Reddit shares jumped 48% in their debut on Thursday in the first initial public offering for a major social media company since Pinterest hit the market in 2019.

The 19-year-old website that hosts millions of online forums priced its IPO on Wednesday at $34 a share, the top of the expected range. Reddit and selling shareholders raised about $750 million from the offering, with the company collecting about $519 million.

The stock opened at $47 and reached a high of $57.80, marking a 70% increase at its peak for the day. It closed at $50.44, giving the company a market cap of about $9.5 billion.

Trading under the ticker symbol “RDDT,” Reddit is testing investor appetite for new tech stocks after an extended dry spell for IPOs. Since the peak of the technology boom in late 2021, hardly any venture-backed tech companies have gone public and those that have — like Instacart and Klaviyo last year — have underwhelmed. On Wednesday, data center hardware company Astera Labs made its public market debut on Nasdaq and saw its shares soar 72%, underscoring investor excitement over businesses tied to the surge in artificial intelligence.

At its IPO price, Reddit was valued at about $6.5 billion, a haircut from the company’s private market valuation of $10 billion in 2021, which was a boom year for the tech industry. The mood changed in 2022, as rising interest rates and soaring inflation pushed investors out of high-risk assets. Startups responded by conducting layoffs, trimming their valuations and shifting their focus to profit over growth.

Reddit’s annual sales for 2023 rose 20% to $804 million from $666.7 million a year earlier, the company detailed in its prospectus. The company recorded a net loss of $90.8 million last year, narrower than its loss of $158.6 million in 2022.

Based on its revenue over the past four quarters, Reddit’s market cap at IPO gave it a price-to-sales ratio of about 8. Alphabet trades for 6.1 times revenue, Meta has a multiple of 9.7, Pinterest’s sits at 7.5 and Snap trades for 3.9 times sales, according to FactSet.

In addition to those companies, Reddit also counts X, Discord, Wikipedia and Amazon’s Twitch streaming service as competitors in its prospectus.

Reddit is betting that data licensing could become a major source of revenue, and said in its filing that it’s entered “certain data licensing arrangements with an aggregate contract value of $203.0 million and terms ranging from two to three years.” This year, Reddit said it plans to recognize roughly $66.4 million in revenue as part of its data licensing deals.

Google has also entered into an expanded partnership with Reddit, allowing the search giant to obtain more access to Reddit data to train AI models and improve its products.

Reddit revealed on March 15 that the Federal Trade Commission is conducting a nonpublic inquiry “focused on our sale, licensing, or sharing of user-generated content with third parties to train AI models.” Reddit said it was “not surprised that the FTC has expressed interest” in the company’s data licensing practices related to AI, and that it doesn’t believe that it has “engaged in any unfair or deceptive trade practice.”

Reddit was founded in 2005 by technology entrepreneurs Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, the company’s CEO. Existing stakeholders, including Huffman, sold a combined 6.7 million shares in the IPO.

As part of the IPO, Reddit gave some of its top moderators and users, known as Redditors, a chance to buy stock through a directed-share program. Companies like Airbnb, Doximity and Rivian have used similar programs to reward their power users and customers.

“I hope they believe in Reddit and support Reddit,” Huffman told CNBC in an interview on Thursday. “But the goal is just to get them in the deal. Just like any professional investor.”

Redditors have expressed skepticism about the IPO, both because of the company’s financials and its often troubled relationship with moderators. Huffman said he recognizes that reality and acknowledged the controversial subreddit Wallstreetbets, which helped spawn the surge in meme stocks like GameStop.

“That’s the beautiful thing about Reddit, is that they tell it like it is,” Huffman said. “But you have to remember they’re doing that on Reddit. It’s a platform they love, it’s their home on the internet.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is one of Reddit’s major shareholders along with Tencent and Advance Magazine Publishers, the parent company of publishing giant Condé Nast. Altman’s stake in the company was worth over $400 million before the stock began trading. Altman led a $50 million funding round into Reddit in 2014 and was a member of its board from 2015 through 2022.

The CEO of WW, the weight loss company also known as WeightWatchers, apologized to a body positivity advocate for the company’s role in contributing to ‘toxic’ diet culture in the past.

On Wednesday, WW CEO Sima Sistani posted an Instagram story video directly addressing influencer Katie Sturino, author of “Body Talk: How to Embrace Your Body and Start Living Your Best Life” and founder of Megababe Beauty.

