Agreed. It's very competitive here in the UK. For mass market sales (up to £1m there's no such thing as a buyers agent) they're just listed on the portals through selling agents. 1% seems to be the norm for agents and you can neg them down to 0.75% if you push(staff rate used to be 0.7%) you can do this now as there are online only fixed fee agents selling for c£1500, so even 0.75% is still twice the commission on a typical 400k Southeast property sale. (National average house price is £286k)

Sales agents work on volume here and prop their income up with lettings management fees (c10% of rent). However, lettings are also coming under pressure as the UK Gov are intent on taxing small landlords to oblivion and encouraging corporate lets through companies and the build to rent sector backed by UK pension funds and private equity policy has been going this was for the last few years. This is also why we have a massive housing crisis and worsening homelessness crisis here, housing delivery is also constrained by an archaic planning system and nimbyism which limits housing supply and keeps prices high. Government although talking about housing policy and housing numbers do not act decisively on delivery and encourage high prices through Government led purchase incentive schemes.

Rant over 😂