Do Maryland Sellers Still Pay the Buyer's Agent? (Part 18 of 20: The Southern Maryland Buyer and Seller Files)
This is Part 18 of The Southern Maryland Buyer and Seller Files from Donnell Williams Jr. and DMV Prime Properties, a twenty-part series answering what people in Prince George's and Charles County are actually asking this month.
The question arrives about ten minutes into most listing appointments now, and it is almost always phrased the same way. Do I still have to pay the agent who brings the buyer? Sellers ask because they saw a headline, or a relative told them the rules changed, or something they read online made it sound like a bill they used to owe had been cancelled outright.
Donnell Williams Jr., Broker-Owner of DMV Prime Properties, answers it the same way every time, and the answer starts with a correction rather than a yes or a no. A Maryland seller was never legally required to pay the buyer's agent. That was custom. It was widespread, it was expected, and it shaped how nearly every transaction in Prince George's and Charles County was structured for decades, but custom is not law.
So the real question is not whether the obligation went away. There was no obligation. The real question is what a seller does now that the custom no longer runs on autopilot, and that is a strategy question rather than a legal one.
What actually changed, in two plain sentences
Strip away the commentary and two practical things are different from how they used to work.
First, buyer agent compensation can no longer be advertised in the MLS. The field that once broadcast an offer of compensation to every agent in the region is gone, so whatever a seller decides is no longer published alongside the photos and the square footage.
Second, buyers now sign written agreements with their own agents before touring homes. A buyer who works with an agent has a signed document that spells out what that agent is paid and by whom.
That is the substance of it. Donnell is a broker, not an attorney, and this post is not a legal summary of any settlement or rule. Sellers who want the legal picture should talk to a Maryland real estate attorney, and every seller should read their own listing agreement, because compensation terms are negotiable in every direction and are set by contract, not by the market's habits.
Why the change matters more than it sounds like it does
The MLS field did the work of a decision without anyone having to make one. A seller signed a listing agreement, a number went into a field, and every buyer agent in the Mid-Atlantic could see it before they ever picked up the phone. Nobody had to think about it again.
Now the same choice exists, but it has to be made deliberately, discussed openly, and documented in the paperwork. Some sellers will land in the same place they would have landed before. Some will not. The difference is that they arrive there on purpose.
That is why this post argues the question on market grounds rather than on principle. A decision that used to be a default is now a variable, and variables get evaluated against conditions. So here are the conditions in this market, this summer.
Condition one: sellers are competing with more listings
According to the Prince George's County Association of REALTORS July 2026 Market Watch, the county had 2,083 active listings, up 15.5 percent year over year and the highest July level in five years.
That is the single most important number for a seller to sit with. Five years is a long stretch in this county, and inventory at a five-year July high means the buyer walking through on Saturday afternoon has meaningfully more to compare against than the buyer who walked through the same house last summer.
PGCAR also reported average days on market at 37, up 27.6 percent year over year, with nearly half of sales closing within 20 days. Both of those facts are true at once. Homes that fit the market are still moving quickly, and the average has stretched because the ones that do not fit are sitting longer than they used to.
Condition two: nearly half of local closings settled below the asking price
Donnell's own Bright MLS export covers 1,397 closed sales across Prince George's and Charles County that settled between July 1 and August 22, 2026. Within that set, 45.5 percent sold below original list price. Another 33.5 percent sold above it, and the median sold to original list ratio landed at exactly 1.000.
PGCAR's July figures point the same direction, with sellers receiving an average 99.1 percent of original list price.
Read those together and the picture is not a collapse and it is not a frenzy. It is a market where the price a seller asks and the price a seller gets are close on average, and where nearly half of transactions involved some downward movement between launch and settlement. When roughly half of closings involve a negotiation over price, the terms a seller offers alongside the price become part of the same conversation.
Condition three: who is actually buying here
The financing mix inside those 1,397 closings is the part most sellers have never seen, and it is the part most relevant to this question.