Sturino, who has built a following of more than 802,000 on Instagram, had posted her ‘unfiltered thoughts’ about “An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution,’ which aired on ABC on Monday. Oprah Winfrey, who served as a member of the WW board for almost a decade, used the program to discuss the impact of anti-obesity medications after confirming in December that she takes one herself.

Sistani, who has served as WW’s CEO since 2022, was among those present for the special’s taping. The company announced last year that it would offer prescription weight-loss drugs and launched a new membership plan for members taking GLP-1 prescriptions drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy.

“Speaking of WeightWatchers, they had the CEO of WeightWatchers on the program for like 30 seconds last night and she got so close to apologizing on behalf of WeightWatchers,” Sturino said in her video. “She got so close to saying, ‘We really got this wrong and we’re sorry for saying it was just willpower, or that like one body is worse than the other, and we’re sorry for all the toxic things we put into diet culture.’”

Sistani said that she saw Sturino’s message and ‘couldn’t stop thinking about what she posted,’ which she described as ‘a really brave discussion about Oprah’s special on ABC.’

“And she noted that I participated and that I came this close to apologizing,’ Sistani said. ‘Katie, I want you to know I am sorry.”

‘Part of that is acknowledging the past where we played any part in the shame that people carry with them, and, so, Katie, thank you for engaging in this discussion so productively,’ she added.

She also addressed ‘every Katie whose out there who hasn’t heard this message,’ saying ‘it is important for me that you hear it because we can only start to hope for advocacy and health equity when we address our internalized bias.”

During Winfrey’s special, Sistani was asked to discuss WW’s past. She said the company previously focused on behaviors, but didn’t take into account the role biology plays for some people when it comes to weight loss.

“For all those people who took on the behavior change, some of them walked away without the success,” Sistani said during the special. “And to those people, I want to say it’s not your fault.”

In a Zoom interview with NBC News on Thursday, Sturino said that she was ‘completely shocked’ by the apology, but called it ‘a really powerful thing.’

‘I just feel so grateful that I am in this position, especially because there’s been so much conversation about how body positivity is over and how this is just the Ozempic age and it’s all about being thin,’ she said. ‘I feel so good to be able to engage with someone like WeightWatchers and then bring relief, a slight relief, to so many people together.’

In regard to conversations surrounding weight loss that are happening across platforms right now, Sturino said ‘there’s a lot of power in being vulnerable right now on the internet.’

‘Nothing about this conversation is perfect, but at least we’re trying to have it in a civil way, because it’s a really complicated conversation — the topics of weight loss, drugs, and diet culture,’ she said.

Sturino also shared her emotional reaction to Sistani’s apology in an Instagram video Thursday.

“Does this make up for all of the damage done? No. But to me, it felt like a real win for our community,” Sturino wrote in the caption. “Acknowledgment I don’t think I ever thought would come.”

A spokesperson for Winfrey and a spokesperson for WW did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Winfrey, who has been open about her weight loss journey for decades, announced in February that she would leave the board of directors of WW.

During her one-hour program, Winfrey got emotional when sharing that she “starved” herself on a ‘liquid diet’ for five months before she showcased a wagon of fat on her talk show in 1988.

The mogul elaborated on why she wanted to tackle a special on weight loss drugs while chatting with Gayle King and Charles Barkley on CNN’s “King Charles.’

“If you feel like being in a bigger body is great, and you don’t want to do anything about that, and you feel fine, that is beautiful. I really admire people who really believe that,” Winfrey said. “Whatever works for you. One of the reasons I wanted to do [the special] is [to] let people make their own choices for their health and well-being.”

Target is ratcheting up bonuses for salaried employees, including leaders in stores and across supply chains, thanks to a surge in profits.

The move comes thanks to $2 billion in additional profit growth for 2023, a company spokesperson said in a statement Thursday.

Target’s stock surged in November after having fallen for much of 2023 as the company reported it had lowered costs to offset a slowdown in consumer discretionary spending. Since mid-November, Target’s shares have climbed 54%.

The company spokesperson confirmed that eligible Target employees received 100% of their 2023 bonuses, up from 50% the previous year.

“We’re rewarding our team accordingly,” the spokesperson said.

In-store managers and supply-chain operation leaders are among those who will get the increased bonuses, the statement said.

Bloomberg first reported the news.

The profits bump is part of a trend of stronger earnings growth for companies across the board as inflation cools and labor productivity surges to all-time highs.

On Thursday, stock indexes closed at all-time highs.

