If millions of people sell their homes each year through an agent, that might suggest that privately selling real estate is not the way to go. Of course it is not that simple and the premise that a person needs an agent is false.

One could argue that even if an agent is required to sell a home, that agent will at least make the sale easier or more likely. I have to say that there is no evidence to support that an agent will give you more money or a faster sale.

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

Pro-agent people (mostly agents) would argue that only an agent has the marketing clout and inherent ability to achieve the highest possible price in the shortest possible time. But is that claim accurate or, in fact, verifiable? A cursory look at the question would tell you that there are many variables, for example, is the agent good?

Are you acting in your best interest or in your own interest, ie a commission?

All agents freely admit that price is the ultimate determinant of sellability, not the skill of the seller.

Agents, when they talk to each other, always say that if a house is reasonably marketed and remains unsold, the main problem is price.

If one accepts that price is the problem, then one would also have to accept that a lower price (by not paying thousands of commissions to agents) would help the house sell faster.

Houses sell houses and the best agents are the ones who show up. They grease the wheels and maybe make the process a bit easier. Some, in fact, can make it a harder sell.

At the end of the day, only price and exposure sell anything…and that goes for houses or hot dogs. Ah, I hear you say… but what about the fact that the hot dog buyer is hungry? That surely is a factor? Yes it is and so is the flavor of the hot dog. But other things being equal, if two hot dog stands have similar food and are next to each other, the cheaper one will have more customers. Likewise, if a hot dog maker has a superior tasting product it won’t mean anything unless people hear about their superior hot dogs and that is known as (exposure)

As you can see, price and marketing exposure are all that really matter, and until recently, real estate agents had a huge advantage in that area. But now the playing field is much more level and FSBOs can now have as much or more exposure than some agents. How can this be? really simple. The average person, For Sale By Owner, only has one home they need to promote and can spend more time and resources on that product compared to the agent who may have a hundred properties that he is trying to do justice to.

Interestingly, it is 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 shoppers while you don’t even have a corner store to promote your only 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 stage the sale of his house like the big boys. By using a privately sold FSBO company and their own or the company’s sign, the average DIY seller can gain marketing reach that has eluded them in years past.

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

Whether it is easier or more difficult is debatable, but what is not debatable are the savings you can make by selling yourself. The typical seller would save many thousands of dollars in the DIY sales route and those thousands are often tax free as well.

The key in all of this is that if you are going to sell your own home, you need to care for it in a way that gets you professional-level exposure. The best way to do this is to spend a small amount of your saved money on quality marketing.

We’re not talking about rocket science here. Just 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.