How to Sell a House Without a Realtor: Commissions After the NAR Settlement

Two things have changed the "with or without an agent" question since 2024. The NAR settlement ended the practice of offering the buyer's agent a commission through the MLS, so a seller now decides separately what to pay each side. And the 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers counts sellers who go it alone at a record low and names what they struggled with. This guide explains what the settlement did and did not do, walks through a for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) sale step by step, puts the flat-fee route beside both, and shows in a Los Angeles example where the money moves. Transfer taxes, title, escrow and the mortgage payoff are worked through in the selling costs and net proceeds guide; this article is about the representation decision.

What the NAR settlement changed for sellers, and what it left alone

The practice changes that came out of NAR's settlement of the commission class actions took effect on August 17, 2024¹. Four of them matter to a seller:

• Offers of compensation to a buyer's broker can no longer be published on the MLS; they may still be made off the MLS¹.
• A buyer has to have a signed written agreement with their agent before any home tour¹.
• Listing agreements must carry a conspicuous disclosure that compensation is not set by law and is fully negotiable¹.
• Seller concessions, such as a contribution toward the buyer's closing costs, may still be communicated on the MLS¹.

What the settlement did not do: set, cap or abolish any rate¹. It changed where the number is written and who agrees to it. A seller therefore makes two decisions instead of one: what to pay the listing broker, and whether to offer anything toward the buyer's side, either as buyer-broker compensation negotiated off the MLS and approved in writing in advance, with the amount or rate stated, or as a concession the buyer can apply to their own agent². A seller who offers nothing leaves the buyer to pay their agent under the agreement the buyer signed¹.

Where commissions "stand" in 2026 is consequently not a national figure; any average you read online is one company's survey of its own transactions. What you can observe is local: ask three listing agents for written proposals, and ask each what buyers' agents in your area have been requesting in purchase offers since the change.

Full-service agent: what the fee buys and what it does not

A record 91 percent of sellers used an agent in the 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, which covers transactions between July 2024 and June 2025³⁴. What they bought: a comparative market analysis and a pricing recommendation; MLS entry and syndication to the portals; photography, staging advice and showings; the negotiation of offers, inspection repairs and appraisal problems; the disclosure and contract paperwork; and a licensed professional who is answerable for the advice.

What the fee does not buy is a guarantee of price. The pricing recommendation is an opinion prepared under the agent's ethics rules: REALTORS® may not deliberately mislead an owner about market value when trying to secure a listing, and whoever prepares an opinion of price must know the type of property and the area and have the information needed for an accurate opinion, or say in advance that they do not⁵. Neither rule obliges the agent to show you the comparables in a listing pitch; ask for them anyway and set them against a range you obtained independently. The pricing strategy guide explains how to read a comparative market analysis that was built to win the listing rather than to sell the house.

How to sell a house without a realtor, step by step

Price from closed sales, not from a portal estimate

The buyer's appraiser will need three or more closed sales of similar homes, as a rule no older than 12 months and drawn from the same market area⁶. Without an agent, that evidence is yours to assemble: closed sales from the recorder's office or the sold listings on a portal, adjusted for size, condition and features, with the list price set inside the range they support. Half of the FSBO story is decided here.

Get onto the MLS and the portals

Most buyers' agents search the MLS, and the large portals draw their listings from it. A private seller cannot enter the MLS directly; the usual route is a flat-fee MLS service, a licensed broker who enters your listing for a fixed price and does nothing else. Hire a photographer, put up a sign, and describe the house rather than the buyer you imagine, for reasons the next step explains.

Deliver the disclosures your state requires

No agent does not mean no forms. In California the seller of a home must deliver the Real Estate Transfer Disclosure Statement, the statutory form on which the seller reports what they know about the property, prescribed by Civil Code § 1102.6⁷, and a Natural Hazard Disclosure Statement identifying whether the property lies in a designated flood, dam inundation, fire, earthquake fault or seismic hazard zone⁸. Other states have their own statutory notices, published by the state real estate commission. Undisclosed defects are the most common source of claims against sellers after closing, and the forms protect you as much as the buyer.

Advertise within the Fair Housing Act

The Fair Housing Act makes it unlawful to make, print or publish any notice, statement or advertisement for the sale of a dwelling that indicates a preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin⁹. The Act exempts some owner sales of single-family houses from its other provisions, but that exemption expressly leaves the advertising clause in force, so a private seller's ad is bound exactly as a broker's is¹⁰. Describe the property ("three bedrooms, fenced yard, ten minutes to the light rail"), never the household you picture in it.

Contract, escrow or attorney, closing

Use your state's standard purchase agreement, which the flat-fee broker or a real estate attorney can supply. Open escrow with a title or escrow company, or retain an attorney where your state requires one to conduct the closing. Order the payoff statement, answer the inspection and the appraisal, and sign. The settlement statement looks the same whether an agent was involved or not.