The bonuses don’t apply to Target’s hourly employees, whose pay starts at $15 an hour except in markets like California, where it rises to $19.75. That compares with a starting hourly wage of $14 for Walmart workers.

LIVONIA, Mich. — A small electric vehicle is having a big impact on the global automotive industry.

It’s not the EV itself that’s making waves but its price — and its potential to disrupt domestic auto industries around the world.

The China-built BYD Seagull, a small all-electric hatchback, starts at just 69,800 yuan (or less than $10,000), and reportedly banks a profit for the increasingly influential Chinese automaker.

That latter point — EV profits where U.S. automakers have mostly failed to turn any — combined with the expansion of Chinese automakers into Europe, Latin America and elsewhere has automotive executives and politicians, from Detroit and Texas to Germany and Japan, on edge.

The Seagull could be a “clarion call for the rest of the auto industry,” said Terry Woychowski, a former General Motors executive who now serves as president of automotive at engineering consulting firm Caresoft Global. “It’s a significant event.”

Though the Seagull isn’t yet sold on U.S. soil, BYD is expanding its vehicles globally, and some believe it’s only a matter of time before more China-made vehicles arrive in the U.S.

There’s fear among global automakers that Chinese rivals like the Warren Buffett-backed BYD could flood their markets, undercutting domestic production and vehicle prices to the detriment of their own auto industries.

“The introduction of cheap Chinese autos — which are so inexpensive because they are backed with the power and funding of the Chinese government — to the American market could end up being an extinction-level event for the U.S. auto sector,” the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a U.S. manufacturing advocacy group, said in a report last month.

BYD sold 1.57 million battery EVs last year, up from just 130,970 all-electric vehicles in 2020. That sales growth was enough to surpass Tesla to become the world’s largest producer of electric vehicles in late 2023.

The rise of BYD and other Chinese automakers led Tesla CEO Elon Musk in January to warn that Chinese automakers will “demolish” global rivals without trade barriers.

Bernstein reports BYD’s growth, including sales of non-EVs, has come by shipping more vehicles outside China: Overseas markets accounted for about 10% of BYD’s more than 3 million sales last year, doubling that share from the beginning of the year.

BYD did not respond for a request for comment.

Driving the Seagull is no different than driving the Chevrolet Bolt, Nissan Leaf or BMW i3. It accelerates quickly. It’s quiet. It has nice-looking screens and a mix of plastic and soft touch points, including sporty and comfortable seats.

The Seagull, also known as the BYD Dolphin Mini in Latin America, is slightly smaller than GM’s now-discontinued Chevrolet Bolt EV.

Its reported range of up to roughly 190 miles on a single charge (or 250 miles for certain models), is below that of many EVs on sale today in the U.S. but in line with many first-generation all-electric vehicles. The vehicle’s top speed of about 80 mph and just 74 horsepower dwindle in comparison with most EVs currently on sale in the U.S.

But its primary differences come in the construction, batteries and sourcing of parts, according to Caresoft.

The consulting firm tore apart the BYD Seagull piece by piece to benchmark the small EV against vehicles from other startups and traditional automakers. The Livonia, Michigan-based company, with several offices across the globe, has torn down and benchmarked more than 30 China-built EVs from the likes of BYD, Nio, XPENG and others.

Caresoft digitally and physically analyzes every part of a vehicle, from bolts and latches to seats, motors and battery casings. It then determines how its clients — mainly automakers and suppliers — can improve efficiencies and cut costs in their products.

Its initial study of the BYD Seagull found it to be efficiently and simplistically designed, engineered and executed, but with unexpected quality and anticipated reliability.

“What they did do is done very well,” Woychowski said. “It’s efficiently done.”

For the price it’s a well-equipped vehicle. (BYD even lowered the starting price of the vehicle by 5% earlier this month, down from a roughly $11,000 price earlier this year.)

Despite the cheap price, the company still makes “some money” on the Seagull or at a minimum breaks even, Caresoft CEO Mathew Vachaparampil said during an automotive conference hosted by the Chicago Federal Reserve in January.

For BYD to sell the Seagull in the U.S., it would have to meet U.S. federal vehicle requirements that would add additional costs to the car. But the EV could likely still arrive on U.S. shores for tens of thousands of dollars cheaper than the current average price of an EV in the U.S., which Cox Automotive reports is more than $52,000.

BYD last month announced it would begin selling the Seagull/Dolphin Mini EV in Mexico for 358,800 pesos (or about $20,990).

