My last house sale in the U.K. was 0.5% of the sale price to the estate agent (the buyer doesn’t pay anything). Legal fees on my side for selling and buying were another 0.5%, and a little for a survey. Total cost to sell and buy well under 1.5%.
Why do you get for that 6%?
In the UK, there is no wiggle room for such ventures, but as the transactional costs in the US is steep, the market was ripe for disruption. You can usually expect your total transaction costs to be 8-10%, so there is a lot of margin in there for Zillow/Opendoor to operate as the only intermediary (buyer & seller agent, lender, stager, etc).
Great agents will organize staging, professional photos (some companies put up "3d" walkthroughs on their websites), open houses, advertising, recommend investing in remodelling to list at higher prices (or when to pass on those things depending on the local market).
Sometimes, paying an agent more than makes up for the cost by getting a better sale price. Other times, it is kinda pointless.
(If you didnt know, seller customarily pays for both agents as well in the US).
Turns out it was for 3% less than I got with my online broker which cost half what he wanted (and did professional photos, I didn’t want the 3D walkthrough for £99 extra, we don’t do open houses in the U.K.