Justin Santolaya is betting that San Diego home sellers are ready to question a number most have never thought to challenge. For decades, the standard listing commission has hovered near two and a half to three percent, bundled into a total that often reached five or six percent once the buyer’s side was included. Justin Santolaya, who runs his practice under the banner 1Percent SD, charges one percent to list and sell a home instead.
The pitch invites suspicion, and he knows it. The most common reaction he hears is some version of “what’s the catch,” a question he says comes up more than any other. His answer is that the low fee reflects how the job is actually done in 2026, not a reduced version of the service.
The logic rests on a distinction many sellers miss. A traditional home sale involves two agents, one representing the seller and one representing the buyer, and the seller historically covered both. Justin Santolaya’s one percent applies only to his side of that equation. What a seller offers a buyer’s agent is now a separate conversation, an area reshaped by recent changes to how commissions are disclosed and negotiated across the industry.
In a market like San Diego, where home values run deep into the seven figures across much of the county, the math carries weight. Trimming even a point and a half from the listing side can keep tens of thousands of dollars with the seller at closing. Justin Santolaya argues that gap is money that once justified itself but no longer does, given how much of the work has moved online.
He points to the mechanics of a modern sale to explain how the model holds together. Listings syndicate automatically to major portals, marketing runs largely through digital channels, and transaction paperwork moves through software that did not exist when the six percent norm took hold. The efficiency, he says, is what makes a lower fee sustainable rather than a loss leader.
What he insists he does not cut is the work that determines the final price. Pricing strategy, professional photography, negotiation, and availability when a deal wobbles late at night remain part of the service. Those elements, in his framing, are where a listing agent actually earns their keep.
Whether the model reshapes seller expectations across the region remains to be seen, and full commission agents would argue their fees buy experience and reach that a discount structure cannot match. Justin Santolaya’s counter is straightforward. He encourages sellers to run the numbers themselves, comparing a conventional commission against one percent, and decide what the difference is worth.
