How to Sell Your Home Without an Agent

Written By Troy Williams
Last Updated Wednesday March 22nd 2023

You might be surprised to find this section on a real estate agent's website. After all, I'm in the business of encouraging people to list their home using my services.

But if you know me, or any of my clients, or even spend a little bit of time on this site, you'll know that I am not a salesman, but an educator, first and foremost.

I try to bring insightful, objective information to buyers and sellers, confident that they can process that information and then make the best decision for themselves.

This leaves me free to express my opinion in the form of advice, without being seen as trying to achieve an outcome that only benefits me.

The Benefits of Selling Your Own Home

If you’ve considered selling a home on your own, the number one driving motivation is probably that you save having to pay a commission to a real estate agent. This can be tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the selling price of your home.

Secondly, you get to control the entire process of who has access to your home and when they can see it. Entrusting a 3rd-party and strangers to come into your house while you’re not there can feel like an invasion of your privacy and cause anxiety.

And finally, it gives you a chance to tell buyers about every feature and advantage of your home directly. After all, who knows your home better than you? Just be careful not to shadow buyers too closely, because no one likes a hard sell.

The Challenges of Selling Your Own Home

Just as there are benefits, you should go into the process aware of the challenges you’ll need to address. Let’s review the top challenges so that you can be better prepared as you undertake the process.

The first thing you’ll need to figure out is what price to sell your house for. Since you’re saving thousands of dollars in commissions, you may want to spend $300-500 to get a professional appraiser to determine your true property value in an objective manner. Now remember value and list price are not necessarily the same thing, so depending on what type of market we’re in, you’ll want to decide strategically whether to price above or below the value to attract the right buyers.

Next, you’ll want to make sure your home presents in a fashion to attract the most buyers possible. Decluttering, removing furniture that overwhelms the space, creating a neutral décor in terms of painting, addressing maintenance items, staging each area of the house appropriately, and thoroughly cleaning every inch of the home. Again the advantage you have is that because you’ve saved on a commission, you can spend money to hire professionals to help you prep the home.

Thirdly, you’re going to need exposure. You don’t want to cheap out here. Even real estate agents who shortchange their marketing budgets can get poor results and low showings. A sign in the front yard is not enough, so I suggest finding all possible online outlets that you can find to put your house.

I want to wrap this section up but before I do, I must mention that by far the number one challenge you’re going to face is filtering through those who contact you to figure out whether they are serious, interested buyers or are just wasting your time. Since you’ll be managing all of your own showings, my recommendation is to come up with some screening questions before you allow people to see the home. As a starting point, here are 6 questions that will give you some insight but not put off a serious buyer:

• How long have you been looking for a home?
• Are you renting currently, or did you also have a home to sell before you buy?
• Are you working with a buyer’s agent?
• Do you currently live in the area?
• Have you already been pre-approved or are you just getting started with the process?
• How soon do you want to be in a home?

Weave those questions into the normal conversation, rather than just rattling them off in an interrogatory fashion. You’d be surprised how much information buyers will tell you when you ask just a few leading questions, and how helpful that information is when it comes to managing your time and expectations.

If You Do Nothing Else

The work that an agent does to sell your home is the work you as the owner of the home will still have to do when you decide to sell on your own. This page on my site is not intended to be an exhaustive guide on the topic, so I want to hone in on the most important aspects of the subject.

The number one trick in an agent’s toolbox is the MLS listing. Thanks to the proliferation of public-facing home sale portals all over the internet, MLS listings get free exposure way beyond the reach of just the MLS. This will give your home exposure to buyers all over the country.

Additionally the MLS gives you direct access to buyer’s agents who may have clients interested in your home. These agents can then reach out to you to schedule a showing for their buyers. Keep in mind that appealing to buyer agents will require you to offer a commission to these agents because that is how they make their living. So about half of the total commission you would save by not listing the home should be allocated towards buyer’s agent commission.

Typically, you can find a flat-fee MLS broker that will put your listing into the MLS for around $300-500. This will not include any other service such as professional photos, seller representation, review of contracts, or negotiation with buyers, but is definitely a cheap onramp to the MLS if you’re confident in your ability to handle those other aspects.

Want to Get Free Exposure for Your Home?

If you’d like to get some additional free exposure of your FSBO property, I maintain a private list of area off-market properties for buyers who haven’t quite found what they’re looking for in the inventory of listed homes.

Fill out the form on this page to leave all of the details about your home, and I will place your home on my off-market properties list for free. This private list gets sent out to my buyers by email, and does not include your address, just the home details and pricing. This protects your anonymity until a buyer is serious enough to inquire about a showing.

This is a great option if you’re not quite ready to list your home but would sell if you could find a buyer at the right price. Buyers that I represent who are looking for off-market properties are still willing to pay full market value. These buyers also pay the commission or fees required in the transaction, so you can save money by selling your home this way.

My Final Thoughts

While the information I’ve presented above is sound, honest, and useful based on my 20+ years of real estate experience, my objective advice is to strongly consider the use of your own listing agent to represent you in the sale of your property. The biggest reason why is that 90% of buyers that are going to be touring your home will have a buyer’s agent representing them, whereas you have no one representing your interests.

So you are likely going to have their agent sending you a sales contract if their buyer is interested. One oversight in the sales contract (which can be up to 50 pages with addenda) can leave you surprised and financially responsible for something you didn’t anticipate.

Things such as home inspection contingencies, buyer closing cost requests, appraisal contingencies, HOA/Condo document rules and regulations, earnest money escrow handling, and even who pays the transfer taxes (which are thousands of dollars) can easily be written in the buyer’s favor. Unless you know what you’re looking for, you could lose all the money you thought you were saving on commissions (and more) in one fell swoop.

Did you know that in Maryland, if a licensed agent commits malfeasance and misses some crucial detail that leaves you exposed or you lose money, you are automatically protected by a Guaranty Fund up to $50,000 towards actual losses?

Also keep in mind that if you thought you were saving a 5-6% commission on the sale of your home, you’re likely not because buyers do not typically pay even their own agent’s commission. Rather, it is deducted from your proceeds of sale, and it represents half of that total commission. In other words, you’re only saving 2.5% - 3% of the sale price in commission.

If you’re going to put your property in its best light with professional photos ($250-500), its best price as professionally determined by an appraiser ($300-500), pay a flat fee MLS broker for a basic list service ($300-500), and get a lawyer to review any offers to ensure you’re legally protected ($1000-1500) you’ve already eaten up as much as $3000 of your anticipated savings.

Once you add in your time to accommodate showings and screen strangers to figure out if they are really pre-approved or just kicking the tires, you may find that its just not worth the hassle and the legal risks.