A real estate company owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, HomeServices of America, has agreed to pay $250 million to settle nationwide lawsuits alleging that longstanding practices by real estate brokerages led to artificially inflated broker commissions for U.S. homeowners. This settlement shields its 51 brands, nearly 70,000 real estate agents, and over 300 franchisees from similar litigation. HomeServices was a major holdout in the settlement, following other big brokerage operators like Keller Williams Realty, Re/Max, Compass, and Anywhere Real Estate. The National Association of Realtors had also agreed to pay $418 million in a separate settlement last month. The proposed payout represents a current after-tax accounting charge of about $140 million for HomeServices, which will have four years to pay the full amount. Berkshire Hathaway Energy, the parent company, is not part of this settlement. Despite having $167.6 billion cash on hand, Berkshire Hathaway largely lets its subsidiaries run themselves and doesn't directly intervene in litigation involving its companies. The real estate industry has now agreed to pay more than $943 million in total to settle these lawsuits. The lawsuits alleged that the biggest real estate brokerages and the NAR violated antitrust laws by requiring home sellers to pay fees for the buyer's agent. The settlements also include changes to business practices to ensure transparency in how brokers and agents are compensated. These changes could lead to lower commissions for home sellers and potentially higher upfront costs for buyers when hiring an agent. The settlement with HomeServices of America marks a significant shift in the real estate industry's practices surrounding agent commissions and could have lasting effects on how homes are bought and sold in the future.