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Tracey De Simon
Coldwell Banker Realty
Buyer & Seller Guide • • 13 min read

Who Really Pays the Agent in 2026? The Honest Guide to Commissions in Charlotte, St. Louis & Naples

Here is the short answer, and I will unpack it below: most buyers today do not pay their agent a dollar out of pocket, most sellers still offer to cover the buyer's agent fee, and the 2024 national commission settlement did not change any of that. What it changed is the paperwork. Buyers now sign a written buyer agency agreement before touring homes, and commission offers can no longer be advertised on the MLS. Here is what that means for buyers, sellers, and relocators in Charlotte, St. Louis, and Naples, in plain English, with no fine-print spin.

A bright white marble table by a sunny window holding blank documents, a gold fountain pen, two house keys on a brass ring, and a coffee cup in warm afternoon light

Every week, a client asks me some version of the same question: wait, do I have to pay you? Or, if I sign this buyer's agreement, am I locked into paying your commission myself? And every time, I smile a little, because the honest answer is usually a relief. The national commission settlement changed real rules that matter, and you should understand them before you sign anything. But it did not create a new world where buyers pay agents a check at closing, and it did not remove a seller's right to pay the buyer's agent. Let me show you exactly how it works today, and what the smartest buyers, sellers, and relocators are doing about it in my three markets.

01 -- What Actually Changed in 2024 (and What Did Not)

The National Association of REALTORS reached a settlement in early 2024, and the new rules took effect on August 17, 2024. Three changes actually affect you day to day. First, a buyer must sign a written buyer agency agreement with their agent before touring any home, in person or by video. That agreement has to state the agent's compensation in a clear, objective way: a percentage, a flat fee, an hourly rate, or a specific minimum amount. Second, offers of buyer agent compensation can no longer be published on the MLS, so you will not see a dollar figure next to a listing like you would have a few years ago. Third, and this is the part people forget, compensation is now a direct negotiation between you and your agent, written into the agreement before you ever step into a house.

Now for what did not change: the settlement did not ban seller-paid commissions, and it did not set any commission rate. A seller can absolutely still offer to pay the buyer's agent, negotiated as a concession inside the purchase contract, the same way a seller helps with closing costs or a rate buydown. In fact, recent 2026 industry surveys suggest about 78 percent of sellers still offer buyer agent compensation, at an average of around 2.4 percent of the sale price. And total commission levels in many markets are running roughly half a point to three quarters of a point lower than they were before the settlement, because every fee is now on the table for negotiation.

The most common arrangement in 2026 is still this: the buyer pays their agent nothing directly, and the seller covers the buyer's agent fee as a negotiated concession in the offer. That is how most of my buyer clients transact today, and it is very likely how yours will go too, once we ask for it in writing on the offer. If the seller does not agree, you and I already agreed on what happens next, because that is what the buyer agency agreement is for: it makes the fee explicit, transparent, and fair to both of us before we start looking at houses together.

02 -- The October 2026 Market in Three Quick Views

Commission conversations do not happen in a vacuum; they happen against a market backdrop. Here is where the three metros I work in stand this month, from the most recent published data, so you can read the rest of this article with real numbers in front of you.

Charlotte at a Glance
  • Median price: about $410,000 to $430,000 depending on the source (Canopy MLS), up roughly 1% year over year and effectively flat on some rolling measures.
  • Inventory: more than 13,000 active listings regionally, the highest level since before the pandemic, up about 5 to 10% year over year.
  • Months of supply: roughly 3.6, a genuinely balanced, two-sided market.
  • Days on market and close to list: about 52 to 67 days, with the typical seller closing near 96 to 99% of asking.
  • The takeaway: buyers have real choices and real negotiating room, and sellers who price honestly are still getting done.
Greater St. Louis at a Glance
  • Median price: about $340,000 for City and County residential (St. Louis REALTORS, August 2026), up 6.6% year over year; townhouses and condos about $220,000, up 2.1%.
  • Inventory: active listings up about 13% year over year, but months of supply still only around 2.6 metro-wide.
  • Days on market: about 44 median days metro-wide, with high-demand suburban homes still moving in about three weeks.
  • The takeaway: still the value leader of my three markets, and still closer to a seller's market in the suburbs than the balance Charlotte and Naples have reached.
Naples at a Glance
  • Median closed price: about $575,000 overall in August 2026 (NABOR), down 1.7% year over year; single-family about $745,000, condos about $400,000.
  • Inventory: roughly 4,100 active listings, down about 20 to 22% from a year ago as the seasonal buyers returned early.
  • Months of supply: about 5.4, down from roughly 8.1 a year ago, right on the balanced line and tightening fast.
  • Cash buyers: 53.5% of Collier County closings were cash, against 33.4% statewide, which changes the negotiation game for financed buyers.
  • The takeaway: the correction is over, the winter season is starting, and seller leverage is strengthening week by week.

03 -- For Buyers: Sign the Agreement, Then Know What It Says

I know the word agreement can feel like a commitment, so let me reframe it. The buyer agency agreement you sign before touring is not a trap; it is a contract that makes your agent legally work for you. Without it, in most states, an agent showing you homes technically represents the seller, even when they are being helpful to you. So that signature is what turns your agent from a helpful stranger into your fiduciary, someone who is legally bound to protect your interests, keep your confidences, and negotiate for you. That is a protection, not a penalty.

Read the compensation line, and talk about it out loud before you sign. The agreement must state the fee clearly: a percentage of the purchase price, a flat fee, an hourly rate, or a minimum amount. That number is negotiable, and it is the number we will use to ask the seller to cover on your behalf. My honest guidance: choose a structure that matches what you want to happen at the table. If we agree on the fee and the seller later agrees to pay it, you owe nothing out of pocket, which is the outcome most buyers experience today. If the seller offers less, or nothing, the agreement tells us exactly what happens next, before we are at the closing table trying to figure it out.

Make the seller-paid request a standard part of every offer. In a balanced market like Charlotte's, and in Naples's condo market in particular, sellers are routinely accommodating buyers who ask for the buyer agent fee plus closing cost help in one clean request. In St. Louis, where well-priced homes still draw multiple offers, your ask should match the competitive reality of the neighborhood; a modest request on a strong offer is still very often granted. Either way, it goes into the purchase contract as a negotiated concession, and it is protected there just like any other term.

Do not let the fee question keep you from using an agent. The opposite trade is the one that costs buyers: touring without representation, or relying on a listing agent's kindness, leaves you negotiating against someone whose duty runs to the seller. The average concession today, around 2.4 percent of the sale price, is a small price for a professional who negotiates for you, protects your earnest money in three states with three different contract systems, and handles inspections and appraisals on your side. On a $400,000 home, that is about $9,600 of leverage working for you, and in most transactions the seller is the one writing it.

The Buyer's Commission Checklist
  • Review the buyer agency agreement before the first tour, and ask for the compensation line in plain numbers.
  • Negotiate the fee up front, not at the closing table; make sure you know your own out-of-pocket exposure in every scenario.
  • Ask your agent to request seller-paid buyer agent compensation in writing on every offer.
  • Combine the request with closing cost help if you are tight on cash; in balanced markets sellers routinely consider both.
  • Get the final terms in the contract: nothing is owed until it is written, and nothing is promised until it is signed.

04 -- For Sellers: Concessions Are the New Leverage

Sellers, here is the part most listing advice gets wrong. Because buyer agent compensation can no longer be advertised on the MLS, some agents tell sellers the buyer now pays, so drop the offer entirely. That advice ignores what actually happens in the market: the vast majority of buyers still work with an agent, and the vast majority of sellers, around 78 percent in 2026 surveys, still choose to make the buyer's representation a non-issue by covering it as a concession. A home that a buyer can afford with representation attached is a home that sells. A home that forces every interested buyer to ask, and can I bring my agent, is a home that quietly narrows its own audience.

Budget for the request like you budget for closing costs. When an offer comes in with a seller credit for the buyer agent fee, that is not a discount you are being forced to take; it is a term of the sale, negotiated just like the price. You can accept it, counter it, or cap it, and a good listing strategy plans for it before the first showing. In practice, most negotiations land with the seller contributing somewhere in the neighborhood of the buyer agent fee, often combined with a modest closing cost credit, and the final net number is what our pricing conversation is about up front.

Do not let the fee dominate the offer conversation. I have watched sellers pass on a strong net because a concession request felt like an insult, and I have watched them lose twenty thousand in market value by overreacting to two and a half. In Charlotte's balanced market, the winner is the seller who prices to closed comps and keeps the concession math simple. In St. Louis, where multiple offers still happen in the suburbs, a cap on concessions lets competition do the work while protecting your net. In Naples, with cash buyers at more than half of closings, you may not face the request at all, and the negotiation shifts to price and timing instead.

The Seller's Commission Checklist
  • Decide your concession budget up front: what you will contribute toward the buyer agent fee, closing costs, or a buydown, before offers arrive.
  • Price to the last 90 days of closed comps; the first two weeks of a listing set the entire tone of the negotiation.
  • Treat a concession request as a negotiated term, not an insult, and counter with the structure that protects your net.
  • Keep the buyer's financing in mind: a fee request that keeps a qualified buyer in the transaction is often cheaper than a second round of showings.
  • Ask your agent to walk you through the net sheet with concessions modeled before you ever list.

