You do not need a buyer’s agent to purchase a home. No federal or state law requires buyer representation, and you can legally write your own offer, negotiate directly with the seller, and sit at the closing table alone. Whether you should is a different question, and the answer depends on your experience, the complexity of the deal, and how you plan to handle the commission rules that changed in August 2024.
The Legal Answer
Nothing in federal or state law forces a home buyer to work with a real estate agent. You have the right to negotiate directly with a seller, draft your own offer, and close without professional representation.
One exception is worth knowing before you assume “no agent” means “no professionals.” Roughly a dozen states require a licensed attorney to handle or oversee the closing itself. Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, New York, and South Carolina are among them. Skipping an agent in those states doesn’t skip the attorney fee at settlement.
What You Take On Without One
If you go unrepresented, every task an agent would handle becomes yours. Some are administrative. Others are where deals fall apart.
The Contract and Earnest Money
You need a legally compliant purchase agreement for your state. Many states have standardized forms available through title companies or real estate attorneys. The contract must include contingencies for financing, inspections, and appraisals, each with its own deadline. You’ll handle the earnest money deposit, typically 1% to 3% of the purchase price, and make sure it reaches the designated escrow account on time. Miss a deposit deadline and the seller can cancel or claim you’ve breached.
Inspections and Disclosures
The inspection contingency becomes yours to manage. You schedule inspectors, review reports, negotiate repairs or credits, and either waive or enforce the contingency before its expiration date. Let the deadline pass without acting and some contracts treat that as an automatic waiver of your right to cancel over property condition.
You also have to confirm the seller provides all required disclosures. At the federal level, sellers of homes built before 1978 must give you information about known lead-based paint hazards, a copy of the EPA pamphlet on lead safety, and all available reports on lead conditions in the home, all before you sign the purchase contract.
Title, Lender, and Closing
You coordinate directly with a title company for the ownership search and title insurance, and directly with your lender to meet financing deadlines. Federal law requires your lender to deliver the Closing Disclosure at least three business days before closing. Use that window to compare every number against your original Loan Estimate. If a figure has shifted and no one is explaining why, push back before settlement, not after.
After closing, the deed and mortgage documents must be recorded with the county recorder’s office. The title company or closing attorney usually handles this. As an unrepresented buyer, confirm who’s responsible rather than assuming it happens automatically.
What an Agent Actually Does for the Fee
When you hire a buyer’s agent, you create a fiduciary relationship. That’s a legal term for a set of duties the agent owes you: loyalty (acting solely in your interest), confidentiality (not revealing your budget ceiling or your urgency to the seller), and reasonable care in handling your transaction.
The real value shows up in the contract phase. Purchase agreements are dense documents loaded with contingencies for inspections, financing, appraisals, and title issues. Each contingency has a deadline, and missing one can cost you your earnest money or your right to walk away from a bad deal. An experienced agent tracks those dates, negotiates repairs after inspections, pushes back on unreasonable seller demands, and coordinates communication between your lender, the title company, and the other side. For a first-time buyer, or anyone purchasing in an unfamiliar market, that project management alone can justify the cost.
The Written Agreement You Now Have to Sign
Since August 17, 2024, anyone working with an MLS-participating agent must sign a written buyer agreement before touring a home together, whether in person or virtually. This came out of the National Association of Realtors settlement and applies nationwide.
The agreement has to spell out what services the agent will provide, how long the relationship lasts, and what the agent will be paid. Compensation cannot be an open-ended range. It must be a specific number: a flat fee, an hourly rate, a set percentage, or even zero dollars.
Everything in It Is Negotiable
The NAR’s own consumer guidance is explicit on this: you can negotiate the services, the duration, and the compensation. A few points buyers often overlook:
- You don’t have to sign a six-month exclusive. Some agents will agree to a 30-day term or even a single-showing touring agreement with no financial obligation.
- Instead of a percentage, you can propose a flat fee for the full transaction or an hourly rate for specific services like contract review and negotiation.
