Each sale varies in time and effort. The listing agent and buyers broker are facilitators. My personal opinion, yes they are somewhat overpaid but are a necessary evil for a relatively fast sale.
The listing agent meets with client, views property, makes recommendations, helps with loose ends, holds sellers hand, facilitates photos, real estate research, creates listing, promotes listing, fields realtor/buyers questions, screens contacts, meets with potential buyers for showings, helps in negotiations, assists with banks and closings.
In your example, that $30K commission might be split between a listing agent and a buyers agent, or, if the listing agent finds an unrepresented buyer then he gets the whole commission.
No. The $30,000 is just for one side of the deal. Usually the total commission on a deal is 6%, split between the selling and buying agents. Keep in mind that a house selling for $1M is low for the area in which I live. So $30,000 to a selling agent is totally common, if not low. And while I know what the agents do, I'm trying to quantify just how many hours an agent spends actually working on selling a property? Sure it varies. But there must be a normal range. And I'm guessing it's not very much time.
usually the total commission on a deal is 6%
Homes are virtually all 4% combined commission in my state. Land sales can be 6% or higher.
6% for homes sounds really excessive especially in a sellers market.
Yeah, it's stupid out here. 6% is the normal rate for the combined commission. I think it's way WAY too much.