[stomachmonkey]

I've gone the "cheap" route, negotiating their rate, with realtors twice.

What I found is the realtors that won't negotiate it were worth every penny while the others were not worth a dime.

One instance it came down to two realtors, the 1st would not negotiate, we passed and went with the other. 1st realtor had just picked up a house down the street which was also the closest comp in the area. She had it sold in two weeks for asking price. We languished for 6 months with the other realtor while the market started to slide. All she did was keep telling us was to lower the price.

Towards the end of my commit with realtor 2 "Katie" knocks on my door. She's another realtor, I'm ready to send her away but before I can she says, "I've been watching this listing, I have two questions, why hasn't it sold yet and why are you selling it so cheap?"

I invited her in and gave her the listing. She was there that weekend with a video crew and did a kick ass virtual tour. She RAISED the sell price back to where we had started.
First week she brought in more buyers than the other one had in months. EOD we ended up in a bidding war with 2 buyers at a time when most people were happy to have just one on the hook.

Frankly I don't see realtors going away.

Few years back, before moving to TX we were looking for a new place in NY. I quickly learned that if a listing was a FSBO to avoid it like the plague.

Owners by and large do not know how to sell a house and are a total turnoff. Too much personal baggage. They show you all the stuff that they loved about the house which a buyer may not give a rats ass about.

In a nutshell they do nothing to help the potential buyer see themselves in the house which is critical in closing a deal.

One FSBO that we did look at once was across the street from a friend of mine. The owners ended up going with a realtor. Realtor sold it for 60k more than they were asking on their own.

There are crap brokers and there are good ones. You need to do your homework.