In a hot market like California, where agents don't have much trouble selling, companies like
http://www.helpusell.com only charge $9,995 flat rate and do everything that someone selling it for 6% is doing. In Santa Barbara, recently I read about two attorneys that partnered up and are selling homes for $9,995 up to $1 mil or 1.5% for homes over that. With a median price here of $1.2 mil, that's a huge savings. It's funny because other agents here are getting pissed at those two guys, even went so far as to try to get their real estate licenses revoked.