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Josh Sitzer, whose last name became famous in the real estate industry thanks to his role as a plaintiff in the high-profile Sitzer | Burnett commission lawsuit, has followed up his legal victory by co-launching an à la carte real estate platform.

The project is called Landian, and according to its website it’s “a platform that schedules and coordinates service contracts between homebuyers and licensed real estate agents.” The company lets would-be homebuyers schedule tours and make offers, and includes multiple different pricing tiers.

For consumers paying entirely à la carte, for example, Landian charges $49 per home tour. An offer written by an agent costs $199, but “AI-Powered Offers” are only $99. The company also has an “exclusive agent package” that costs $1,799, paid at closing. The package gives buyers up to five tours and two offers.

Customers using the exclusive package who want more tours or to make more offers are charged the à la carte price for those additional services.

A la carte and flat-fee services are not new to the industry, and indeed have been among the buzziest concepts in real estate over the past few years.

But what may surprise many in the industry is Sitzer’s involvement. Though it’s unclear what specific role he has in Landian, TechCrunch reported on Thursday — the day the company came out of stealth mode — that Sitzer had “teamed up with Bryce Galen and Neal Batra.” According to the TechCrunch profile of Landian, the company is designed to “take advantage of the new landscape.”

That new landscape stems from the National Association of Realtors’ landmark settlement that changed rules regarding agent pay. The settlement resolved several different antitrust lawsuits, one of which was known as Sitzer | Burnett — a name that comes from its lead plaintiffs, including Josh Sitzer.

Inman reached out to Landian Thursday with a request for comment. A company spokesperson offered to send emailed questions to Galen, the CEO. Inman responded with a request for a phone interview and had not heard back by the time of publication. This story will be updated with any comments the company provides.

In any case, though, the company’s website includes an exhortation for consumers to “join the real estate revolution,” followed by a quote from Sitzer.

“After our hard-won settlement paved the way for a new era of fairness and transparency, I’m thrilled to help launch Landian’s revolutionary flat-fee model for home tours and offer submissions, liberating homebuyers from the excessive commissions they were previously forced to pay,” Sitzer says on the website.

The company’s website additionally argues that it can save consumers the “equivalent to a year of mortgage payments.” It also states that “sellers are increasingly declining to pay buyer agent commissions,” but that when sellers do offer buy-side commissions, buyers ultimately still “pay agent commissions through the purchase price, which is higher than what a seller would otherwise accept for the property to receive the same net proceeds after commissions are paid.”

Consumers can schedule a tour or make an offer on a home by pasting a link to a listing from another site, such as Zillow, into Landian’s homepage.

Credit: Landian

In addition to working directly with consumers, Landian also includes an agent signup option. Landian is not a brokerage, and agents who work with the company still have to hang their shingle somewhere else. But the website does promise that agents can “unlock a new era of success” by working with Landian.

Registration for agents is free, but Landian’s website does not say how much money agents will make if they do home tours or write contracts with the company. The website also does not say how many agents have signed up so far, or what kind of lag time consumers might face when connecting with an agent for a tour or to make an offer.

Agents who write Landian offers will conduct “offer prep” sessions with consumers, according to the company’s website, during which they’ll discuss issues such as prices, terms and contingencies.

“After the session, the agent will draft the offer and submit it to the seller (via a listing agent, if applicable) on your behalf,” Landian’s website further explains. The agent will also manage any counteroffers, providing guidance and support until the offer is accepted, rejected, or expires. This service is provided for a flat fee, covering all aspects of the offer process.”

Among the industry changes that resulted from the settlement in Sitzer’s and other cases is a rule that seller’s agents can no longer make offers of compensation to buyers’ agents within their NAR-affiliated multiple listing service. The rule has raised questions about how exactly buyers agents might get paid going forward. One school of thought posits that they will get paid much as they have in the past, with the caveat that agents will simply have to communicate privately to hash out commissions.

However, another school posits that sellers will — like Sitzer himself and other lawsuit plaintiffs — balk at paying buyers agent commissions and refuse to make offers of compensation. That would place the burden of paying for those agents on the buyers themselves. Landian appears to be betting on this outcome, and that buyers will consequently gravitate to lower-cost offerings.

Update: This story was updated after publication with additional details about Landian. 

Email Jim Dalrymple II

Whether it’s refining your business model, mastering new technologies, or discovering strategies to capitalize on the next market surge, Inman Connect New York will prepare you to take bold steps forward. The Next Chapter is about to begin. Be part of it. Join us and thousands of real estate leaders Jan. 22-24, 2025.

The National Association of Realtors on Thursday revealed that it plans to take its fight over a Department of Justice investigation to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The trade group mentioned its plan in a court filing, stating that it plans to file a petition for a writ of certiorari — or a request to review a case — to the high court by Oct. 10. The request comes about a month and a half after NAR suffered a setback in the case when an appeals court refused the organization’s request for a rehearing.

The origins of the legal fight go back to 2020, when the DOJ simultaneously announced a lawsuit against and settlement with NAR. The lawsuit focused on several NAR rules that federal officials believed were anticompetitive. The settlement was meant to increase transparency regarding commissions and to prevent claims that buyer broker services are free.

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The matter appeared to be closed at that point, but in July 2021 the DOJ withdrew from the settlement. Days later, the feds quietly resumed their probe and sent NAR a subpoena for information related to its now-defunct Participation Rule — which required listing brokers to offer compensation to buyer brokers in order to submit a listing to a Realtor-affiliated MLS — and on anti-pocket listing Clear Cooperation Policy.

