ISO: A Sale Without an Agent

According to published reports, Craigslist's is expanding its user base by 100 percent a year. Every month, the site claims 2 billion hits and boasts up to 4 million classifieds.

Susan Minsek of Silver Spring started off selling furniture on Craigslist this spring.

After unloading her antique piano, leather loveseat, Scan dining room set and other items for a total of $3,000, Minsek decided to just go ahead and list her townhouse, too. Recently married, she was selling her home to relocate with her husband to Virginia.

"Nice, normal people use Craigslist," Minsek said. "It just made sense to list the house there. I don't want to pay commission for something I can do myself."

A FSBO Tradition

Sellers have always tried to bypass agent's commissions by selling their own properties. According to the National Association of Realtors, the number of for-sale-by-owner transactions nationwide has been 13 percent to 15 percent for the past decade.

"It certainly hasn't been increasing, and we believe it may actually be decreasing," said Iverson Moore, an association spokesman. He said FSBOs may be able to use the Internet to more effectively market their properties, but they still face problems when they attempt to sell without professional help, including identifying qualified buyers and negotiating legalities.

"The Internet is a fantastic marketing tool, and no one has embraced it more than Realtors," he said. The association's Realtor.com, which lists properties for sale by real estate agents, is the granddaddy of real estate sites. According to recent association figures, about 7.29 million people browse through its listings each month.

Realtor-operated sites have long dominated the Web, and they were closed to FSBOs. Web sites featuring FSBO properties have been around for years, but they have generated relatively little interest from buyers or sellers.

Another hurdle was that it was difficult for owners to determine a fair asking price for their homes because they didn't have access to comparable sales, or comps, the listings of properties that recently sold in the same neighborhood.

Now, however, owners can find information about comparable sales from public records on the Internet. And for a fee they can arrange to have their properties listed on the multiple listing service, which can easily be accessed by would-be buyers. Meanwhile, sites such as Craigslist.org and Owners.com have picked up in popularity.

Owners concede that an Internet listing, even on a popular site, is no guarantee that a property will sell promptly -- even in a hot market.

Minsek held an open house on the July 4th weekend, filling bowls with popcorn and setting out a fresh orchid. She'd had the carpets professionally shampooed and the whole townhouse scrubbed by a cleaning service, following advice she had gleaned from a do-it-yourself book. Just 10 people came by the first day, and three the second. The only one really interested in buying was encumbered by a complicated financial contingency that Minsek worried wouldn't work.