Shakespeare almost had it right.

You need to read this article from Slate Magazine. It's a couple of years old and focuses on the US but it does a wonderful job of capturing the absurdity of residential real estate commissions.

Here's an excerpt with a link to the full article.

Reality Bites

Why Do You Still Need an Agent to Buy a Home?

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers," a character in a Shakespeare play famously remarks.

I have a different suggestion: Make it realtors.Here's why: Americans will spend about $1.14 trillion buying 6 million homes this year—both records. Yet the flat commissions paid to the realtors who handle the vast majority of those sales, averaging 5.1 percent, act as an enormous tax on the transaction process, taking wealth from both buyers and sellers in what for both is often the biggest financial transaction of their lives.

It's true that selling a house is a complex task. But so is writing a will, and an attorney doesn't ask for 5 percent or 6 percent of your net worth as compensation. Read more.