John

Nadia, if you're able to show the home yourself then try listing it on a FSBO site ($300 or so to be in the MLS) or a site like Craigslist or Yahoo Real Estate. It is still a good idea to interview Realtors to get an idea of the market value of your home based on comps that have sold and to know a good Realtor in case you aren't able to sell it yourself. Ask the Realtors how many homes they've sold in the last 6mo, how many they currently have listed, and what their average listing price / close price is. A good strategy would be to list your condo yourself at 3% less than what the market price is. This way, you have an attractive price and are still able to pay a buyers agent if need be. Then use a real estate lawyer to review the offer and counter if necessary. Realtors are licensed but I prefer to have an actual lawyer help with contracts. Hope this helps.

Try FSBO first -- not to save money (although you probably will), but instead focus on selling quickly for the same net sales price for yourself. Read the article I linked to below, it compares FSBO listings in Madison, WI to Realtor listings. It was done by 3 independent economists, not economists paid by the Realtors Association. - Wed Jan 2 2008, 11:15

Yolanda, I read the answers to your questions that the various Realtors posted and it looks like David Eyrise is the only one that really truthfully answered your question. I recently sold my own home in WI using Craigslist to market it, a real estate attorney to review the contact, and shopped around for the a cheap title company for closing. It cost me $0 to market the home, $200 for the lawyer (note Realtors are not lawyers and use boilerplate contracts from the State), and then the standard fees for closing which David covers nicely. Out of all the costs you need to be aware of, the biggest fee is if you choose to use a Realtor... ouch! A 6% for $500 or less of marketing!!! There was a good study by 3 economists comparing Realtor sold homes and FSBO homes in the Madison, WI area; I am including the link their paper below. Also, the chief economist for NAR is a joke so feel free to laugh at any NAR statistics a Realtor quotes you about how much money you're losing by selling your home FSBO. The chief economist for NAR thinks the housing market in 2008 will be flat.. wait a few months and see if his prediction is true. This market especially rewards people who can reduce their listing price, which you can do yourself by 6% by not using a Realtor.

When my wife and I were deciding whether to do a FSBO or list with a Realtor with met with 3 Realtors. One told us to list for 10% below what we paid because the market was so bad, the next 2 said to list it for over 10% more than what we bought 2 years prior. It turns out the first Realtor had only sold 1home in the past year or so and was probably just desperate for a commission, but the other 2 were both competent and sold many homes. Two things I learned from them is that 80% of buyers find their homes on the internet and about 2/3's of these Realtor's listings sold to people not working with other agents!! Now this is incredible! So they told me that good internet listings sell homes and most people that buy are not working with agents... very valuable news. So that means I could list the home myself, take lots of great pictures with my digital camera, and find a buyer on my own. We listed our house on Craigslist.com which is active in our area, linked to an online photo album with about 20-30 high-res pictures (way more than a Realtor would take), and listed for a few % below what the market was at that time. We sold in 3 weeks. It's my opinion that if we would have used a Realtor we would have had to lower our price from what they recommended and held the home for several months, in the end making less money.

If you're able to show your home yourself, I highly recommend using a Realtor. Charging 6% commission on the biggest transaction of your life is crazy. The State of WI only charged me 0.3% on the sale of my home, why should a Realtor get so much more. I think the real estate bubble popping will encourage normal people like you to start selling their own homes, then Realty will be a niche market. BTW, I've been researching the Milwaukee, WI market to see when to buy again and it looks like it's still overvalued by about 20%. It's interesting that Trulia doesn't show median home price trends from before 2000, which is the precise time that the bubble started. Maybe they don't want to scare off buyers?

In summary, congratulations on listing your home yourself. Try Craigslist or Yahoo Real Estate and if you don't get any bites pay a discount Realtor to list your home on the MLS for a few hundred dollars. Good luck and don't listen to all the hype from the Realtors that claim you'll be doomed without their help - Wed Jan 2 2008, 10:50