BYD has found success in its battery technology; internal sourcing, also known as vertical integration; and production of parts, according to Caresoft. Most notable is BYD’s development of lower-cost battery technologies that are far cheaper to manufacture than lithium-ion batteries commonly used in U.S. EVs.

BYD, which stands for Build Your Dreams, first pioneered its “Blade” battery technologies in smartphones and has since grown into one of China’s most well-known automakers.

Its focus on vehicle efficiencies is reminiscent of U.S. EV leader Tesla, which has likewise been able to drive down the cost of its vehicles over the years.

Traditional automakers are only now attempting to emulate some of Tesla’s processes such as its gigacasting manufacturing process and vertical integration of crucial parts such as motors, batteries and other components. Tesla is also quick to adapt.

The Tesla Model 3, for example, no longer has a floor. Instead, the car’s highly protected battery case takes the place of a traditional vehicle body at the base. That type of change, enacted at Tesla over the last several years, wouldn’t typically take place at a traditional automaker until a full redesign of a vehicle.

BYD is similarly quick to adapt. The company has quickly rolled out new and updated products. It’s also rapidly established manufacturing, as it has its eyes set on factories in Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, Hungary, Uzbekistan and, potentially, Mexico.

Add in other advantages such as government support, lower labor costs and rising production capacity, and the company poses a growing threat to global counterparts.

BYD’s rise comes at a precarious time for global auto industry dynamics.

While China’s automakers expand, America’s traditional automakers have shrunk in both their domestic market and China.

Their decline in the U.S. has come with the arrival of Japanese automakers such as Toyota Motor, Nissan Motor and Honda Motor, as well as, more recently, South Korean auto giant Hyundai Motor and its Kia unit.

The so-called Big Three U.S. automakers — GM, Ford and Chrysler, now owned by Stellantis — have watched their U.S. market share deteriorate from 75% in 1984 to about 40% in 2023, according to industry data.

Politicians in the U.S., concerned about their local auto industries, have taken aim at Chinese imports and lawmakers in Europe have launched a probe into the rise of China-made EVs.

“We are very concerned about China bigfooting our industry in the United States even as we are building up now this incredible backbone of manufacturing,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said March 6 during a discussion panel at an Axios event.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has proposed sharply boosting tariffs on Chinese vehicle imports by $20,000 per vehicle to stop the country “from flooding U.S. auto markets.”

Currently, Chinese-built EVs are subject to a 27.5% tariff when imported into the U.S. That includes a 2.5% tariff that generally applies to imported cars plus an additional 25% tariff introduced by the Trump administration in 2018 on China-made vehicles.

Chinese automakers could still build in Mexico, though, and import vehicles to the U.S. from there through the USMCA, formerly the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

However, former President Donald Trump — the front-runner among Republicans in the 2024 presidential race — on Saturday suggested instituting a 100% tariff on cars made in Mexico by Chinese companies, should he be elected to a second term.

“What we’ve seen over time is automotive manufacturers eventually enter all the markets that matter … Ultimately the Chinese will come to the U.S.,” said Marin Gjaja, chief operating officer for Ford’s EV unit, during a recent interview with CNBC.

Gjaja said while Ford can’t control regulations or Chinese expansion, it can “get really, really competitive on the technologies that customers want” and get more efficient to win customers.

To compete with Chinese brands such as BYD, Woychowski contends traditional automakers must learn, unlearn and change quickly.

He said companies such as the Detroit automakers each have a century of procedures, standards and other workflows that they must rethink to better compete against Chinese automakers before vehicles such as the BYD Seagull land on U.S. shores.

“You have to learn. You have to unlearn and you have to do it quickly,” he said. “Because you’ve been doing something for 100 years, doesn’t mean you should keep doing it. It’s no longer appropriate.”

If construction cranes are looming over your local airport or “Please Pardon Our Appearance” signs are decking out the terminal, it may be partly thanks to Congress and the White House.

U.S. airports say money from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is a drop in the bucket when it comes to their funding sources and infrastructure needs. But the legislation is already helping some rip up worn carpets, upgrade restrooms and replace clunky baggage systems.

While federal dollars have long backed “airside” projects like runways and taxiways, the new infusion for terminal upgrades “is a game changer,” said Greg Cota, senior vice president of government and political affairs at the Airports Council International — North America, an industry advocacy group.

As President Joe Biden hits the campaign trail to tout his infrastructure investments, airports are some of the most visible places to see them at work, whether or not voters reward him for it in November.

