For selling the house I generally ask the agent to sell for a certain amount and make it clear that I am not paying any amount to the agent.The commission of the agent is practically paid only by the buyer.Or else I will look for another agent.C'mon be smart.

Yes it is normally that an agent and the owner will sit down and make a plan. You will come to an agreement that the house will be sold for $XX and that the agent will get $XX or X% of the sale.. etc

In the UK its done differently, although there is some scope for negotiation - there is pretty standard estate agent fee its currenty at around 1.5% of the property value

The UK is very nice on their fee then. In the US they are much more expensive and in my thoughts not worth the while. You could spend fees for advertising and still not spend as much as what it would cost to use a real estate place.

Hi, I'm from Romania, we practice 3% fee for in town properties and 2% for outside of town properties. In most of the cases we calculate that fee and add it to the owners price, he feels much better when you  don't take money from him :P