San Diego, CA
Legal settlement could end 6% real estate commissions and reduce San Diego home prices
San Diego County homeowners could see a drop in the cost to sell properties after a historic settlement involving a national real estate agent group.
The National Association of Realtors has agreed to pay $418 million to settle a series of lawsuits that alleged the organization conspired to keep agent commissions high. As part of the deal, the association will do away with rules that led to set commissions, which typically are around 5 percent to 6 percent.
The association acknowledged the pending settlement in a statement March 15 and denied any wrongdoing.
Industry professionals say the settlement could mean a drop in commissions, which often are baked into the overall selling price of a home, and potentially lower housing costs across the nation. It’s expected to make a big difference in costly markets like San Diego.
Norm Miller, a real estate professor at the University of San Diego, said a drop in commissions to 3 percent to 4 percent would mean more money in the pockets of buyers and sellers. Though the median home price might not come down, or at least not soon, it is possible that reduced fees will motivate more sellers to put homes on the market, increasing inventory and reducing competition.
The median home price in San Diego County in January was $802,500. Assuming a seller paid 6 percent in real estate commissions, that’s about $48,000. If the commissions were 4 percent, that would be about $32,000.
Miller said there are real estate agents who are worth the fees but that a lot of them might not be.
“There are some really good agents out there that keep you out of trouble,” he said. “For some buyers and sellers, it is worth the fee because the risk is so high. The problem is, we have all these part-time, mediocre-type agents out there that don’t know what they are doing.”
A possible change in commissions comes during a tough time for those in the business of selling houses. There were roughly 23,000 real estate agents in San Diego County in January, according to the state Employment Development Department. Only 1,678 homes sold that month, a tie for the lowest sales month in county history, according to CoreLogic.
Agent Raylene Brundage, a director at the California Association of Realtors, said the change will be good for the industry by making the process more professional. As a 20-year real estate veteran, she said she’s seen part-time agents or discount brokerages make mistakes that lead to lawsuits and bad deals for clients.
“I’m a seasoned agent that is a very good negotiator,” she said. “My value is not the same as an agent that does one or two deals a year. I protect my clients.”
Consumers must pay a brokerage fee for listing their property on a multiple listing service, or MLS — 5 percent to 6 percent depending on where they live. After selling, half the fee goes to the agent representing the seller, and the buyer’s agent gets the other half.
“There are some really good agents out there that keep you out of trouble. … The problem is, we have all these part-time, mediocre-type agents out there that don’t know what they are doing.”
— Norm Miller, real estate professor
Without a set commission, agents may lower rates to compete for business. Critics often argued that buyers’ agents were more likely to steer clients to higher-priced homes as a way to get a bigger commission. The settlement requires that any fields on online databases displaying broker compensation be removed.
It will take time for San Diego County buyers and sellers to see any difference. For starters, the National Association of Realtors needs to get the deal approved in federal court. If and when it is approved, it could be awhile before its effects on fees and the industry as a whole are known.
Miller and others have suggested the change might create a new type of business model for buying and selling homes.
Also, there is speculation that a large number of real estate agents may walk away from the profession if there’s a smaller chance of a set commission, adding to difficulties with low sales figures. Investment banking firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods said 1 million agents could leave the industry after commissions change. ◆
Thursday, July 9
• La Jolla Town Council: 6 p.m., La Jolla Recreation Center, 615 Prospect St. lajollatowncouncil.org
Friday, July 10
• La Jolla Golden Triangle Rotary Club: 6:45 a.m., UC San Diego Faculty Club, 270 Muir Lane. lajollagtrotary.org
• Kiwanis Club of La Jolla: noon, La Jolla Community Center, 6811 La Jolla Blvd. kiwanisclublajolla.org
Sunday, July 12
• La Jolla Open Aire Market: 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Girard Avenue at Genter Street. (858) 454-1699. lajollamarket.com
Monday, July 13
• La Jolla Library Book Club: 1:30 p.m., Community Room, La Jolla/Riford Library, 7555 Draper Ave. The July book is “Fresh Water for Flowers” by Valérie Perrin. sandiego.events.mylibrary.digital/event?id=316631
• La Jolla Planned District Ordinance Committee: (pending items to review), 4 p.m., La Jolla Recreation Center, 615 Prospect St. Email info@lajollacpa.org.
• Laughmasters Toastmasters: 6:30 p.m., online. Email jrmmt@cox.net.