Flat-fee MLS and discount brokers: the middle path

Between full service and going alone sit two models. A flat-fee MLS service charges a fixed amount for MLS entry and portal syndication, and you do everything else. A discount brokerage charges a reduced fee or a lower percentage for a defined bundle (MLS, photos, contract paperwork, sometimes negotiation) with showings and pricing largely left to you. Under the settlement rules both let you decide separately whether to offer a concession to the buyer, which can still appear on the MLS¹, or to negotiate buyer-broker compensation off the MLS².

The last row is where many FSBO sales actually happen: the most common motivations to sell by owner in the 2025 Profile were a sale to a friend or relative and the wish to avoid an agent's fee⁴. If you have your buyer, the MLS question falls away and the pricing question becomes the whole job, because there is no market to correct you.

The pricing problem: why FSBO homes sell for less

The 2025 Profile reports a median FSBO sale price of $360,000 against $425,000 for agent-assisted sales; FSBO sellers most often said they struggled with pricing their home, preparing it for sale and selling within their desired timeframe, and 40 percent did not actively market the house at all⁴. Part of the gap is the houses themselves: NAR notes that FSBO sales more often involve lower-cost mobile homes and rural properties⁴. Part of it is pricing. A house priced from a portal estimate or a neighbor's asking price is either too high and cut after weeks of silence, or too low and gone in a weekend at a number nobody tested. Both mistakes are visible only afterwards.

The remedy is the evidence the appraiser will use anyway⁶: three to six closed sales, adjusted, with a range. An unrepresented seller needs it for a second purpose. Every buyer's agent who calls will have a comparative market analysis in hand, prepared for a client whose interest is a lower price. A seller who can answer with adjusted comparables negotiates; a seller who cannot, concedes. Timing sits beside price: the when to sell guide shows how the season and the local price index move the days on market you should expect.

Three routes for one Los Angeles sale: where the money moves (hypothetical figures)

Take a hypothetical house that sells for $945,000, just under the Los Angeles County median of $946,950 in August 2026¹¹. The table shows only the lines that differ between the routes; transfer taxes, title, escrow and the mortgage payoff are identical on all three. Every fee below is an illustrative assumption, not a quote.

Read the table from right to left. The FSBO column is cheap because the buyer arrived without an agent and without a market: the number both sides agree on is never tested by anyone else, which is why the value evidence matters most in exactly this column. The flat-fee column saves the listing fee, $23,625 at this price, less about $2,250 of services you now buy separately; it saves nothing on the buyer's side, because most buyers still arrive with an agent who expects a concession. Against every saving stands the price risk: the gap between the FSBO and agent-assisted medians in the 2025 Profile was $65,000⁴, and even if only a fraction of it is pricing rather than the mix of houses, it is of the same order as the fee you are saving.

What CheckValue gives a seller without an agent

The document a seller without an agent lacks is the comparative market analysis, and the pricing half of it can be replaced. CheckValue's report is an AI valuation of the address with a numbered list of the official sources behind it, calculated in about two minutes after the free on-screen preview and delivered as a page and a PDF you can share by link. Three parts do the work in a sale without an agent:

• the point value and the range, with the comparable sales behind them, which is what you set the list price inside and what you hand a buyer's agent who arrives with a low comparative market analysis;
• the price per square foot next to the district average, the first thing a buyer's agent will quote at you;
• the market tempo for the area, which tells you how many days on market to expect before a price is wrong, alongside the selling costs and net proceeds the report estimates for that value.

What it is not: a licensed appraisal, and it replaces neither the appraisal the buyer's lender orders nor the disclosures the law requires of you. The free preview for your address shows the layout before you pay; agents who run many listings can put their letterhead on the PDF with the Pro plan on the pricing page, and the pre-listing valuation report guide shows how the same report is used in listing presentations.

Legal minimums: disclosures, attorney states, Fair Housing, wire fraud and taxes

Selling without a broker removes the broker's duties, not yours.

Disclosures. The statutory forms are the seller's obligation whoever markets the house; find your state's notices before you list, not after the offer.

Attorney states. Some states require an attorney to conduct or review the closing; others leave it to title and escrow companies. A local title company will tell you which applies, and in a FSBO sale a contract review by a real estate attorney is cheap insurance in every state.

Fair Housing. The advertising clause covers the ad, the listing text and any statement about who you would prefer to sell to⁹. Judge offers on price, terms and financing, and keep a written record of why you chose one.

Wire fraud. Escrow will give you wiring instructions once, in person or through its secure portal. Treat any email that changes them as fraud until you have confirmed by telephone on a number you already had, and warn your buyer to do the same.

Taxes. The tax treatment is identical with or without an agent. Gain on a home you owned and used as your main residence for at least 24 months of the five years ending on the sale date can be excluded up to $250,000, or $500,000 for a married couple filing jointly, and selling expenses such as commissions, flat listing fees, advertising and legal fees come off the selling price to reach the amount realized in the same way¹². