In their Article, Et Tu, Agent? Commission-Based Steering in Residential Real Estate, authors Barry, Fried, and Hatfield seek to demonstrate what regulators and industry participants have long suspected but struggled to prove: that buyer agents in residential real estate steer clients toward higher-commission listings. They do so by examining whether higher-commission listings on Redfin are accessed more often than lower-commission listings. Through this experiment, the authors posit that steering exists and can be quantified.

While the Article is novel in that it is the only empirical attempt to quantify steering, I argue that its central proxy—page views—does not cleanly capture the phenomenon it seeks to measure. I also suggest that the analysis rests on a series of untested assumptions about how buyers interact with listings, and relies on a data source (Redfin) that may not be representative of broader market trends. These limitations counsel caution in interpreting the magnitude of the authors’ findings.

I also examine how Barry, Fried, and Hatfield’s study fits into the post National Association of Realtors ("NAR”) settlement landscape. I suggest that while the study may have accurately captured pre-settlement marketplace dynamics, it may not necessarily represent what is happening on the ground today (or so critics would contend). I argue that steering has likely continued—and even gotten worse—but now operates in ways that are far more difficult to observe and, importantly, to measure.

I close by arguing that steering is a predictable consequence of a system in which commissions are coupled and largely borne by sellers. Incremental reforms, including those embodied in the NAR settlement, fail to address the core dynamic that keeps commissions high: that sellers pay both agents. Meaningful change requires structural decoupling of commissions so that buyers directly bear the cost of their agents. Only then can market forces discipline pricing and reduce the persistent incentives to steer.