Biggest Stories Of 2025: Referral Fees — To Disclose Or Not To Disclose?

From lawsuits to mergers and acquisitions at a scale never seen before in real estate and everything in between, 2025 was full of twists, turns and surprises for the housing industry. HousingWire is rewinding and breaking down the biggest storylines in the real estate industry from this past year. 

While Clear Cooperation was certainly the primary policy debate throughout much of 2025, the second half of the year saw an increase in discourse about referral fee transparency. 

Unsurprisingly, Washington state’s Northwest MLS (NWMLS) was one of the first movers on this topic, adding referral fee disclosures to its forms in June. At the time, a spokesperson for the MLS told HousingWire that it had been working on the issue for over a year, as it felt referral fee disclosures were “the next logical step to continuing to enhance transparency for consumers.”

According to NWMLS CEO Justin Haag, the “disclosure of referral fees at the outset of the broker’s engagement with a buyer or seller, rather than at the closing or sometimes not at all, is essential,” but not all real estate professionals feel this way. 

At the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) board of directors meeting in November in Houston, the board initially approved an amendment to Article 6 of the Realtor Code of Ethics which would have required Realtors to obtain a client’s consent any time they receive any money, rebate or profit from referrals. During the meeting, the proposal was approved with 83.55% of directors voting in favor and 16.45% opposed. However, just a few hours later, during the Delegate Body meeting, the proposal was rejected. 

In response, brokerages and other local Realtor associations decided to take matters into their own hands. Within the past six weeks, the California Association of Realtors, eXp Realty and Benchmark Realty have all announced various measures including new forms and disclosures to increase referral fee transparency. 

“We thought the amendment regarding broker-to-broker referrals was going to pass the board of directors and the delegate body, but it didn’t pass the delegate body, and as a result, we knew immediately we needed to take action,” Holly Mabery, eXp’s senior vice president of operations, said during a webinar earlier this month. 

Looking ahead, both Mabery and eXp Realty CEO Leo Pareja said they expect to see other associations, MLSs and brokerages roll out their own referral fee disclosure guidelines. 

While Realtor associations and brokerages have yet to come under fire for not disclosing referral fees, Zillow is currently at the center of a lawsuit filed by the same plaintiffs’ attorneys who filed the Moehrl commission lawsuit, suggesting that scrutiny around referral fee practices is rising. In the lawsuit, Zillow is accused of driving up the cost of homebuying through the referral fees it charges agents in its Zillow Flex program. 

With this lawsuit still pending, and industry players debating taking action regarding referral fee disclosures, this will be a storyline to follow in 2026.

This is part six of a seven-party series.