Just sell it / or buy it yourself. It isn't hard by any stretch. You can use a $200 listing broker on a MLS site. That is the big secret. Then it gets on zillow,redfin, etc automatically.
Having commission be a percent of sales has some theoretical advantages. For example you might think the agent is motivated to get you the highest selling price. But in reality they are much more interested in making a sale at any price, because that lets them get paid and lets them move on from marketing your property.
Residential real-estate transactions with a mortgage are about as regulated and standardized as it gets. The listing agent actually does very little beyond getting the property listed in the MLS. The difference in the amount of work they do in selling a $100K house vs. a $900K house is small (in fact the $100K house might take a lot more work because at that price it's probably got some serious drawbacks), so why should the higher sale price pay them much more?
> For example you might think the agent is motivated to get you the highest selling price. But in reality they are much more interested in making a sale at any price, because that lets them get paid and lets them move on from marketing your property
This is true. Although, it's just important to remember your contract with the realtor is to sell it at a Listing Price. You have no obligation or liability to except a lower offer or reduce your list price, ever. They are salespeople and lean into the friendship thing, but remember they work for you and treat it as a big important financial transaction like it probably is (to you)
That’s true but in my experience they will pressure you to do so.
However, if you say "it isn't hard by any stretch", I invite you to take a look at listings in your area and compare for-sale-by-owner listings with those listed by an agent. Half the time it looks like the photos on FSBO listings were taken by a flip phone from the early 00s, often times the pictures look like the person didn't even clean or there are garbage cans in curbside pics, the descriptions have glaring typos, etc. My point being that I believe it shouldn't be hard, but I am often dumbfounded about how the average quality of FSBO listings (at least where I live) is abysmal. These people are easily losing out on a lot of money by not putting a minimal amount of effort into selling the biggest asset they own.
I agree most FSBO pictures are awful. We were happy to pay for a service to help the listing look polished, and we firmly believe we got more money/closed faster because of it. With 7% interest rates on a 30 year mortgage, it would take about 5 years of payments to accumulate 6% equity to pay the commission to sell the house, before accounting for other fees (and appreciation).
We ended up paying effectively ~0.8% for the FSBO service and 2.5% to the agent representing the buyer. The agent was apprehensive, but the buyer really wanted our house. Everyone acted in good faith after the hail storm a few weeks prior to closing and everyone was happy as far as I could tell.
How in the world in that context is "the agent's commission...irrelevant?"
The "standard" in the US is that the sellers pay 6% commission, with 3% going to their listing agent, and 3% going to the buyers agent. If, as a buyer, you show up without a listing agent and don't demand 3%, it is totally reasonable, and quite common, to ask for a 3% price discount since you have no agent. Any sensible seller would take your offer as it means they are getting the same amount of money.
I'm not saying this always "works", but sometimes people act like these are rules that are set in stone, as opposed to things you can negotiate for.
Back in the early 00s I went with a discount listing agent who only charged 1%. They recommended I still give 3% to the buyers agent, but I said fuck that, and only offered 2% (market wasn't crazy strong but also wasn't weak), and the buyer's agent accepted that. So all in I sold my house for 3% instead of 6%, which I thought was totally fair given the amount of work the agents did.
Any way around that issue?
If the buyers have a real estate agent and the seller does not, the seller pays the buyer's real estate agent double their usual payment - at least in the 3 states where I've sold properties.
It also just doesn't really matter. What you care about as a seller is that you get the most net money for your house. If one of the buyers wants to have 6% of the money they're paying you go to their agent, that just means their offer needs to be that much higher than a buyer who doesn't have you paying their agent as much.