Do you give % back if none of the above came up? Or is the 3% insurance, where people without issues are covering the costs of other people's issues where 3% would be too little?
A friend who is a builder (has done approx 700 homes) recently said it well - in any given market, there are 2 agents who are doing really well, 15 agents who are doing better than minimum wage, and then there is everyone else. Extrapolate those numbers up for your market and it is accurate - the majority of agents are at best making a little travel money, and likewise the average agent doesn't last 4 years in the business. Buyers you may have invested a lot of time in end up buying with another agent (yes, even after enforced buyer broker agreements this will happen) and sellers sometimes decide to cancel their listings after you've invested (photos, videos, drone work, postcards, mailers, open houses, etc) potentially leaving you without compensation. So you are absolutely right that in many cases the reason it costs as much as it does is simply the cost of doing business.
Do you give % back if none of the above came up? Or is the 3% insurance, where people without issues are covering the costs of other people's issues where 3% would be too little?