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The new law on the distribution of the broker's commission when buying real estate provides significant financial relief for buyers.

Nationwide, the average brokerage fee for buyers has fallen by 1.5 percentage points to 3.5 percent since the end of last year.

This is the result of a study by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW), which is available to WELT AM SONNTAG.

"With an average purchase price of EUR 300,000 for a property, buyers could save EUR 4,500 in equity," the IW calculates.

Since December 23, 2020, a nationwide law has been in force, according to which real estate agents are not allowed to charge a higher commission from buyers than from sellers.

This so-called halftone rule ensures that the entire commission of up to 7.14 percent can no longer be passed on to buyers alone.

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In some federal states, such as Berlin or Brandenburg, this was common practice, and according to the IW study, savings are particularly high there.

In the Potsdam-Mittelmark district, for example, the commission for buyers fell by 3.2 percentage points.

In Berlin it has almost halved to 3.6 percent.

According to IW, in Hamburg buyers now pay 2.6 percent less, in Frankfurt am Main the minus is 2.3 percentage points.

The declines recorded in Stuttgart (1.2 percentage points) or in Düsseldorf, Munich and Cologne (0.8 to 0.9 percentage points) were somewhat lower.

"In a European comparison, the broker's commission in Germany is still relatively high," IW real estate expert Michael Voigtländer told the newspaper.

"We explain this with a habituation effect that has not yet occurred."

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Many sellers are not yet aware that they can negotiate the amount of the commission and push it down for both sides.

Instead of negotiating, many salespeople do without a professional intermediary altogether.

According to IW, the proportion of advertisements in which no broker is active rose from 35 percent to 43 percent.

The data comes from an evaluation of current real estate advertisements by the data service provider Value AG on behalf of the IW.