As buyers, we had overall rather bad experiences with real estate agents. Apart from one, none of them knew much about the house for sale or practically nothing (when the windows/electrics/roof were installed, who lives next door, why it is being sold, etc.). Commissions of over 6% (we ultimately paid 7.14%) are completely normal. Photos in the exposés were mostly inadequate, there were only a few and sometimes in poor resolution, and the information about the property was insufficient and at best roughly compiled. The highlight was an exposé that did not match the house (it had 3 instead of 5 rooms and about 350 instead of 600 sqm of land). None of this mattered anyway, because the market here is empty and as a buyer you have to take what you can get; price negotiations over purchase prices or agent commissions are out of the question. As a buyer, I would always prefer to buy without an agent (saves money); from the seller's perspective, however, an agent has only advantages in sought-after areas and otherwise as well. You don’t have to deal with anyone, remain anonymous at first, don’t have to spend time, and you don’t pay the bill anyway. Our agent had with us 1 viewing appointment (group viewing with others), one appointment for a building surveyor (after which he disappeared after 10 minutes and we delivered the keys later), 1 notary appointment and a few phone calls. It cost us about €14,100. And that only because we were lucky and could buy a property far below value from a sale through a community of heirs.