Newsflash: Recently sold for 2.5% commission in total

Commission have been a hot topic here, so figure I’ll share my story. TL;DR at the bottomWe planned to move from the city to the suburbs. It was always the plan, so we bought in what we knew would be the hottest area in the city for the next decade (it was and is).We reached out to our old realtor to helped us buy our current condo. She is a city realtor, and did not know the burbs as well as I do (grew up there). She still helped us put in an offer on a place we didn’t get in December. When we were formalizing things, she toured our condo again. She said no doubt if we price this right, it’ll sell in a weekend given its size compared to the market and its location. We had thought $550k was the right price, and that’s what she said too. I asked her price to sell our condo, she said 6%. Gave her to opportunity to negotiate, said my brother just sold with Redfin for 1% but she didn’t budge.Few weeks later ran into a very old acquittance at a bar. I had some liquid courage, and knew he was a realtor. He laughed when I told him our realtor wanted 6%. “I fucking hate realtors” was his quote. “I’ll sell your place for .5% if you do the buy with me.” He got us into two houses in the ‘burbs, knew the area well, and we got our 3rd offer accepted. We put our condo on the market the next week. While the photographer was there, the realtor asked if I wanted to cut the buyer’s commission to 2%. Yes, of course I did. Would’ve offered 0% if it were July. This place was selling in a weekend.Massive traffic that weekend, since he is based in the burbs, he only did the open house and none of the 10 showings. 40+ couples came through by Sunday. No offers. 2nd weekend. 30+ more through, no offers. No real feedback either. Entryway stairs were a negative, but that’s the building, not the unit. Some people saying they would write, none did. Finally at 10pm on Sunday we got a $10k over ask. Next morning they pulled it. To our realtors credit, he did the stuff you’d hope for. Followed up and followed up. Coached one buyer’s agent into putting a competitive offer together. Worked out to be $10k below ask after the credit. We accepted, and after hellish attorney review, we closed this week.All told, paid 2.5% to sell my condo. Did not go as planned, honestly felt we would’ve gone over ask based on comps in the area. Small things I could nit about our realtor. Didn’t put up his sign outside until the 2nd week. Didn’t have brochures until the 2nd week. Wasn’t at showings. But we paid 3.5% less than we might have. I think we likely came out ahead, and he made good money on the deals too. Tl;dr-Found someone to sell our condo in a hot area for 0.5%, given they repped us for our buy-Cut buyers commission to 2%-Took longer to sell than originally thought-Sold for $10k under ask-Likely came out ahead given what the market was telling us