Russ, I don't necessarily disagree with your comments and I have considered strategies along the lines of marketing it at a lower price (without an agent) to account for the commission. However, I think to go completely FISBO where no commission is offered to the buyer's agent is quite risky in this market. There just aren't that many buyers out there and most who are are working through Realtors. If you exclude them from the pool of potential buyers, you end up with slim pickings in terms of what is left. There is also the issue of completely missing out of some of the key marketing tools/web sites that are available only to Realtors.
The alternative is to go semi-FSBO and give the buyer's agent their due and save on the listing agent's commission. In our area that only amounts to a 2.5% savings. While still a fair amount of money, I'm not sure lowering the price by 2.5% is enough to compensate for the marketing knowledge, contacts and "comfort factor" that both the seller and other agents have in dealing with a Realtor on the selling side rather than a novice. I'd be interested to compare success of those who go FSBO versus multiple listing.
As far as pricing is concerned, there is no science to this and I personally don't think that an agent can do that much better than someone who spends a bit of time scoping out comparable houses on the market as well as recent sales. Much of this data is available. However, this is still very imprecise and is very difficult to get a firm price when every house is different and where the pool of buyers at any given time can vary considerably - not to mention external factors like the economy and Wall St.
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