I keep a small confession tucked away: I’ve sold exactly one house in my life. It was 1997, and it went the way a lot of first attempts do — sideways.
I started with a real estate agent. I moved to a second one. By the end I’d decided that underwhelming service was the one thing both contracts came with for free. So I let go of the second agent too, found the buyer myself, and hired an attorney for a flat $300 fee to handle the negotiations while the title company took care of the technical paperwork. No agent. No percentage commission. No celebratory fruit basket, but I survived.
Since that happened nearly three decades ago, it’s fair to ask whether I’d still sell a home without a traditional agent today. The honest answer is yes — well, probably. Here’s the thinking behind that, including the parts that have genuinely changed.
What I actually did (the part people miss)
Selling without an agent doesn’t mean you do everything yourself, and that distinction matters. I found the buyer, I dealt with the interested people directly, and I made the calls. But I paid qualified professionals for the work I wasn’t comfortable doing alone.
“For sale by owner” has this image that comes with it: a homeowner in the front yard with a cardboard sign, a ballpoint pen, and a contract downloaded from a website run by someone named Honest Eddie. That wasn’t my strategy. I removed the traditional agent, but not professional help. I just bought the services I needed separately, instead of paying for the whole package through a percentage of the sale price.
In plain terms: it was less about refusing help and more about refusing to pay for help that didn’t feel like it was pulling its weight. That’s still the heart of the issue today.
It’s easier to sell now — and harder to look decent while doing it
Homeowners have far more tools than I had in 1997. Back then the internet was still finding its voice. Most people didn’t carry tiny computers in their pockets, and online real estate searches barely existed. Social media was a rumor, digital signatures were exotic, and a “virtual tour” probably meant flipping through vacation photos in a living room.
Now you can research recent sales, study competing listings, advertise online, message buyers instantly, and hire photographers, stagers, appraisers, lawyers, and other specialists without one person arranging everything. That genuinely should make a private sale easier — and in a lot of ways it is.
But the tech raised buyer expectations too. In 1997, decent property photos meant keeping your thumb off the lens. Today buyers may expect professional photography, measured floor plans, polished descriptions, video tours, enough high-resolution images to document every closet shelf. Reaching buyers got easier; a poorly presented home just looks worse next to the professionally marketed ones beside it. The modern seller has more power, and more ways to make a mess.
The percentage problem never went away
My biggest objection to the traditional commission model has always been how little it has to do with the actual work. Picture two similar homes that need roughly the same marketing, communication, paperwork, and negotiation. One sells for $500,000. The other sells for $1 million. Under a percentage-based model, the fee on the second house can be dramatically higher, even if it didn’t take twice the effort to sell. A percentage sign is tiny. The check it produces is not.
This is why I look at real estate fees the same way I look at any big household expense: what am I getting, what is it worth, and is there a cheaper way to get the same result? I’ve also long suspected that high-end agents are among the most overpaid professional jobs I know. Subtle, I know — but it’s true of my own history here.
Does that mean every agent is overpaid? No. Someone who builds a real pricing strategy, runs excellent marketing, finds qualified buyers, steers a hard negotiation, and keeps a complicated transaction from falling apart is delivering substantial value. The seller just has to be able to point at where that value actually is. Typing a property into a listing system and waiting for another agent to show up with a buyer may not justify a large fee — especially when the homeowner is already doing a lot of the prep, the cleaning, and the decision-making.
One note on timing: commission arrangements have been in flux for a couple of years now, so whatever model applies to your sale today may look quite different from the one that existed when I sold in 1997. That’s worth checking before you assume the old rules still hold.
My 1997 sale isn’t a step-by-step manual
I sold in Southern California, under the practices and legal framework that applied there at the time. That experience should not be treated as a playbook for selling anywhere else today — real estate is regulated by province and state, and forms, disclosure practices, terminology, listing access, and the role of lawyers all differ by location. Commission arrangements vary too, by province, brokerage, service package, and individual agreement.
In places like Canada, a homeowner might look at a genuine private sale, a flat-fee listing arrangement, a limited-service package, fixed-fee representation, or the traditional full-service model. Those aren’t interchangeable, even when the ads make them sound identical. Paying a brokerage to put your home on MLS and REALTOR.ca doesn’t automatically mean you’re getting pricing advice, negotiation support, or full representation — it can be valuable exposure that leaves most of the actual work and responsibility with you.
Following my old California playbook word for word in a completely different market would be like using a Los Angeles road map to find a coffee shop in Quebec. You might eventually get somewhere. Not before annoying everyone else in the car first.
FSBO isn’t an all-or-nothing decision
The biggest misconception about selling without a traditional agent is that there are only two options: pay for full traditional representation, or do absolutely everything alone. That was never really true, in my case or anyone else’s. I hired an attorney because I wanted someone qualified to negotiate and protect my interests. I leaned on the title company for the technical work. I found the buyer and ran the sale — and I paid for expertise where I believed it mattered.
