"Does it Pay to Sell with a Broker?: Realtors tout a survey's results that suggest folks who 'go it alone' lose much more than they save"

In his article, "Does it Pay to Sell with a Broker," Lew Sichelman of the United Feature Syndicate reports that "it seems that in their desire to save the 5-7% fee that real estate brokers charge for their services, for-sale-by-owner houses earn 16% less than comparable homes that are listed with an experienced agent, according to a survey by the National Association of Realtors, NAR."

However, Colby Sambrotto, owner of ForSaleByOwner.com, argues against that figure, stating "it just doesn't jibe with [their] experience." Despite the fact that they haven't put together a big study like NARs', they have asked all of their sellers if they were successful, and 65% say they were. And in asking if they sold at or near their asking price, 85% say they do.

Sichelman reports that the NAR which has 1.2 million members, says it has research to back up its claim. In what it calls the "largest and most authoritative" survey ever about how people buy and sell houses, ,a pol of 7,813 recent buyers and sellers located through county deed records found that the median price achieved by sellers withagents was $230,00 versus $198,200 for sellers without agents.

Furthermore, reserach by two University of Texas-San Antonio instructors found sellers realize little net gain when they turn to limited-service agents to perform som eof the tasks needed to bring a contract to closing. the study found limited-service listings sold for 1.7% less than a full-service listing, and took 17.1% longer to sell.

Sichelman points to lack of proper marketing, improper pricing, and effect of the "missing 10%." Agents aren't always right. Indeed, they can misread the market too. But with the ability to determine the contract prices of the most recent, up-to-the-minute sales of houses that are similar to yours, they have a sense of the marekte that nonprofessionals simply cannot match.