Selling your home by yourself, without the help of a realtor, has several pros and cons. The greatest advantage is with regard to overall cost, but there are some drawbacks in the areas of convenience and initial expense. Here is a full list of pros and cons involved in selling your home by yourself.

PROS

1. A large commission (usually six or seven percent) won’t have to be paid to a realtor when the home sells. This can produce savings in the thousands of dollars. If a seller spends $500 dollars to advertise his $425,000 residence, selling it will have cost him $25,000 less than a six-percent realtor’s commission.

2. The seller has complete control of where and how often the home is marketed to potential buyers. Realtors have to spend time and money advertising a large number of homes, so they don’t always put sufficient effort into promoting each property. They also might not use the best photos or wording to describe your home.

3. There is a possibility of selling the property yourself by using free or very inexpensive promotional methods, such as internet classified listings, advertisements on local bulletin boards, “word of mouth” about the home being for sale, or promotional signs around your residence.

CONS

1. Selling your home yourself is more time-consuming. Sellers must spend time answering phone calls, showing the house to potential buyers, responding to e-mail inquiries, photographing the property, obtaining necessary forms, and preparing real estate advertisements.

2. The selling expenses are lost if the property fails to sell or you decide not to sell it. These expenses include the cost of newspaper or internet advertising, “for sale” signs, photography supplies, and telephone calls. If you don’t already own this equipment, it will probably be necessary to purchase a quality camera, answering machine, and printer.

3. Some potential buyers are reluctant to consider purchasing homes which are offered for sale by owner. Others may only look at real estate advertising materials which realtors exclusively advertise in, remaining unaware that you are selling your home.

Basically, the pros of selling your home by yourself are that it lets you choose how to advertise it and can reduce costs significantly. The cons are that it has greater up-front costs and takes more time than using a real estate agent. The pros outweigh the cons more when the price of the home is greater, due to the higher commission a realtor would receive for selling it.