Skipping the Realtor

Jamie and Judy Davidson are typical of a growing number of homeowners who want to sell a home but don't want to pay high brokerage commission fees.

So instead of listing their Lehi home through a real estate agent, the Davidsons placed a "for sale by owner" sign in their front yard.

For those who bypass an agent, the savings can be enormous. According to Bankrate.com, the average brokerage commission fee last year ranged from 5 percent to 7 percent, or $9,000 on a typical home. A recent report by the National Association of Realtors indicates that 17 percent of U.S. home sellers in 2003 sold their home without the assistance of an agent, up from 13 percent in 2001.

And in coming years, the number of independent sellers will climb, according to Colby Sambrotto, chief operating officer of ForSaleByOwner.com, a Manhattan-based company dedicated to cutting out the middleman.

"The vast majority of our users use our service because they don't have to pay a 6 percent commission," Sambrotto said. "People understand that's an enormous amount of money. They want to save that money, so they're giving us a shot."

A Web listing on ForSaleByOwner.com can cost anywhere from $80 to $700. Buyers and sellers on the site are put in direct contact with each other.

For the Davidsons, who put their home up for sale in March and have not listed their property on a Web site, the response has been mixed. The family has hosted two open houses. Only one person showed at each event. One offer was recently made on the home, but the Davidsons rejected it for being too low.

"We've probably had 10 to 12 people come through. It's difficult in the fact of continually keeping up the house," said Judy Davidson. "I'll have people just stop by and say, 'Can we walk through?' And so I'm continually making sure that the house is kept up, and so that for me is the hardest part."

The Davidsons have done what most independent sellers do — put a sign up and post fliers around town. Yet unless a homeowner lives in a sellers' market — where the number of buyers seeking homes exceeds the available inventory — independent sellers must do more.

"An important aspect of things is putting a sign out," Sambrotto said. "But you need to bolster that with a kind of well-thought-out strategy in regard to marketing that home. That's what Realtors do."

For some, selling a home can be surprisingly easy.

Ray Child sold his Sandy home in less than two months.