[ouma1938]

Hi, I am a Realtor in South Carolina and prior to becoming an agent sold and bought my own homes as FSBO's and with an agency. The flat fee service can certainly work, especially in strong market however when there is so much inventory out there the buyer has the upper hand and as others have said they will know, or think they know, what you are saving and want a much bigger reduction in price. If you do want to go that way there are places that you can list your home on your own. www.point2.com is one, zillow. com is another, frontpage.com, craigslist of course and others. They don't give you the full exposure an agency mls listing will but they do get your property out there. The other thing you can do is negotiate with the agency of your choice and see if you can't get a lower commission rate. That however can also cause problems and the agents from other companies tend to show you house only in a pinch as they know that their commission will be greatly lowered. IMHO, and I may be biased of course, but I think that as a general rule a good agent will get you exposure and market creatively into many forums. We tend to work extremly hard for our clients. Going for a flat fee agreement might save you a percentage point or 2 but in the end you will be better off. Again IMHO and from an agents point of view. Good luck whichever way you go. Oh by the way I am trying to sell my house in a terribly tough market here and even though we haven't sold yet, we have had many lookers and a fair amount of interest. Something will come through I know and I also truly believe that if I were not listing my home with an agency, albeit my agency and broker, we would not have had so much traffic. Hope to meet you in TV when we both sell our homes!!