Appleton International Airport in Wisconsin is planning a new terminal with sustainability and accessibility upgrades.Appleton International Airport

Appleton International Airport, in the battleground state of Wisconsin, received $3.43 million from the package. The funds will augment a much larger $66 million concourse expansion, which was planned before the pandemic and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025. Appleton, about 40 minutes southwest of Green Bay, is one of many airports that broke passenger records last year, and it expects to serve 1 million travelers this year.

Financing is coming “from about eight different sources,” said airport Director Abe Weber, including local, state and federal money, bonds and the airport’s own cash. The grant awarded by the Biden administration will help pay for boarding bridges, a sustainability program that includes a microgrid and accessibility improvements such as “hearing loops” — assistive technology for people with hearing loss.

Without those funds, Weber said, “we probably wouldn’t have been able to proceed with those pieces of the project.”

Last month, the White House announced infrastructure law grants totaling $970 million for upgrades at 114 airports intended to “improve passenger experience, accessibility, and sustainability.” The discretionary awards are on top of nearly $2 billion in similar awards made over the past two years under the law’s Airport Terminal Program, a $5 billion fund for competitive grants to support terminal upgrades.

Recent grants include $35 million to help Washington Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia construct a 14-gate terminal and transit connections to the Aerotrain and Metrorail. Another grant supplies $26 million to replace Denver International Airport’s baggage handling system.

The terminal funding is just one slice of the measure’s five-year, $25 billion pot for modernizing airports nationwide. Within that pool, a separate $5 billion is set aside for improvements to facilities and equipment owned by the Federal Aviation Administration, and $15 billion more is being distributed to airports through a formula based on passenger numbers.

Airports say they need much more.

“There’s a lot of money out there, and Congress has been generous,” said Kevin Burke, president and CEO of the North American airports council, who added that the government’s prioritizing the passenger experience is novel. “But it’s not enough to be able to solve the long-term problem,” he said, “which is enough infrastructure money to be able to modernize all of our airports.”

South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach International Airport is using $10 million in federal grants to help build six new gates starting this summer.Gresham Smith

In a report last year, the group called for $151 billion to fund “critical” infrastructure improvements over the next five years. Airports typically pay for upgrades with a mélange of rent from airlines and terminal vendors, landing charges tacked on to fliers’ tickets, parking fees and money from various levels of government, as well loans and debt, often in the form of municipal bonds issued by airport authorities.

The new federal infrastructure funds could have an impact broader than the individual projects it’s supporting, some experts said.

Because airports operate in tandem with one another, improvements at small and midsize ones can help large hubs, too, said Bill Wyatt, executive director of Salt Lake City International Airport. The Utah airport received $20 million in infrastructure law funds toward its $618.7 million building and airfield work tied to the further expansion of a just-built terminal.

While “it’s great whenever you can find some additional resources,” Wyatt said, a boost to one airport’s operations can be felt across the network, “because suddenly one location now has added capacity, meaning we may get an extra flight that couldn’t have happened except for the investment of this money.”

The funding influx may have its biggest impact at smaller airports, where “these grants do play an important role in moving capital programs further and faster,” said Earl Heffintrayer, vice president and senior credit officer at Moody’s Investors Service.

South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach International Airport, which serves more than 3 million passengers a year, received $10 million in Airport Terminal Program funds for an $80 million to $90 million expansion that was put on hold during the pandemic but is moving forward now. The 18-month project, which begins in June, will add six gates to the current 12 and revamp restrooms, flooring and signage in the existing terminal.

As at other airports, the Myrtle Beach construction is being financed by various sources, including “cost recovery through billing back portions of the project to airlines operating at MYR over the life of the expanded facility,” spokesman Ryan Betcher said. The $10 million grant will allow the airport to reduce the costs it passes on to airlines, help it retain existing flight routes and attract new ones, he said.

Restroom renovations at Philadelphia International Airport are supported by federal infrastructure dollars.Philadelphia International Airport

Bipartisan Infrastructure Law dollars are also helping some airports keep their projects on track despite higher costs from inflation.

Philadelphia International Airport is in the midst of a $1.8 billion capital program that includes upgrades to roadways, terminals and the airfield. It secured $74.4 million from the infrastructure package for initiatives that fit the “shovel ready” requirements for funding, Chief Development Officer Api Appulingam said.

