Sellers lose over $2K on typical dual agency transaction: Study 

Homesellers who are involved in dual agency transactions or who list off the multiple listing service are at risk of leaving a hefty sum of money on the table, according to a new report from mega portal Zillow.

Billions in potential profits lost: Collectively, sellers who sold their home to a buyer who was represented by the same agent lost $1.49 billion from 2023 to 2025, the data released May 14 indicates. Sellers who listed their home off the MLS meanwhile lost $1.36 billion during that same period.

When an agent represents both a buyer and a seller, it can complicate their priorities, the study suggested. If an agent works to push up the sale price on behalf of the seller, their commission only increases by a modest amount — but if they are able to represent both buyer and seller, they have an opportunity to double their commission and may have less incentive to work harder on behalf of that seller, it noted.

Per home, the losses incurred by sellers in dual agency transactions added up to about $2,165. Aggregate losses were greatest in California at roughly $533 million compared with $217 million in Florida and $146 million in New York.

Off-MLS sellers typically sold their home for 1.3% less than on-MLS sellers during the study period, amounting to a loss of about $4,230 per home. 

"Sellers deserve an agent whose only job is to get them the best possible price, and a listing that every buyer in the market can see," Zillow Chief Economist Mischa Fisher said in the report. "When either of those things is missing, the data keeps telling us that sellers lose."

Listings excluded from the open marketplace or that involve dual agency are part of a "velvet rope system" that helps brokerages and individual agents at the expense of consumers, Fisher added.

Disparate impacts: For off-MLS transactions, sellers in lower price tiers and in communities of color were hit hardest — a threat explored in a recent study from the Consumer Federation of America and National Urban League.

Sellers in lower price tiers who sold off the MLS typically lost 2.2%, Zillow's study found. Sellers in neighborhoods where most households were headed by people of color typically lost 1.9% compared to 1.1% in majority white neighborhoods.

These trends were consistent despite "rising inventory over the study period," the report noted, which gave buyers "more options and made bidding wars less common — conditions that would be expected to narrow the off-MLS penalty, in particular."

How the study was conducted: Zillow said it reviewed more than 15 million transactions from 2023 to 2025, 6.8 million of which met criteria for dual agency while 6.2 million met criteria for private listings evaluation. Of all home sales analyzed, 4.7% were dual agency transactions and 1.9% were private transactions.

Dual agency sales were defined as those where the same agent represented both buyer and seller. Private listing sales were defined as those that "appeared to be marketed privately" and were submitted to the MLS only after a sale contract was signed. Zillow identified these sales by targeting those that were marked as pending or closed within one day of going active, and with a buyer and seller either represented by the same agent or by agents affiliated with the same brokerage office.

For the off-MLS transactions segment, Zillow excluded new construction, foreclosures, auctions, non-arms-length transactions, bank or government acquisitions, invalid quitclaims and sales prices below $10,000 or above $10 million. Off-MLS transactions that had never been published on the MLS after being privately listed were also sorted out, with only those that had a previous sale in the MLS included in the analysis.