'For Sale By Owner' sellers come out ahead financially

From the New York Times, an interesting study from two Northwestern University economists on the financial returns of selling your home yourself (FSBO) or by using a Realtor. My favorite part is the totally backwards logic - that if you "buy" a house from a Realtor, your getting robbed:

"We're trying to tell the public that they pay 16 percent more if they use us?" said an exasperated David K. Stark, owner of the Stark Company, one of Madison's largest real estate firms, when asked about the national association's claims. If that were true, he said, all buyers should shop FSBO."

More from the article:

The conclusion, in a study to be released today based on home-sales data from 1998 to 2004 in Madison, Wis., is that people in that city who sold their homes through real estate agents typically did not get a higher sale price than people who sold their homes themselves. When the agent’s commission is factored in, the for-sale-by-owner people came out ahead financially.

Read the article at NYT.

Dowload the Economists Report. PDF document.

Posted at June 8, 2007 05:05 PM

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