For realtors, the six percent commission is sacrosanct. It's remained in place, even as the price of homes has quadrupled over the past 25 years.

There is nothing of value that a 6% Realtor can provide that a seller can't get from Terra Realty for a fraction of the cost. In fact, the odds of selling your home quicker or for a better price are actually reduced by listing with a 6% Realtor. The 2 main reasons this is true are:

When a buyer calls a typical 6% real estate office after seeing a real estate sign in a yard, or a property listing in Realtor.com the call is treated as a lead by whomever is on duty and answers the phone. He or she may direct these callers to other properties so they don't have to share commission. The agent may answer a few basic questions about your property, and then move on to questions such as, "What is your price range?"; "How soon are you needing to find something?"; "Do you also have a home to sell?"; etc. This explains why some people have their home listed with a 6% Realtor without any activity, and when they list with us they get showings and offers right away. Very few sellers ever try calling their listing agent pretending to be a buyer as a test to see what happens with the call. We recommend you do.

The dilemma of 6% Realtors
The problem that 6% Realtors currently face is that sellers are getting more educated and savvy when listing their homes. Since the 6% Realtors don't provide much more than we do, they get creative with their sales pitches to convince sellers to list with them. Here are the most common sales pitches that 6% Realtors make to convince a seller they should list with them instead of Terra Realty:

Sales pitch: Our company has a well-respected name in the business, so buyers feel more comfortable with us.
Truth: Buyers don't care about the company who has the listing; they care about the property.

Sales pitch: If you list with one of those discount outfits, you are going to get "blackballed" and no agent is going to show your house.
Truth: First of all, if you follow our advice and use a real estate company sign and follow the standard showing procedure for your area, no Realtor would ever know that your listing is different from any other listing. Second, assuming they could somehow tell the difference, it really wouldn't matter anyway. All that buyers' agents care about is getting their commission, and they WILL show your house regardless of what kind of listing it is. If they don't show it, they risk that the buyer will find it themselves, and the agent would end up with nothing. The only agents complaining and making up "blackballing" stories are the ones who can't get 6% listings so easily any more, and they don't normally work with buyers anyway.

Sales pitch: We have lots of buyers referred to us from our relocation business. (As though the odds of finding a buyer are better if they list your house.)
Truth: Any buyer's agent who works for a brokerage company gets the same commission no matter where the buyers come from, including relocation referrals. Assuming their office lists your house, there is still no incentive to sell the buyer your house over any other house on MLS.

Sales pitch: I network with other agents, so I'll get the word out there about your house.
Truth: Absolutely ridiculous. Agents who are busy working with buyers don't have time for tea parties or other functions to network with other agents. Agents who have time for tea parties are typically new and inexperienced and don't have anything better to do than "networking" with other agents like themselves. Experienced agents working with live buyers use the MLS to search for homes, not a network of agents.

Sales pitch: We'll enter your listing in our book which is distributed to hundreds of supermarkets all over the area.
Truth: This is a favorite sales pitch of Keller-Williams. If you've ever seen one of their books, you'd know it contains no useful information and is designed to promote more agent photos. There are no property addresses or details. Typically there's a tiny blurry property photo, and a brief description like "Big yard – bring the kids & pets". Even if it had better information, the time lag between printing and distribution (minimum 6 weeks) makes it useless. Since they come out quarterly, the information may already be 4 1/2 months old when it's picked up.

Sales pitch: I'll send an email to every agent in the MLS so they are aware of your house.
Truth: All this does is annoy agents, and make them dislike the spamming agent. No legitimate agent reads this spam. If agents have buyers looking for a particular type of property, they search MLS, not their spam emails.

Sales pitch: We'll hold an open house and send mailers out to the whole neighborhood.
Truth: Any buyer who buys after seeing an open house would have scheduled a showing based on the sign anyway, so an open house makes no difference for the seller. Realtors love to hold open houses because they have a chance to meet prospective buyers who may be in the market to buy at some point in the future, and prospective sellers from the neighborhood who are planning to put their house on the market. Holding an open house is also a great way for Realtors to give their clients the impression that they are actively marketing the home when they are actually just promoting their own business. (We occasionally do open houses, but we are honest with our clients and let them know they are doing us a favor by letting us do it instead of the other way around.) If you still believe holding an open house is important, it's very easy to do it yourself!