Tuesday, July 14
• San Diego Blood Bank blood drive: 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Hensel Phelps Construction Co., 9404 Genesee Ave. Donors must be 17 or older, weigh at least 114 pounds and be in good health. Photo identification is required. (619) 400-8251. sandiegobloodbank.org
• Rotary Club of La Jolla: noon, La Valencia Hotel, 1132 Prospect St. rotarycluboflajolla.org
• Co-op Toastmasters Club: noon, online at bit.ly/46W13bx (meeting ID: 849 4320 0407, passcode: cccu2020). (669) 900-6833. toastmasters.org/find-a-club/00001125-coop-club
• La Jolla Development Permit Review Committee: (pending items to review), 4 p.m., online. Email info@lajollacpa.org.
Wednesday, July 15
• Torrey Pines (La Jolla) Rotary Club: noon, online. torreypinesrotary.org
• La Jolla Shores Association: 6 p.m., Martin Johnson House, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 8840 Biological Grade. lajollashoresassociation.org
Thursday, July 16
• La Jolla Sunrise Rotary Club: 6:58 a.m., La Jolla Shores Hotel, 8110 Camino del Oro. Call Cheryl Collins at (760) 936-3272 or Steve Cross at (619) 992-9449.
• San Diego Blood Bank blood drive: 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Sanford Burnham Prebys (patio outside Buildings 6 and 7), 10901 N. Torrey Pines Road. Donors must be 17 or older, weigh at least 114 pounds and be in good health. Photo identification is required. (619) 400-8251. sandiegobloodbank.org
• La Jolla Shores Permit Review Committee: (pending items to review), 4 p.m., online. Email info@lajollacpa.org.
Friday, July 17
• La Jolla Golden Triangle Rotary Club: 6:45 a.m., UC San Diego Faculty Club, 270 Muir Lane. lajollagtrotary.org
Did we miss listing your community event? Email calendar information to Noah Lyons at noah.lyons@lajollalight.com by noon Thursday for publication in the following week’s edition. ♦
San Diego, CA
Elite California city set for mass illegal street vendor expansion as judge issues stunning verdict
San Diego seems to have no solution to its illegal street vendor problem and it’s only getting worse in many areas including the popular Balboa Park and Gaslamp Quarter.
Local business leaders are frustrated following the January 2026 California appeals court ruling, which forced the city officials to entirely halt the crackdown on street vendors.
“It’s a disaster,” Denny Knox, executive director of the Ocean Beach Main Street Association, told the San Diego Union Tribune last week.
An increasing number of street vendors are exploiting the court’s ruling and many don’t even bother to get a permit.
Executive Director of Gaslamp Quarter Association, Michael Trimble, said that street vendors block the sidewalks, making it difficult for the businesses in the area to function.
“The lack of action has also led to an escalation of activity, including new vendors setting up tents and selling goods without permits, health approvals or accountability,” said Trimble, the Union-Tribune reports.
Organized groups of hot dog vendors have returned to the Gaslamp Quarter—bringing associated hazards like open fires, blocked walkways, and the dumping of grease into storm drains.
“It’s so much of a slap in the face to merchants that have done things the legal way, the right way,” said Ruth-Ann Thorn, owner of Native Star boutique and Exclusive Collections Gallery in the Gaslamp Quarter, reports inewsource.
Officers can no longer impound vending carts and law enforcement in Ballpark District is restricted, SDPD’s Ashley Nicholes said in a statement, according to the Union-Tribune.
“Recent court rulings involving the city’s street vending ordinance have limited what police officers can do to enforce street vending laws,” Nicholes said.
San Diego’s tug-of-war with street vendors started in 2018 when the state law decriminalized aspects of street vending. The task to draft a vendor law fell into the laps of then-Mayor Kevin Faulconer in 2019, then passed on to Mayor Todd Gloria in 2021 and then Councilmember Jennifer Campbell.
The law, approved by the City Council in May 2022, banned vendors in Balboa Park, Little Italy, Ocean Beach and some beach areas during summer months. But, the merchants kept complaining about the lack of law enforcement and that led to the revision of the law in 2024.
The revised law made it easier for officials to impound vendors’ carts, limited free-speech protections, which didn’t include yoga classes on the beach and selling food.
After an immediate backlash, a federal appeals court ruling in June 2025 said the city’s ban on beach yoga classes is unconstitutional as they are protected under the First Amendment.
A California appeals court in the case of Imhotep Mustaqeem earlier this year ruled that San Diego’s revised 2024 street vendor law violated state law by establishing “overly restrictive” geographic no-vendor zones and restricted operating hours.
