The Real Estate Professor — Free Tools
Commission Savings Calculator
The easy math the industry hopes you never run
On a typical sale, the commission is the single largest fee you'll ever pay for a service — and most sellers never actually run the number. So let's run it. Enter your expected sale price and compare the traditional route against the system I've used for years: a flat-fee MLS listing, a professional pre-appraisal, a real estate attorney at closing, and — if you choose — a buyer's-agent "lifeline" that keeps agent traffic coming to your door.
The honest version of FSBO
Notice this isn't "pay nobody." It's stop paying for what you can do yourself, and keep paying for what brings buyers. The flat-fee listing puts your home on the same MLS every agent uses — it feeds Zillow and every major portal. One warning from experience: read the fine print, because some flat-fee companies post an extra fee at settlement — I've seen an additional 1 percent hiding on a closing statement. Ask before you sign.
The lifeline is strategy, not charity. Since the law changed, sellers no longer automatically pay the buyer's agent — which puts those agents under tremendous pressure to ask someone they just met to pay for their services. Offering 2 to 2.5 percent, stated right in your marketing, removes that awkwardness and maximizes your showings. Set it to zero in a hot market and see the difference; that's a strategic decision, not a default.