I Sold a House Without an Agent — And It Saved Me $5,000
It doesn’t take 6% of the cost of your sale to sell a house. That’s been my rallying cry for a while now, and after a very bad experience with our longtime agent selling our home, my husband and I decided we’d sell our next house without a real estate agent. But first, we needed to figure out how to sell a house without a real estate agent. Is it even possible to do it?
If you’re wondering if you can do the same thing, my story might tell you a little bit about why you should consider it — and how to do it at all.
Why you might want to sell a house without a real estate agent
The main reason people might want to sell a house without an agent is to avoid paying the commission fee, which I feel is egregious. The United States is the only country in the world where sellers pay their agent 6% of the selling cost, according to Mike Ketchmar, the attorney who led the successful March 2024 class action lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors (NAR). He says even a 3% commission takes the average homeowner seven years of building equity in their home to recover.
Adding layers of real estate agents between buyer and seller can create barriers and delays in communication. Whether or not you’ve had a negative experience, you might be curious if you really need an agent, too, especially after a study by Clever reported that 45% of consumers say their agent only cared about making a sale.
Can you sell a house without a real estate agent?
In short, yes, you can sell your house without an agent. Having said that, this is not a process for the faint of heart, or for a real estate novice. I had a handful of home sales and purchases under my belt before I did it; I’ve been working in renovations for more than 10 years; I have a marketing background, and I’m a professional writer. Plus, I have an extensive hospitality and design background, which gives me a sense of how to style and stage a home. I frequently write about real estate, and as a journalist I have plenty of experience researching. This last bit came in very handy when setting a price.
For most homeowners though, selling your own home “can be done without a real estate agent, but it’s usually wiser to use a real estate agent,” real estate attorney Mercedes Diego says. It’s difficult for a seller to know all the legal ins and outs, such as what they’re obligated to disclose about the property, and a misstep can have major consequences, including litigation. Diego also pointed out that homeowners have an emotional connection to their home that can put them on the defensive, and “when you have a real estate agent, you have an independent person that can kind of buffer that for you.”
While it’s perfectly legal to sell your home without a real estate agent, and major platforms like Zillow make it pretty straightforward to list it, it’s still so atypical that many people mistakenly think you can’t. In fact, my own husband didn’t believe we were allowed to even make an offer on a house without using an agent. A difficulty sellers could run into is that agents on the buyer’s side may shy away from working with a layperson, fearing it would be a lot more work than coordinating with someone in their profession. I definitely got the feeling some agents didn’t want to work with me because I was the dreaded FSBO (for sale by owner).
How I sold my own home without an agent
The home I sold was an 1883 shotgun-style house that I completed a gut job renovation on in a neighborhood that’s experienced decades of redlining and disinvestment, so when it came to lenders, there were no comparable homes nearby to justify a sales price that would let me recoup the expensive work. That was difficult.
My best hope was to maybe break even. I listed the house for $189k, and paying 6% would have slashed more than $11,000 from sales proceeds, putting me even further into the red.
First, I paid a local broker $500 to put my listing in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) with a listing description and photos I provided. These flat rate listing services seem to be getting more popular than before since the NAR lawsuit.
Even after the NAR settlement, which now means that it’s no longer the default for Realtors’ (aka dues-paying members of the NAR) compensation to be 5%-6% of the home, split between the buyers and seller’s agent, as a default and paid for by the seller, you still need to be listed on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) to get your house in front of the largest number of eyeballs. Even on Zillow, buyers don’t see FSBO listings unless they know to toggle an option to show them.
Being in the MLS got my listing in front of buyers’ agents as well as on the big real estate sites. It also got us access to a showing system that let potential buyers and/or their agents schedule visits.
Using Zillow’s wealth of data freely available to anyone, I was able to drill down into comps and pricing projections for the neighborhood to set a price.
The weekend after hitting the market I hosted an open house with the help of my friend and business partner, who, fortunately for me, has many years of experience in home sales.
I also made a website and flyers with Canva, and shared the listing widely on social media. I reached out directly to influential local agents because I knew that, in this challenging neighborhood, I would need them to bring me a buyer. I made sure they knew I would pay them the traditional 3%. I also paid a few dollars for features on Circa Houses and Leave Some Character.
The first people at the open house made an offer, and we ended up quickly having multiple offers at and above asking price. But the first offer didn’t work out due to the appraisal process, and the second fell through when the buyers saw the house in person, but the third finally stuck.
Here’s where being able to communicate directly was super helpful. Real estate agents generally avoid letting buyers and sellers talk directly. While there are valid reasons for that, it can prime the people involved to feel like adversaries. Luckily, the buyer’s agent was amenable to me talking directly with the buyer. Because they knew we’d had two sales fall through, theirs was the first offer below ask. The buyer and I hammered out the details of my counteroffer, and had a verbal agreement quickly.
I paid the buyers’ agent 3%, which amounted to $5,250. I kept $5,250 in my pocket that would have gone to a listing agent, minus my minimal marketing costs.
Would I sell my house without an agent again?
Unequivocally, yes. I will never pay 6% again. In fact, when my spouse and I bought our new house, I wanted to do it without a real estate agent. But the listing agent for the property we wanted refused to work directly with me. I was forced to bring a real estate agent who received 3%, which was several thousand dollars built into the cost of the house, and was rolled into our mortgage.
When selling our house, it was a huge relief having agency in my own messaging. Typical interactions feel like a game of telephone, with the seller telling their agent, who tells the other agent, who tells the buyer. Plus, I got to choose my own photographer (an amazing one that I trust!), which was critical since I was trying to attract people to a neighborhood they likely weren’t considering.
Selling a house is always a stressful process, and going it alone certainly isn’t for everyone. But for someone with a lot of industry experience like me, it felt great being in charge of my own destiny.
But once your house is under contract? From that point, everything else can be handled by a real estate attorney, Diego said. If you’re opting to sell without a real estate agent, though, you could also lean on a local attorney to guide you through local laws, especially as they pertain to disclosures.
Further Reading
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