The appeal is easy to understand. Buy or sell a home without a real-estate agent, the thinking goes, and you can avoid commissions, reduce friction and keep control of the deal.
But “going it alone” rarely removes the professional from the transaction. More often, it changes who does the work, and who takes the risk.
Selling a home is more than shaking hands on a price. It’s contracts and disclosures, title searches and inspections, financing deadlines, appraisal disputes and local laws. Usually an agent will help a client price a property, review offers and negotiate terms, along with dealing with many of these moving parts. If you do not have an agent, the seller or buyer will have to do those things themselves, or hire lawyers, inspectors, appraisers and transaction coordinators separately.
The savings aren’t as certain as they seem either. The median price for those “for sale by owner” properties was $380,000 compared to $435,000 for agent-assisted sales. That comparison doesn’t demonstrate agents cause higher prices. Homes sold without agents can vary in location, condition and seller circumstances. But it does challenge the assumption that the best financial result will always come from removing an agent.
For buyers, going without an agent doesn’t mean going without representation. The seller may still have an agent, but the legal and practical duties of an agent generally run to the seller. In that case, the buyer without representation could be negotiating against someone who knows price, contract language and what is important to the seller. A buyer can also hire a real-estate attorney or other adviser, but that’s not free, and an attorney may not provide the same market analysis, property search or negotiation services as an agent.
That’s the thing. Skipping the Realtor doesn’t mean skipping the expertise. You can decide to manage the expertise yourself, buy it a la carte or do without. That can make sense if you are a sophisticated seller with a buyer in hand or a very experienced investor.