Imhotep Mustaqeem, a licensed vendor who had sold snacks outside Petco Park since 2009, sued the city after police impounded his cart under San Diego’s revised 2024 ordinance. While a lower court initially ruled against him, the Fourth District Court of Appeal ultimately vindicated Mustaqeem and quashed the 2024 street vendor law.
A California yoga instructor known as “Namasteve” is leveling up his warrior pose as he battles San Diego’s efforts to end his popular beachfront classes.
Steven Hubbard recently filed his third lawsuit over a 2024 city ordinance that prohibits teaching yoga to four or more people at local beaches and parks.
Hubbard, who’s been teaching yoga by the Pacific Ocean shoreline for 17 years, contends the local law violates his right to free speech because he doesn’t charge his students and instead accepts voluntary donations.
“It does set a dangerous precedent for government to be passing bans on specific types of speech that, for whatever reason, it doesn’t like,” Hubbard’s lawyer, Bryan Pease, told The Independent. “We don’t know why they decided yoga is something they want to target. They’ve never explained it, but it is concerning from a First Amendment perspective.”
Neither the San Diego mayor’s office nor the city attorney’s office replied to inquiries from The Independent.
The yoga ban is buried in a subsection of the San Diego Municipal Code that defines the “services” that are regulated at beaches and parks.
“Examples include massage, yoga, dog training, fitness classes, equipment rental, and staging for picnics, bonfires or other activities,” it says, marking the only time yoga is mentioned.
At the time the ordinance was introduced, Pease said, it was “put on the city council agenda as a sidewalk vending ordinance.”
“There was no public notice that they would be targeting the free and donation-based teaching of yoga in parks and beaches,” the lawyer said. “ I don’t even know that the city council members themselves knew what they were voting on.”
Videos posted on Hubbard’s “Namasteve Yoga” page on YouTube show scores of students following his instructions as they face the water in the Southern California sunshine.
San Diego park rangers issued Hubbard a total of 10 citations under the 2024 law, Pease said.
Some were for leading classes from his backyard while livestreaming on YouTube as students apparently watched on their devices by the beach, Pease said.
After Hubbard first challenged the 2024 ordinance in federal court, the judge overseeing the case denied a motion to block its enforcement, saying the First Amendment didn’t protect the teaching of yoga.
But that decision was reversed last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that Hubbard and fellow yoga teacher Amy Baack were “likely to succeed” in challenging the legality of San Diego’s public yoga ban.
“Teaching yoga is protected speech. The City’s prohibition on teaching yoga in shoreline parks is content-based and fails strict scrutiny,” according to the unanimous decision written by U.S. Circuit Judge Holly Thomas.
Hubbard has also filed two lawsuits in state court, with the most recent on June 22. It was first reported by the Times of San Diego.
It seeks unspecified damages for three tickets he received in May 2025, all of which charged him with giving a lecture without a permit.
The accusation came despite a ruling in the federal case that said requiring a permit to give a lecture “substantially overburdens” the right to free speech, according to Hubbard’s lawsuit.
All the citations issued against Hubbard were dismissed in April when the city attorney’s office didn’t appear in court to prosecute, Pease said.
Meanwhile, city lawyers have issued a series of subpoenas that seek “detailed GPS tracking information, all social media posts from all time and complete financial records for all financial transactions” involving Hubbard and Baack, Pease said.
Pease characterized the move as “pure harassment,” saying it seemed “calculated to have a chilling effect on people’s participation if they think their personal information is going to be obtained through these channels.”
“All that the city attorney has said to me about it is that it’s to prove that this is commercial activity, and they’re going to hire a financial expert to go through all these records,” he said.
A hearing on a motion to quash the subpoenas is scheduled for July 17 in state court, and pretrial discovery in the federal case is pending, with a deadline of August 28.
-
Lifestyle10 minutes agoWhy Gen Z is movie-maxxing : Pop Culture Happy Hour
-
Technology20 minutes agoMeta’s glasses will turn off the camera if you tamper with the privacy light
-
World25 minutes agoWATCH: Mike Waltz tells Cuban delegation ‘this is not Havana’ during heated UN speech
-
Politics32 minutes agoAbbott orders probe after Texas hospital advertises ‘birth packages’ in Mexico: ‘Citizenship is not for sale’
-
Health40 minutes agoDr Oz warns Medicare scammers are stealing billions — and your personal information could be next
-
Sports47 minutes agoDonovan Mitchell signs massive $273M Cavaliers extension as LeBron James return speculation grows
-
Business55 minutes agoWaymo reports teen riders for bad behavior and delivers them to the police
-
Entertainment1 hour agoTito Double P seizes the spotlight with his latest album, ‘Acomodo’
