Listing Realtors (TM) rely on people's misunderstandings to get them to sign those lopsided agency agreements in the first place (3% of a capital asset for setting up a key box, taking mediocre pictures, and writing a description of the property!), so those less critical misunderstandings are just part and parcel of their market. You should never skimp hiring a real estate attorney, as they will actually go to bat for you. But realtors' primary motivation is volume, and they'll often "represent" your interests by encouraging you to go along with buyers' nonsense lest you lose them.
I'm sorry you've had such bad experience with realtors... just some thoughts:
-- My experience with real estate attorneys has been as mixed as your experiences with realtors. Some know what they are doing, many do not. Many care about billable hours just as much as the outcome. YMMV.
-- Some realtors care about volume, and some care about their fiduciary responsibilities to your business. If they are actually a Realtor and following the standards set by the NAR, then volume or commission % shouldn't be their motivation. Again - just like any profession - some are good, some suck.
-- Finally, regarding commission percentages - yeah, in many markets commissions shouldn't be as high as they have been. In my market(s) we are seeing commissions decline. That said - I regularly more than pay my own commission in the earnings / savings I negotiate for my clients. If I make you an extra $50K and I get $10K for that service, I've earned my money. Again - if you haven't found that with the agents you've used, I fully encourage you to report any fraudulent activity to the local real estate association and/ or state agency. In any case if you don't receive the service you expect, find a new agent.
> If I make you an extra $50K and I get $10K for that service, I've earned my money.
That's totally fair on the surface.
But it's also impossible to demonstrate. Nobody can know if the house would've sold for 50K less if a different (less competent) realtor sold it, or if the owner sold it on craigslist or wherever.
It's difficult, but not impossible, and here's how... I could give you at least five case studies from the past year in which specific things I did created those kinds of gains / savings for a client. It's basically standard CMA stuff - show comparable properties, where they sold, where we sold (or had our offer accepted) and demonstrate the tactics that got to that point. Do that across a group of agents and you quickly have a comparative model.
Now - sometimes there are emotion-driven data outliers. For example, sometimes you will see someone overpay in cash for a property that could not have appraised at that same value. So again, using data you can account for those scenarios as well. Point being - all that sales data is available and you can pretty accurately create a model of which agents overall are having success not only selling properties, but the degree to which their clients are winning negotiations. I'd argue that even if an agent was being "overruled" by their clients - even that would be interesting, as it would show that their clients were not actually listening to the negotiating advise offered by that agent (IE: the data could actually demonstrate that there are communication / trust issues between the agent and their clients).
It’s a largely reputation-based business; if they’re not helpful, the “Bob was useless” comments and reviews outweigh the “Bob saved me money/found the perfect house” ones over time.
While no individual knows for sure what their next best alternative was, their hunches and hindsights add up to a reliable picture in aggregate (that I’ve seen, anyway.)
Sure, Sturgeon's law and all that. The problem is you don't know how poor a realtor will perform at selling the property until you sign the agency agreement, and once you've signed that agreement your BATNA becomes taking the property off the market for six months or more.
And then the second time around, trying to negotiate those terms with several different realtors was like talking to a brick wall. None of them wanted to understand that as two parties sitting down to sign a legal document, you can agree to cross bits out. Full on steering wheel tossed out the window for the game of chicken.
I'm sure there are many realtors who do a decent job - the problem is the incentives are just set up all wrong. I wouldn't actually mind if they got a 20% or 25% commission on every dollar over the market appraisal of the property. It's just ridiculous that they're taking 6% from the first dollar when the property would sell itself for a low amount.