- If you’re comfortable finding properties yourself and only need help with paperwork, a limited-service agreement at a lower cost is on the table.
Protection Periods and Getting Out
Most buyer agreements include a protection period, sometimes called a holdover or “tail” clause. If the agreement ends and you then buy a home the agent showed you during the contract term, you may still owe the commission. These typically run a set number of days after expiration.
Termination clauses vary. Some agreements allow cancellation with written notice. Others charge a fee or require you to reimburse the agent for out-of-pocket costs like inspection reports. Until you’re formally released in writing, you could still owe a commission on properties the agent introduced to you. Read the termination and protection language before signing, and negotiate shorter terms up front rather than trying to escape later.
Who Pays the Commission Now
Before 2024, sellers typically set a total commission covering both their listing agent and the buyer’s agent, and that amount was advertised through the MLS. Buyers rarely thought about agent fees because the cost was baked into the sale. That system is gone.
Under the current rules, buyers and their agents negotiate compensation independently, and it must be locked in through the written buyer agreement before touring homes. The agent’s total compensation from all sources cannot exceed what was agreed to in that document.
Buyer-agent commissions currently average around 2.5% to 3% of the purchase price, though they range from 1% to 4% depending on the market and services provided. On a $400,000 home, a 2.82% commission (the current national average) works out to about $11,280.
The settlement didn’t eliminate seller-paid commissions. It eliminated the requirement that sellers offer them through the MLS. In practice, many sellers still agree to cover the buyer’s agent fee as part of negotiations, especially in slower markets. Buyers can request this in their purchase offer, and sellers can accept, counter, or refuse.
If the seller won’t cover the fee, you pay it at closing from your own funds. Plan for this early. An extra 2% to 3% of the purchase price on top of a down payment and closing costs can be a real problem if you’re stretching. Factor it into your budget from the start.
Loan Type Changes the Math
If you’re financing with a government-backed mortgage, the commission question gets more complicated. Each program treats buyer-agent fees differently.
VA Loans
VA regulations historically prohibited veterans from paying real estate brokerage charges. After the NAR settlement created a potential gap where sellers might stop offering to cover buyer-agent fees, the VA issued a temporary variance in August 2024 allowing veterans to pay reasonable buyer-broker commissions directly. The commission cannot be rolled into the loan amount, and the payment must be factored into whether the veteran has enough cash to close. If a seller voluntarily pays the buyer-agent fee, the VA does not count that payment as a seller concession.
Congress then passed the VA Home Loan Reform Act of 2025, making the commission flexibility permanent. Veterans can now pay their own buyer’s agent directly without the transaction being treated as a rule violation.
FHA Loans
FHA guidelines allow sellers and other interested parties to contribute up to 6% of the sales price toward a borrower’s closing costs, prepaid items, and discount points. According to HUD, real estate agent commissions customarily paid by the seller are not counted toward that 6% cap. FHA buyers cannot add the agent’s commission to their loan balance. If the seller won’t cover it, you’ll need the cash at closing.
Conventional Loans
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac also prohibit adding agent commissions to the mortgage principal. Lenders finance the value of the asset they could repossess and sell, and a brokerage fee isn’t an asset. Interested party contribution limits for conventional loans typically run 3% to 9% depending on down payment size and occupancy type. How seller-paid agent commissions interact with those caps has been evolving since the settlement. Ask your lender early about what counts.
When Going Solo Actually Works
Buying without an agent works best in a narrow set of circumstances: you’ve purchased homes before, you’re comfortable reading contracts and spotting unfavorable terms, and you have access to a real estate attorney for a flat-fee contract review. New construction from a builder’s sales office is another common scenario, since the builder controls the process and uses standardized contracts. Even then, having an attorney review the builder’s contract is worth the few hundred dollars it costs.
Where going solo gets risky is in competitive resale markets with multiple offers, tight timelines, and aggressive counterparties. That’s where inexperience becomes expensive fast. If your deal looks like that, the question isn’t really whether the law requires an agent. It’s whether you can afford to be the least prepared person at the table.