When I sold my house, I agreed a fee that was a lower than normal % on his estimated worst case sales price and a 3x higher % of any amount above this.

End result was he worked really hard getting prospective purchasers bidding against one another. I ended up selling for 25% above my reserve price.

Sure, I paid a lot in fees. But since I was living 20,000km away at the time, it was totally worth it for the peace of mind achieving a good price.

I am still surprised that almost everyone goes with the standard fee scale, for what is the largest financial transaction in your life!