However, NAR has spent the last three years fighting the DOJ’s withdraw from the settlement. In September 2021, NAR asked a court “to quash a request by the Department of Justice that reneges on the terms of a settlement agreement.”

Later, in January 2023, a federal judge sided with NAR and ruled that the DOJ’s resumed probe violated the “validly executed settlement agreement” between the two parties.

The DOJ then appealed. In April of this year, an appeals court sided with the DOJ and ruled that the investigation could resume. NAR responded by asking for a rehearing, but in July the appeals court denied that request — a turn of events that makes the Supreme Court NAR’s next step.

The legal battle between NAR and the DOJ is separate from the numerous consumer-led commission lawsuits that have challenged, and ultimately changed, the way agents do business. Those lawsuits led to a March settlement, as well as rules changes that went into effect on Aug. 17.

However, the DOJ has engaged in talks with attorneys who litigated the commission cases, and earlier this year NAR President Kevin Sears framed the federal agency as potentially more disruptive than the consumer lawsuits. The DOJ has also sent signals regarding what it would like to see happen with agent commissions.

All of which means the case that NAR now plans to take to the Supreme Court is just one component of a larger struggle the organization is having with the DOJ.

Besides revealing the intention to take the case to the Supreme Court, Thursday’s filing additional states that the DOJ has agreed to narrow its request for documents. In response, NAR has agreed to turn over some documents by Sept. 30, and will turn over others if the Supreme Court refuses to review the case or if the court rules in the DOJ’s favor.

Read NAR’s latest filing here (refresh the page if the document doesn’t appear):

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The U.S., throughout most of this century, was the top destination for foreign homebuyers from many countries, including China. However, its position has slipped due to the strong dollar and the after-effects of the global pandemic.

Whether it’s refining your business model, mastering new technologies, or discovering strategies to capitalize on the next market surge, Inman Connect New York will prepare you to take bold steps forward. The Next Chapter is about to begin. Be part of it. Join us and thousands of real estate leaders Jan. 22-24, 2025.

There’s no doubt that the recent changes to broker compensation have shaken up the industry, and it’s natural to wonder how this will play out in your business over the long term, especially if a majority of your clients are buyers.  

Buyers are probably already approaching you with myriad questions based on what they’ve heard and read over the past several months. We have been encouraging our agents to lean into these questions. Use this time as an opportunity to strengthen your value as a trusted advisor with buyers as you continue to build those all-important relationships at your business’s core. 

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Here are some things to consider as you navigate this new environment.   

Don’t fear the conversation

This is new for you, and it’s also new for your clients, so it’s likely that both sides will be a bit apprehensive.

After the overwhelming amount of news on this topic in the past several months — with terms like “price fixing” and “collusion” in the headlines — it’s likely that some of your clients are feeling unsure and perhaps even a little defensive when it comes to navigating their next real estate purchase. It’s your job to stay calm and confident, remembering that one of your primary roles is education.

Let their questions open the door to productive conversations. In some of our markets, the settlement changes went into effect in early July, which let us see how the new laws would play out.

In most cases, sellers understood the new buyer-broker compensation arrangement and were willing to cover those fees as part of the terms of their purchase offer when asked by the buyer. 

Be ready to articulate your value

Hone your pitch so that when a potential buyer questions the cost of your services, you’re able to communicate your value in a way that resonates with them.

To prepare, make a list of the tangible benefits you bring to the table.

• Do you achieve a lower sales-price-to-list-price ratio for buyers?
• Does your firm hold top market share in an area?
• And what does that mean in terms of being able to access off-market listings?

A buyer simply wants to understand how working with you — your experience, your access to pre-market inventory, your strong relationships with other agents in the market — is ultimately going to benefit them. 

Ask yourself these questions to come up with talking points. Remember to keep them concise, boiling the information down to three or four things that are easy to understand. Practice until you feel confident.  

Tell a story

The above points notwithstanding, don’t try to sell yourself by reciting long lists of services you provide or explaining your market position with a laundry list of numbers. That will just confuse your clients.

Instead, tell a story that relates to your clients and help them understand that you have worked with other buyers in situations just like theirs. Perhaps you worked with a buyer who bought a home off-market that they never would have been able to see without you. Or maybe you had a seller who was concerned about a half-point commission difference, but they wound up netting several additional points because you were able to negotiate a great deal.

They want to know that you get it and that you get them. And as an added benefit: The more you tell your story, the more confident you will become.   

Lean on the data

Last year, real estate consultancy 1000Watt surveyed 1,000 consumers who bought a home in the past three years. The survey asked homeowners to consider a possible future in which they’d be required to sign an exclusive agreement with a buyer agent and pay out of pocket for their services.

The response? Seventy-five percent of those surveyed said they would still choose to have an agent represent them, which bodes very well for the future of buyer agency.

I also want to point you to a number of studies of consumer purchasing behavior that, time and time again, show that a large majority of consumers will pay more for a higher-quality experience. Keep these statistics in mind as you work with buyers.

While the settlement has changed a number of things, it has not changed the fact that your clients still need you. Stay confident, listen to potential clients, be the advisor they need, and you will thrive.  

Amy Corr is the chief brokerage officer for @properties Christie’s International Real Estate. Find her on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.