05 -- For Relocators: How NC, MO, and FL Handle It Differently

If you are moving between states, this is the section that saves you surprises, because the same national settlement landed on top of three different state systems, and each state has its own forms and quirks. Here is the honest, state-by-state version.

North Carolina was ahead of the curve. The North Carolina Real Estate Commission has required written agency agreements for years, so the 2024 rule change barely registered here. The genuinely new development came in July 2025, when a new state law opened the door for buyer agent compensation to be written directly into the standard North Carolina Offer to Purchase and Contract form, something the old rules had prohibited. That means in Charlotte, the buyer agent fee can be a simple, standard line in your offer, working exactly the way I described above: requested in writing, negotiated, and protected in one document.

Missouri wrote it into state law. Missouri went further than the national rules in August 2025, when a state law change made signed buyer agency agreements a requirement for every licensee in the state before providing brokerage services to a buyer. That matters for relocators because it applies to everyone, not just REALTORS, and it means as soon as you start interviewing agents in St. Louis, the agreement conversation comes early, and it is a sign of a rule-abiding professional, not a pushy one.

Florida runs on transaction brokerage by default. Florida's real estate law gives buyers and agents a menu of relationship types, and the default is transaction brokerage, where the agent facilitates the deal without the full fiduciary duties of a single agent. Florida Realtors updated its buyer-broker forms in mid-2024 to comply with the settlement, with separate forms for single agency, transaction brokerage, and no brokerage relationship, plus a commission agreement form with the required disclosure language, and more form updates landed in January 2026. In Naples, ask your agent to explain which relationship you are signing before you sign, because the rights you give up in a transaction brokerage can matter enormously in a negotiation.

Now, the relocation news behind all three markets. Charlotte is coming off its best corporate recruitment year in a decade, and it kept rolling in 2026 with expansions from Scout Motors, Siemens Energy, and Maersk, plus Capital Group opening an uptown hub with room for about a thousand employees and the Women's Tennis Association announcing in September that Charlotte will host its headquarters. For a relocator, more headquarters means more transferees, and transferees are exactly the buyers who lean on agents for a smooth, guided purchase. St. Louis launched Move2STL earlier this year, a free relocation concierge that connects out-of-state candidates with local employers before the move, and the metro added roughly 31,000 jobs over the past year, its strongest stretch in decades, with British Airways also restoring a nonstop to London. And Naples keeps building its year-round economy around employers like Arthrex while the airport region grows, and the new scheduled American Airlines nonstop between Naples and Charlotte starting in December makes a two-metro life dramatically easier for relocating families. Commissions work the same way across all three states; the paperwork, the defaults, and the market momentum are where they differ.

The Relocator's Commission Checklist
  • Expect the buyer agency agreement before your first tour in every state; it is the law and the new normal, not a red flag.
  • In NC, look for buyer agent compensation in the Offer to Purchase; it is now a standard, protectable line.
  • In MO, know that signed agreements are required by state law, for every licensee, before representation starts.
  • In FL, ask which relationship you are signing: single agent, transaction broker, or none, and what each one means for you.
  • Work with one broker licensed in NC, MO, and FL so your two-state move gets one answer instead of three.

06 -- The Bottom Line, in Plain English

Here is everything above compressed into what I actually want you to remember. Commissions are negotiable, and the settlement made them more negotiable, not less. Most buyers still pay nothing out of pocket because most sellers, around 78 percent, still offer to cover the buyer agent fee as a concession at an average of about 2.4 percent. The buyer agency agreement is your protection, and the only truly expensive choice is touring unrepresented against the person who owes their duty to the other side. Whether you are buying in balanced Charlotte, navigating the value play in St. Louis, or reading cash-heavy Naples before the season runs, the winning move is the same: understand the fee, write it down, and put a professional on your side of the table.

This is the part of my job I love most: taking a question people feel embarrassed to ask and turning it into a calm, honest plan. I have advocated for buyers and sellers through twenty years of this business, across every kind of market these three states have thrown at us, and I treat every client like family, because that is how this should feel. If you are wondering how any of this applies to your specific move, bring me the question. We will walk through your numbers, your timeline, and exactly what the agreement should say, free, with no pressure and no obligation. That is what the next hour is for.

Have a Commission Question? Let's Talk It Through.

Whether you are buying, selling, or relocating across state lines, you will leave a free consultation with a clear plan and an honest answer: what the agreement should say, what the fee should be, and what your move will really cost. No pressure, just twenty years of experience on your side from a broker licensed in NC, MO, and FL.

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Sources

Market data and industry figures compiled from publicly available reports as of October 2026. Survey averages vary by source, market, and price band. This article is for general information only and is not legal, tax, or financial advice; buyer agency rules and forms change, so confirm details with a licensed professional in your state.