- Conventional: 599 closings
- FHA: 384 closings
- VA: 223 closings
- Cash: 151 closings
FHA and VA together accounted for 607 of the 1,397 closings, roughly 43 percent of everything that settled in the two counties this summer.
That is not a rounding error at the edge of the buyer pool. It is close to half of it. A seller in Prince George's or Charles County who is thinking about how their listing will be received is thinking, statistically, about a pool where a very large share of buyers are using FHA or VA financing.
Why the financing mix connects to the compensation question
This is where the two halves of the post meet, and the connection is about cash rather than about creditworthiness.
Buyers using FHA and VA programs are often working with less cash available at the closing table than a buyer bringing a large conventional down payment. Their money tends to be committed to the down payment, the deposit, inspections, and the various costs that come due before keys change hands.
That matters because compensation that is not addressed in the transaction has to come from somewhere, and for a buyer whose cash is already spoken for, an additional out-of-pocket obligation is a real constraint on what they can write an offer on. Some buyers will have that cash. Many buyers in a market where 43 percent of closings ran FHA or VA will have less of it.
None of that tells a seller what to do. It tells a seller what the field looks like, which is a different and more useful thing. Whether to address buyer agent compensation, in what form, and on what terms is a decision each seller makes with their own broker and their own attorney based on their own property, timeline, and finances.
The decision moved from a database field to the negotiating table
The practical effect of the change is that compensation is now something discussed when an offer arrives, or something a seller and their broker decide how to signal in advance, rather than something that was published to the entire agent community on day one.
That reshapes what a listing conversation covers. It used to cover price, timing, condition, and marketing. Now it covers those four things and this one, and this one has to be revisited when offers come in, because a buyer may present terms that address compensation in ways the seller had not anticipated.
Sellers who understand that before the sign goes in the yard tend to have shorter, calmer conversations when an offer lands on day nine. Sellers who have never thought about it tend to be making the decision under time pressure with a contract in front of them.
Questions worth working through before the listing goes live
Donnell walks sellers through the same short list, not to steer them, but so that whatever they decide is decided rather than absorbed.
- What does the listing agreement actually say about compensation, and what parts of it are open to negotiation?
- If an offer arrives with terms addressing buyer agent compensation, how will that be evaluated against the price and the rest of the contract?
- How does any of this interact with the other terms in play, including closing cost help, inspection timelines, and settlement date?
- Given that inventory is at a five-year July high in Prince George's County, what does this seller want their offer terms to communicate?
Those are questions with different right answers for different sellers. A seller with time, a seller with a firm net number, and a seller relocating on a fixed date will reasonably land in different places.
What this post is not
It is not legal advice, and it does not tell any seller what to do.
Donnell Williams Jr. is a licensed real estate broker in Maryland, DC, and Virginia. He is not an attorney. Compensation terms in a Maryland real estate transaction are negotiable and are set by contract between the parties, not by industry custom and not by anything written here. Sellers with legal questions about their listing agreement, about any settlement, or about how any rule applies to their situation should consult a Maryland real estate attorney before signing.
What Donnell can do is put the market conditions on the table honestly, which is what "Educate to Elevate" means at DMV Prime Properties. A seller who knows that inventory is up 15.5 percent year over year, that 45.5 percent of local closings settled below original list, and that 43 percent of buyers here used FHA or VA financing is a seller making an informed decision rather than repeating a habit.
Talk it through before the sign goes up
If you are preparing to sell in Prince George's County or Charles County and you want the compensation question answered with your own numbers rather than a headline, Donnell Williams Jr. and the team at DMV Prime Properties will walk through your listing agreement, your local comparable sales, and the offer terms you are likely to see, so you can decide with the whole picture in front of you. Call 301.818.0313 or email donnell@dmvprimerealty.com to set up a listing consultation at the Fort Washington office or at your kitchen table.
Part 19 of The Southern Maryland Buyer and Seller Files looks at the FBI headquarters ruling in Greenbelt and what it actually means for someone buying in Prince George's County in the next ninety days.
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