You can take the same approach today. A private seller might hire any mix of a professional photographer, an appraiser or pricing consultant, a home inspector, a real estate lawyer, a staging consultant, a flat-fee listing service, someone to review offers, an agent for negotiation or transaction support, or a full-service representative on a fixed or reduced fee. There’s no trophy for doing every single task yourself. Nobody hands you a merit badge for taking listing photos in bad lighting or drafting legal clauses after a six-minute video tutorial.
The goal isn’t to prove you can sell a house with zero assistance. It’s to control your costs while getting enough qualified help to close the transaction properly.
What hasn’t changed since 1997
Even with better tools and more service options, a private seller still has to solve the same base problems.
Pricing the home. This is where emotion gets expensive. Homeowners know every improvement they made, every repair they paid for, every Saturday they sacrificed to keep the lawn alive. Buyers don’t care. They compare your property against other available homes and recent sales. A seller who prices by personal memories instead of market evidence can spend months wondering why nobody appreciates the emotional significance of the imported kitchen faucet.
Preparing the property. You’re competing against homes represented by people who know staging, photography, listing descriptions, and buyer psychology. A sign in the yard and a prayer aren’t a marketing plan. The home has to be clean, easy to access, and presented in a way that helps buyers picture their own life in it.
Handling inquiries and showings. Some will be serious. Others will come from curious neighbors, recreational house-browsers, and people who open every negotiation by offering about the value of your garden shed. You have to answer questions, screen interest, arrange access, and follow up without losing your temper — or at least not visibly.
Negotiating with a clear head. Negotiating your own home is different from haggling over a TV or a used car. The numbers are bigger, the conditions matter, and your emotional attachment keeps reaching for the pen. Almost everything is negotiable, including the price and structure of the professional services you hire during a sale — that includes the buyer’s offer. The highest price isn’t always the best offer if it comes with weak financing, awkward conditions, or a closing date that becomes its own expensive problem.
Managing the paperwork and closing. Finding a willing buyer is only half the job. The agreement, disclosures, deposit, conditions, inspections, financing, and the closing itself all have to be handled correctly, and the exact process depends on your jurisdiction. That’s why I used an attorney in 1997, and why I’d bring in the right legal professional again. Saving money is good. Saving money by signing documents you don’t understand is quietly worse.
Who should consider it — and who probably shouldn’t
I’d seriously consider going the private-sale route again if: I had the time to manage the process, understood my local market, could get reliable pricing information, was comfortable talking directly to buyers, could stay objective in a negotiation, had access to solid legal help, was willing to pay separately for photography or listing exposure when needed, the property and ownership situation were reasonably straightforward, and the potential savings actually justified the effort and risk. And if I already had a likely buyer in mind, the decision gets easier still — I’d be paying a large percentage of the sale price mostly for marketing services I might not need.
I’d lean toward hiring real representation instead if: I had little time to manage inquiries and showings, the property was hard to price, the sale involved tenants, an estate, multiple owners, or unusual legal issues, I was buying another home at the same time, the market was moving fast, I expected multiple offers with meaningfully different conditions, I was uncomfortable negotiating, a failed transaction would have serious financial consequences, or the professional couldn’t clearly explain what was being provided and why it was worth the fee. There are excellent real estate professionals, and there are mediocre ones. The license doesn’t tell you which one is standing in front of you — so do the homework either way: interview a few, compare what each includes, ask who does each specific task, read the contract, and negotiate the compensation. The worst arrangement isn’t necessarily paying an agent. The worst is paying a large fee without knowing what you’re buying.
FAQ
Does “for sale by owner” mean I can’t hire any professionals? No. You can hire photographers, appraisers, lawyers, staging consultants, or a flat-fee listing service and still be a private seller. You’re just paying for pieces instead of a full percentage commission.
Is it smarter to sell without an agent now that technology has changed? Technology makes it easier to find and contact buyers, but it also raises expectations for how your listing looks. If you can match the presentation standard — photos, floor plans, clean and accessible showings — the extra tools work in your favor. If you can’t, a weak listing shows up worse next to the professional ones around it.
What’s the one mistake that most undoes a private sale? Pricing by memory instead of market evidence. Buyers compare your home to the other listings and recent sales in your area. Emotion about the houses you’ve lived in is not something they can see — or pay for.
A note from Ava
My 1997 take on this hasn’t changed so much as it’s matured. If you have the time, temperament, and ability to manage a sale, don’t assume a traditional percentage commission is your only responsible option. But doing it yourself doesn’t mean doing it blindly, cheaply, or completely alone — that’s just an expensive way to reinvent the things an agent would have handled. The real question is the same in any market: what work needs to be done, who’s best qualified to do it, and what is that work actually worth? It’s your house, after all. More importantly, it’s your money.
