domingos said.

In the short term, this doesn’t change much for the industry, said JP Shamshoian, president of Realty Concepts. He said commissions have always been negotiable, and in his 15 years of high-level experience in the industry, Realtors have never set the rate of commission and brokerages have not worked together to do so either.

He’s not sure how the jury decision will shake out, but the prospect of Realtors losing a role in the longstanding market structure would mean buyers lose out on valuable guidance.

“It would be an unmitigated disaster if buyers no longer had representation. It would be like going to court as a defendant and not having an attorney,” Shamshoian said. “Buyers deserve to have reps and those people deserve to get paid.”