For sale by owner: Homeowners ditching brokers

From CNN Money:

Bolstered by the housing recovery, a growing number of homeowners are going it alone when selling their homes hoping to save thousands of dollars in commissions.

The hot housing market in Cambridge, Mass., gave Jon LaRosa the confidence to sell his condo on his own. So in late May, the 34-year-old freelance IT worker listed it for $429,000 on ForSaleByOwner.com and scheduled an open house for the weekend.

"I figured that even if I sold it for $5,000 less... I was still making out well," he said.  In the next week or so, more than 100 people came to see the place. LaRosa received 7 offers and sold for $450,000, closing the deal by mid-July...

Sellers say they also go it alone because they want more control of the deal. Tara and Brent Anderson didn't want to rush the sale of their three-bedroom Dallas home, which they listed for $500,000.

"Real estate agents are willing to take a lower price to make a quick sale, but that would cost me a lot of money," said Tara.

A study by Stanford University economists Douglas Bernheim and Jonathan Meer supports the Andersons' concern.  They found that homes on campus using real estate brokers sold for 5.9% to 7.7% less than homes sold without brokers. The National Association of Realtors, however, maintains that homes sold using agents usually fetch much higher prices....
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Link: http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/11/real_estate/for-sale-by-owner/