i think the point is he has enough experience and time to put more money in his pocket, and this is something that all of us would do!
It is as hard business but when you have an industry with a relatively low bar of entry (course that takes a few months) your going to get more Realtors than the market should support and the issues you mention above are a reality. My close family member is a realtor, and just got a listing, it had 15 offers the day it hit the market. She literally spent maybe 6 hours, listing, setting up the house for pictures and doing the closing and walked away with $18,000. I don't feel that because of all the other hardships that come with the business (houses that don't sell, high fees) that people should have to pay crazy fees to make up for it. Even if you had a high hourly rate of $3-400/hr for your services, doesn't that seem more fair than $3,000/hr for a place that sells itself?
Everything is easy when someone else does it. The commission structure has been roughly the same for the 45 years of my working lifetime. That reality is market driven. If realtors did not provide significant value to buyers and sellers they couldn't persist. If you think the fees are too high go for it, be a FSBO and best wishes.
. Unlike firefighters, they'll constantly tell you how hard their job is and how much "unpaid work" they have to do 
Don't get me started on cops and firefighters, vs nurses. Let's keep this to beating up on one professionIt's a weird industry for sure. Like a lot of industries the ones who do well, do VERY well. The ones that don't have the same social circles or connections don't do as well but still make a pretty good living. I have the full gambit of realtor friends, those that still work a few restaurant shifts a week and have to work condo show suites. And then some of my richest and most successful friends, like baller rich, are high end realtors making well over $500k a year. Even with all the fees, marketing, assistants wages, Canucks seasons tickets, brand new Mercedes, they're still clearing brain surgeon money. That's where things are out of line in my mind. As was stated before, if houses cost 5x an average annual salary 20 years ago and now cost 10x an average salary, that means Realtors are making twice as much per sale. Multiply that by record sales volumes, it has certainly become a high paying career with a very low barrier of entry. But hey, that's fair. Can't complain because nobody is stopping me, or anyone elese, from having a crack at it.
There are two constants with most realtors I know though. Like firefighters, you'll know every realtor at a party is realtor
Yeah I fired one, she showed us multiple houses and was the buyer's agent for my last realtor so would have earned a smaller fee and she sucked and her boss didn't help much, another was chasing me and set me up with his "special" MLS access and when I told him I was using a realtor my wife chose he was livid. I "wasted" / "cheated" three realtors and the good one got a sale and a purchase. The first one complained when I moved a table to look at the electrical panel, didn't really warn us about the downsides of non-conforming suites/many other issues about homes and like yours was close to useless. I now know more than some realtors but not anywhere near as much as several of the realtors on this forum, and I'm glad because the things a good realtor knows may save me 100-500k.
What remains unsaid is that every commodity is suffering from outrageous inflation, from gas to groceries. People see and set their hair on fire over the higher prices. They do not focus on the fool-hardy politics that created this mess: "quantitative easing", since 2009. 13 years of free money made everyone "feel" rich and we all went on a spending spree. Need more cash? Get a bigger credit line or sign up for a larger mortgage at 0.5% All that borrowed and gifted (CERB) cash bid up prices and the COVID disruptions forced us to pay ever more. So we did. Now we are conditioned to think of our homes as casinos instead of places to live. We are all big winners! We are all millionaires - on paper. Wages have been moving up but not keeping pace. What this means is that our politicians are willingly rewarding the wealthy and screwing the working class, again, as usual. The Ottawa cartel gives lip-service to taking action to cool this "over-heated" real estate market. They won't because they can't. No one really wants this party stopped. The correction would be a financial calamity making 2008 seem mild by comparison.It's a weird industry for sure. Like a lot of industries the ones who do well, do VERY well. The ones that don't have the same social circles or connections don't do as well but still make a pretty good living. I have the full gambit of realtor friends, those that still work a few restaurant shifts a week and have to work condo show suites. And then some of my richest and most successful friends, like baller rich, are high end realtors making well over $500k a year. Even with all the fees, marketing, assistants wages, Canucks seasons tickets, brand new Mercedes, they're still clearing brain surgeon money. That's where things are out of line in my mind. As was stated before, if houses cost 5x an average annual salary 20 years ago and now cost 10x an average salary, that means Realtors are making twice as much per sale. Multiply that by record sales volumes, it has certainly become a high paying career with a very low barrier of entry. But hey, that's fair. Can't complain because nobody is stopping me, or anyone elese, from having a crack at it.
There are two constants with most realtors I know though. Like firefighters, you'll know every realtor at a party is realtor
When I sold my first house the buyer and I were 10k apart and neither of us would budge. I told Mr. Sorrenti he could pay to meet us half way and he did.
That's what I said in the first reply. Get a mere posting and have the benefit of MLS exposure and do the marketing and legal stuff yourself. Most FSBO will give a commission to buyer's agent that is baked into their asking price and negotiable down if the buyers don't use an agent.
A good possibility is that if you did use a real estate brokerage and it was on the MLS where everyone with Internet access could see it, you may have got more. You might’ve left money on the table by the minimal exposure that you gave it. I know Realtors’s who have approached for sale by owner sellers because a client saw the house, they looked at it and it didn’t work out but three weeks later they got together and listed their house and it sold for more than what they were asking even after they paid remuneration to the listing brokerage. Your mileage may vary.
