In late October, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) was ordered to pay $1.8 billion in damages, in the most high profile of a series of antitrust lawsuits.

These expensive lawsuits are aimed at the NAR and leading United States real estate brokerages, alleging that they’ve engaged in illegal collusion to artificially inflate agent commissions. Although the defendants are appealing the verdict, it seems likely that some significant changes are coming to the way real estate agents are paid.