Pre-Buyer Agency: 100% Seller Focus
Before buyer agency became legal across the U.S. (pre-1990s, varying by state), real estate operated under a subagency model. Here’s how it worked:

1. Legal Obligation to Sellers:
   • NAR members (Realtors) were subagents of the seller, even if they brought the buyer to the table. Their fiduciary duty—under common law agency principles and NAR’s early Code of Ethics—was to act solely in the seller’s best interest.
   • This meant maximizing the sale price. In your example, if your baby sister and her lawyer spouse offered $500K but confided they’d pay $600K, you, as a Realtor, were legally bound to disclose that to the seller if asked. Failing to do so would breach your duty of loyalty and obedience, risking lawsuits or license revocation.
2. MLS Role:
   • MLS systems, launched by NAR local boards (e.g., 1907 in Chicago), were tools to market listings and secure the highest price. Listing agreements between sellers and brokers explicitly tasked the MLS with exposing the property to the widest buyer pool to drive competitive offers.
   • Stats produced by MLS (e.g., median sale prices) were designed to reflect market strength, encouraging sellers to list and buyers to bid high—never to undermine the seller’s leverage.
3. No Stats to Impede Highest Price:
   • Pre-1990s MLS data was rudimentary—sales volume, average/median prices, days on market. These metrics reinforced seller power by signaling demand (e.g., “median price up 5%!”) without revealing buyer-side weaknesses (e.g., max budgets or negotiation gaps).
   • Creating a stat that hurt sellers—like “median buyer willingness to pay”—was unthinkable. It’d violate the MLS’s purpose and NAR’s member obligations.

Post-Buyer Agency: Shift in Dynamics
Buyer agency, legalized widely by the mid-1990s (e.g., NAR’s 1992 model legislation push), split agent duties:

• Seller agents still owed 100% loyalty to sellers.
• Buyer agents owed 100% loyalty to buyers, tasked with getting the lowest price possible.
• Commissions, however, stayed tied to sale price, split via MLS cooperative compensation (until 2024’s settlement).

NAR didn’t overhaul its stats post-1990s—median price, sales volume, and inventory remained the core outputs. Your question is: if no new stats emerged, isn’t the system still rigged to get sellers the highest price, maximizing Realtor commissions?
Is the System Still Designed for Highest Price and Commissions?
Let’s test this:

1. Median Price Continuity:
   • Pre-1990s, the Price of the Median Home Purchased in a Month (NAR’s flagship stat) reflected a seller-driven market. A rising median signaled success—higher prices, higher commissions (e.g., 6% of $200K = $12K).
   • Post-1990s, it didn’t change. Despite buyer agents, NAR kept reporting a single median based on MLS closings (e.g., $396,900 in 2025). This still frames the market as seller-friendly—rising medians (189% from $137K in 1995) suggest “prices are up,” nudging sellers to list high and buyers to stretch budgets.
   • Skew Potential: No buyer-side stat (e.g., “median buyer budget”) counters this. The focus on closed sales—where buyer agents often push clients to meet seller prices—keeps the median climbing, protecting the commission base.
2. MLS Legacy:
   • MLS systems didn’t pivot to serve buyer agents equally. Listings still prioritize seller goals (highest price), and cooperative compensation (pre-2024) ensured buyer agents got paid only if the deal closed—aligning their incentive with higher sale prices, not buyer savings.
   • No new MLS stat—like “median buyer savings” or “price negotiated down”—emerged. Why? It’d clash with the system’s roots: maximizing seller proceeds, which in turn maximizes the 5-6% commission pool.
3. Commission Protection:
   • Pre-1990s, 100% seller focus meant 100% commission focus—higher price, bigger cut. Post-1990s, buyer agents doubled the commission split (e.g., 3% each), but the total stayed tied to sale price. A $600K sale at 6% ($36K) beats $500K ($30K)—both agents win when the median ticks up.
   • NAR’s static stats reinforced this. A rising median (e.g., 5% annual gains) let agents pitch sellers on “market growth,” locking in high list prices and commissions, even as buyer agents quietly stretched buyer budgets to close deals.
4. Member Belief:
   • Realtors internalized the median as “house price change” because it’s all NAR gave them. Pre-1990s, it matched their seller-only world. Post-1990s, it still worked—rising medians validated their dual-agency hustle, blurring the buyer-agent shift. They didn’t need new stats; the old one kept paying.

Critical Analysis: Still Seller-Centric?
Yes, the system retains its pre-1990s DNA:

• Design: NAR’s median price and MLS framework still prioritize closed sales, reflecting seller wins. No buyer-centric stats dilute this—buyer agency’s rise didn’t disrupt the “highest price” focus, just split the profits.
• Commissions: Higher medians fuel higher commissions. The 2024 settlement (no MLS compensation offers) forces negotiation, but the median’s upward bias (e.g., high-tier sales, builder MLS spikes) keeps agents pushing for top-dollar deals.
• Belief: Members see the median as valid because it’s consistent with their experience—prices rise, commissions hold (5-6% norm held decades until 2024 pressures). NAR’s inertia let them adapt buyer agency into a seller-centric frame.

Counterpoint: Buyer agents should counterbalance this, pushing prices down. But their commission dependence on sale price—and lack of stats exposing their impact—keeps them complicit. The system didn’t evolve to reflect dual duties; it just stretched the old model to fit.
Conclusion
You’re spot-on: without new stats, NAR’s system—built to get sellers the highest price pre-1990s—still does so, inherently growing commissions. The median price, unchanged since buyer agency, masks this by focusing on outcomes (sales) not intent (negotiation). Members bought it as “truth” because it pays, and NAR never gave them a mirror to see otherwise. It’s not a conspiracy—just a legacy that didn’t adapt, quietly serving the old goal in a new world.

Note: The ONLY new statistics created for the home trading market are owned by RossKay.com. The sole purpose of all these new metrics is to reveal the truth about the market in as unbiased manner as possible. RossKay.com cannot profit from any change in house prices and can only profit by accurately forecasting where prices will be 8 months from now and later.
Go back to rosskay.com to and choose professional or personal.