You've decided that as a seller, you can do some of the tasks of selling your own home but you'll need a professional to handle the balance. But what guidelines can you use to calculate what your share of effort is worth and how to negotiate fair compensation with the professional?

While each agent/consultant may have his or her own cost breakdown as a reflection of an individual business plan, there are several ways you can unbundle the costs involved to pay only for what you receive;

1) As a percentage or portion of the whole: For example, lets say that it appears you'll be able to perform one quarter of the activities typically provided by the agent. Successful negotiation with the agent/consultant could result in fee savings of as much as 25%.

2) On an hourly or flat fee: While this method can require a bit more record keeping to implement fairly, it may allow you to easily obtain add-on services from the agent/consultant that you later find you need. These could include help in preparing to execute your portion of the transaction and/or a few more question and answer sessions making sure you're headed in the proper direction on what you undertake.

3) Based on the level of expertise required for the task: It makes sense that activities performed by the agent/consultant requiring a higher level of expertise should be worth more to you than those you might easily duplicate yourself. In general, if you need to trim costs in what you pay, preserving as many of the higher-level specialty tasks the agent would provide is your best protection. These could include negotiating, advocating, and interpreting information on your behalf.

4) Based on the length of the task: All elements equal, the longer the task takes to complete, the more you'll be required to pay. That's why it often makes sense to compensate tasks of a long term using percentage fees, flat fees, or combinations thereof. Before heading into strong-arm negotiating with the agent/consultant, keep these rules of thumb in mind:

Some components of the home sale are best not unbundled: Just like taking a car engine apart expecting the reassemble to make perfect sense, there are portions of the transaction that become difficult and dangerous to segment into individual tasks. You may find yourself agreeing to perform all home showings only to realize that one showing leads you into negotiating with an eager buyer. Since there are very few home selling activities that don't overlap with another, you may find yourself having to tackle something you're ill-prepared or uncomfortable handling.

If you unbundle too many parts of the sale and pay separately for each that you need, make sure the total you pay doesn't exceed the whole! This can happen if you're unsure on what exactly what you're capable of doing on your own, only to find that it's less than you anticipated. Having the option to switch back to a more consumer-friendly fee structure and/or obtain full-service assistance if necessary is a plus.

The empowerment available today to home seller's is a real plus. You have greater control of the transaction plus the ability to contribute what you can to minimize cost. Just make sure, in the words of Ben Franklin, that you don't become “penny-wise and pound-foolish” in the process.

Published: October 23, 2000

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Julie Garton-Good, DREI “The Frugal HomeOwner™” As a syndicated newspaper columnist, author and international speaker, Julie Garton-Good DREI, C-CREC™, is called “America’s Home Affordability Expert”, addressing more than 25,000 persons annually on topics of real estate industry trends and home affordability. She is the author of five real estate books and is the sole two-time recipient of the international "Real Estate Educator of the Year" award from the Real Estate Educators Association. In 1997, The National Association of Realtors® nominated Julie as one of the fifty most influential people in the real estate industry. She shared the list with only three other women.