NORTHAMPTON — The recent settlement of a lawsuit filed by home sellers against the National Association of Realtors may make little difference to real estate transactions in Massachusetts, area professionals say.

In the lawsuit, home sellers in states such as Missouri and Illinois argued the association’s rules unfairly propped up agent commissions and that buyers’ and sellers’ agents conspired to set inflated commission rates.

The association will pay $418 million over four years to settle the suit. It also agreed to no longer require sellers’ brokers advertising on the Multiple Listing Service platform to offer any upfront compensation to buyers’ agents, and to require buyers’ agents to enter into a written agreement with buyers.

Some industry observers have said the settlement will help reduce the barriers to buying a home. Cassidy Norton, media relations director for The Warren Group, a Massachusetts-based real estate analysis firm, said in an interview last week it was unclear how the settlement might change buying and selling processes, State House News reported.

“What we do know, at the very minimum, is that the two agents — the buyer agent and the seller agent — cannot communicate with each other over the MLS about what they want their rate to be. They can still email each other, they can still call each other, but they can’t do it over the MLS. So that’s all we know,” she said in the interview with WCVB-TV.

Holly Young, broker and co-owner of Delap Real Estate in Northampton, said everyone’s asking about the settlement, which is expected to receive court approval and go into effect in July, and what it means.

“We don’t know,” she acknowledged.

Young described the current system under which buyers’ and sellers’ agents are compensated as “very equitable.”

“The seller pays the commission, and part of it is offered to any buyer’s agent,” she said.

In the settlement, the national association agreed to change its rules so that brokers who list a home for sale on any of the databases affiliated with the trade group are no longer allowed to include offers of compensation for a buyer’s agent.

This change is meant to address a central assertion in lawsuits brought against the national association and several major real estate brokerages: that homeowners are being forced to pay artificially inflated agent commissions when they sell their home.

The trade group also agreed to require agents, or others working with a homebuyer, to enter into a written agreement with them. That is meant to ensure homebuyers know going in what their agent will charge them for their services.

Peter Ruffini, broker/owner at RE/MAX Connections and the current president of the Realtor Association of the Pioneer Valley, said he thinks there’s a lot of misinformation going around, one piece being that the national association required agents to set a 6% commission.

“That’s untrue,” he said. “All commissions are negotiable.”

At least part of the impetus for the home sellers’ lawsuit was that they allegedly didn’t know they were paying seller and buyer agent commissions. The change proposed in the settlement would remove the compensation component for buyers’ agents from the MLS.

But Ruffini said contracts used in Massachusetts have always broken out compensation fees so sellers were aware what they were paying.

Young noted that the states involved in the lawsuit had agreements that didn’t say what sellers were paying.

“Our listing contracts show the seller what the seller’s agent is paying the buyer’s agent,” she said.

Buyers’ and sellers’ agents will still be able to cooperate on compensation — they just can’t do it through the MLS.

Young and Ruffini both said they don’t expect the buyer to have to pay out of pocket for agent fees, but they acknowledged the change will have a disparate effect on first-time buyers.

If the commission isn’t built into the home-buying process, Young said, there could be cases where buyers need to increase their offer to get representation.

“I hope we find a way around that,” she said.

Stephen Brobeck, senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America, said it will take time for the marketplace to process the full implications of the settlement.

“But over time, more agents will feel free to offer different types of compensation and more consumers will comparison shop and negotiate commissions in a more transparent marketplace,” he said.

Young said she didn’t believe the current system needed reforming, and said some news accounts have painted agents unfairly as focused on maximizing their commissions.

“The goal is always to help consumers,” she said. “It’s not about the bottom line.”

But Ruffini said he could see the new rule taking what has been best practice and making it standard.

“Consumers should know how compensation works,” he said.