If millions of people sell their homes each year through an agent then that might suggest that private selling of real estate isn't the way to go. Of course it's not that simple and the premise that a person needs an agent is a false one.

It could be argued that even if an agent is actually required to sell a home, that the agent will at least make the sale easier or more likely. I have to say that there is no evidence to support either that an agent will get you more money or a quicker sale.

There are no industry figures comparing the two methods and even if there were the results would be at best ambiguous. So for better or worse we can only reason through the topic and make an educated guess.

The pro agent people (mostly agents) would argue that only an agent has the marketing clout and inherent skill to achieve the highest possible price in the shortest timeframe. But is that claim accurate or indeed verifiable? A cursory look at the question would tell you that there are to many variables e.g., is the agent a good one?
Is he acting in your best interests or his own best interests i.e. a commission.

All agents freely admit that price is the ultimate determinant of saleability, not the salesman's ability.
Agents when talking amongst themselves always say that if a house is being reasonably marketed and remains unsold it's the price that's the main problem.

If one accepts that price is the problem then one would also have to accept that a lower price (through not paying thousands in agents commission) would help the home to sell faster.

Houses sell houses and the very best agents are the ones that show up. They oil the wheels and perhaps make the process a little easier. Some may in fact make it harder to sell.

At the end of the day it's only pricing and exposure that sells anything'and that goes for houses or hot dogs. Ah I hear you saying'but what about the fact that the hot dog buyer is hungry? That surely is a factor? Yes it is and so is the taste of the hot dog. But all things being equal if two hot dog stands have similar food and are side by side the cheaper one will get more custom. Likewise if one hot dog maker has a superior tasting product it won't mean a thing unless people hear about his superior hot dogs and that is known as (exposure)

So you see price and marketing exposure are all that really matters and up until recent times the real estate agents did have a huge advantage in that area. But now the playing field is far more level and FSBO?s can now get as much or greater exposure than some agents. How can this be? Simple really. The average, For Sale by Owner,person has just one house he needs to promote and he can spend more time and resources on that one product as opposed to the agent who may have a hundred properties that he is trying to do justice to.

Funnily enough it's that very fact that most agents will point to as proof that you need them. They will use the analogy of having a supermarket to attract buyers with, while you haven't even got a corner store to promote your one solitary product i.e. your house. Now I think that was possibly true to some degree years ago but now thanks to the Internet, the private seller can arrange his do it yourself house sale like the big boys. Using a private selling FSBO company and either his own sign or that of the company the average diy seller can get the marketing reach that eluded him in years gone by.

Now that's not to say that selling your own home is easy without an agent but then who would be willing to bet that it is going to be easy with an agent?

Whether it's easier or harder is debatable but what's not debatable is the savings you can make by selling for yourself. The typical seller would save many thousands of dollars in going the diy selling route and those are often tax free thousands as well.

The key in all of this is that if one is going to sell their own home then they must attend to it in a manner that gets professional level exposure. The best way to do this is to spend a small amount of the saved money on quality marketing.

We aren't talking rocket science here. Simply set your price as accurately as possible and then tell everyone you can about your real estate?. and that means more than just a For Sale sign in your front yard.

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