Will real estate commissions ever change?

Here’s how paying for a real estate agent to sell your home has long been done: A seller hands a percentage of the sale price to their broker, who then splits it with the broker who brought the buyer.

The commission is typically between 5% and 6%, which is usually tens of thousands of dollars out of the seller’s proceeds. But the seller also factored that cost into what they listed their home for, so indirectly, the buyer is paying the cost, too.

How did that become the standard?