“It’s not that we wouldn’t have somehow found the funds to do the project,” she said, “but the grants help with the uncertainty in the bidding environment.” Now, if bids come in higher than anticipated, “we’re able to cover the cost, versus trying to find that funding elsewhere” and risk falling behind schedule, Appulingam said.

The process of buying a home has seemingly never been simpler: Find a property on a listings website like Zillow, Redfin or Trulia; reach out to the listing agent; tour the property; and make an offer.

But for years behind the scenes, experts say, consumers have not been fully aware of the ultimate cost — and potential conflicts of interest — when searching for a home.

Now, a landmark settlement with the National Association of Realtors is poised to upend this model. According to consumer advocates, and even some realtors, it’s a win for homebuyers and sellers.

“Price transparency is a good thing, increased competition is a good thing, and this will increase both,” said Mariya Letdin, an associate professor at Florida State University’s College of Business. “I really welcome this change.”

When someone goes looking for a home today, they are in most cases intercepted by a broker who has access to certain listings and who will work with the buyer at no cost upfront to help them get into a home.

But therein lies a common misconception, experts interviewed by NBC News said. Although a homeowner who puts their property up for sale must hire professionals to market their home, they usually fold that cost into the final price paid by the buyer.

“The buyer brings the entire purchase price to the table,” Letdin said. “And the seller gets to keep a little bit more of that after this ruling.”

As part of the new settlement, the buyer should now be fully apprised upfront about any potential fees or commissions they’ll ultimately have to pay.

That’s because the agreement requires that a buyer sign a formal contract with a broker laying out what services they’ll be receiving, and for how much.

Alternatively, a homebuyer could decide not to hire a broker and instead put their search costs toward a real estate lawyer, appraiser or someone else with knowledge of the housing market, experts say.

And a seller could even offer to cover the cost of the buyer’s team as an incentive to attract more buyers.

Of course, for a property that’s garnering a lot of attention, such buyer incentives are unlikely to be on the table.

And in the months following Covid-19 pandemic reopenings, the hottest U.S. real estate markets were tipped squarely in favor of sellers.

But now, with home price growth leveling off, the playing field is leveling out too, putting more buyers in the driver’s seat, experts say.

“Now you can hire an attorney for $1,500, instead of paying a $50,000 commission,” said Doug Miller, a real estate lawyer based in Minnesota who helped launch the actions that led to the NAR settlement.

Whomever a prospective buyer chooses as their representative in the homebuying process, the NAR settlement now formally bans the seller’s ability to advertise a commission for the buyer’s reps on the multiple listing service.

For its part, the NAR has maintained that the free market has always set commission levels, and that they were always negotiable — and even useful.

“Offers of compensation help make professional representation more accessible, decrease costs for home buyers to secure these services, increase fair housing opportunities, and increase the potential buyer pool for sellers,” the NAR said in its March 15 statement announcing the agreement.

But in most cases, there was little difference in the amount being offered for those commissions in a given market — usually about 3%.

That’s because any attempt to offer a lower commission to a buyer’s agent would likely motivate the agent to direct their client away from that property.

Miller characterized that behavior as improper and said buyers, in many cases, would have had no awareness of it.

“The future here is that buyers will now be in the driver’s seat,” Miller said. “Instead of that [commission] money going to their agent … it can now go directly to the buyer. It’s the same amount of money, but now the buyer gets money instead of a buyer agent, and they can decide what to do with it.”

What’s more, greater competition for clients is likely to result in lower costs across the board, said Ryan Tomasello, a real estate industry analyst with the Keefe, Bruyette & Woods financial firm.

“When you introduce a ton of transparency to a marketplace that has historically lacked it, any economist will tell you that reduces friction costs — i.e., commissions — and those are some of the highest in the world,” Tomasello said. “So the all-in cost of buying and selling a home, in theory, is going to decline.”

Many experts, including other real estate professionals, agree that the settlement will effectively thin the ranks of fly-by-night agents who served as an intermediary — a phenomenon that surged during the pandemic-era housing boom.

“A lot of folks parachuted in during 2020-2021 to try to make easy extra money by putting themselves out there as a buyer agent and taking 3%,” said Phil Crescenzo Jr., vice president of the Southeast division at Nation One Mortgage Corp.

“But they weren’t bringing 3% of value — not even close.”

Crescenzo compared it to moonlighting mortgage brokers who helped fuel the housing bubble of the mid-to-late 2000s.

“Once they changed the compensation rules, the dominant professionals rose to the top, the bottom disappeared, and the industry got better,” Crescenzo said.