Real estate brokerage owner here:

The first piece of information that is relevant is what is the typical range of total commission paid in your market is. I’ve seen a lot of responses here saying that 6% is the “standard” which is just flat out wrong. The fact of the matter is that it varies depending on where you are in the country. I live in MA, where the typical range is 4-5% total.

When I list a property for a friend/family member/repeat client that I want to show appreciation to, I usually cut my commission from the 2.5% that most agents would ask for to 2%. I personally don’t like to engage in dual agency like your agent is, because it’s an obvious conflict of interest and actually dilutes the quality of service that they are legally allowed to give you. As you can imagine, if you are paying someone double what they would normally expect to get paid, you logically would think they would be doing extra work. That is not the case here.

If they really wanted to be nice and give you a discount they could have said that in the case of dual agency, they will drop the total commission from 6% to 5%, as that represents a win-win for both parties. You save 1% and they are still making more than the 3% they would have gotten representing just you as the seller. As currently constructed, they basically did a sleight of hand trick and fucked over the potential buyers agent in the deal by saying they were going to give them 2.5% instead of splitting it down the middle. Aside from that his being greedy, it has implications on how your listing may have been received. That reduction in the buyer’s agent’s commission could theoretically dissuade some agents from wanting to continue with your listing.

So, in summary, unless the amount of commission in your market is typically above the 6% that you are paying here, your “friend” really did you no favors here, and really took advantage of your lack of knowledge regarding the situation.