Just listed my folks home for sale by owner and I specifically put in the ad that realtors looking for a listing should NOT bother contacting me. (I welcome buyer's agents and will glady pay for a sale) So the ads been up for a couple days and there's been a steady flow of realtors ignoring my request and telling me without a realtor I'm going to get taken. It's like they completely ignore my very specific request. I've sold millions of $ of RE and I can't remember the last time I paid 6% (it's been at least 20 years)
I've never met a more egotistical and condescending group of professionals (I use that term lightly) than most RE agents. Right now you just have to price a property fairly and you'll likely get full-price offers in short order. They just want you to give them a listing so the phone will ring to them and not you. It's really not hard to sell a property when you have multiple people making offers. In the few dealings I've had with typical realtors, they are more likely to be impediments to getting a deal done than someone that adds value to the process for either the buyer or seller.
I actually had one guy today ask if I would pay a commission if they brought me a buyer and I told him I would be happy to pay 3% to the buyers agent for a full-price deal. He replied, "I won't do it for less than 6%". Ok, guess. you won't be selling my home.
I can hardly wait for the RE industry to get to a transaction based compensation model (fixed fee or commission with a cap). It's headed that direction with the likes of Homie and other fixed fee agents. I long for the day when selling RE is more like the brokerage industry where the commissions for selling investments are much more transactional.
Getting paid a percentage of the transaction for doing nothing more than showing potential buyers the property and then filling out some standardized contracts and turning them over to a title company when you get a buyer has to be one of the most overpriced services on the planet.