Almost no one pays a 6% real-estate commission except Americans

So you're saying that sometimes you don't get what you pay for?

Or it may not.

Worse: If I use the agent, I don't know whether the agent gained me 6% of the price in the negotiations. If I don't use the agent, I don't know if I cost myself 6% of the price (or more!) in the negotiations.

Someone could do a study, looking at sale prices of "for sale by owner" versus sale prices of comparable sales through agents, for comparable periods. Even that study is fraught - for us to trust it, it would have to be by non-realtors, but also by people not involved in the "for sale by owner" world in some way. And yet the study would have to get the comparables right - not just right, but clearly right, so that the results of the study will be believed.

Without such a study, we're all kind of just believing what we believe.

Despite peak earning years just pre-CoVid, essentially just updating circuit panel violations and replacing GFCIs [read: well-paid work without much mental strife], I hung up the towel.

Realtors are nice simple people, the masters of soft skills (which I lack) — but ultimately I realized that "when you're the only person that gives a shit, you're gonna have a bad time." For their efforts, I think total sale comp should be 1-3% (both sides), depending upon their accessibility.

>They are incentivized to move houses as fast as they can.

Being told to "not worry about other sub-contractor craftsmanship, especially don't POINT IT OUT TO CLIENTS" — I just couldn't be part of a team that cared so little as to hand over duds for [typically] seven-figure homes/investments. "We carry professional insurance FOR A REASON."

We bought a house this year in a competitive, expensive market (DC). Our agent found the listing through word of mouth before it went on MLS, and got us lined up for an early tour so we had the chance to look at it before the open house. We liked it enough to get a pre-inspection on his advice (The market is too hot here for inspection contingencies, which is insane on a 100 year old house!). By the time the open house ended we had seen it twice and walked through with an inspector, which made us confident enough to bid.

The agent talked to the seller's agent at length and figured out what was most important to them (close time over raw cash, because they were carrying two mortgages), and it turned out that the seller's agent knew our mortgage broker (who our agent originally referred us to) and trusted how fast he worked.

We ended up beating over a dozen other offers, some of which were substantially higher. There's zero chance we'd have gotten this house (or anything competitive in DC) without a good agent, unless we were already in the industry and hyper connected, or bidding well into the six figures over ask.

We looked at many places, and bid on two other houses we didn't win (post-covid market), so per hour he probably didn't make a crazy high salary, though in line with a good salesperson or manager.

When we sold our old place, he helped advise us on pricing, set us up with good options for staging, arranged the floor plan maker and photographer, etc etc. For 3% of the sales fee I certainly could've done all that myself, but I know people who would've never gotten all that organized while also moving. We barely did even with the help!

Now all that said, your median realtor in America just forwarding MLS listings and lockbox codes is probably not earning their share, but in competitive markets I think realtors can make a lot of sense.

At least the seller agent side. You need to advertise somewhere and someone doing it full time is much more efficient, in spreading the marketing. Some level buyer agent gathering what is available if they did that is also logical.

Here not in USA. Buyer agents are more rarely used, but advertisement was taped to my building this week. But for seeing what is available agencies made lot of sense. And still do the paperwork and take somewhat better pictures or are around to show property.