Time to take a wrecking ball to realtors’ fees in America

DEATH, TAXES and extortionate realtors’ fees: for decades these have been the three grim certainties of American life, and one of them is avoidable. Every time a home changes hands, realtors (known as estate agents in Britain) charge a staggering 5-6% of its value, two or three times more than they can get away with in any other rich country. As the internet has allowed would-be buyers to browse properties from a sofa, agents’ fees have tumbled elsewhere—but not in America, where they have been set in concrete for nearly a century. Why?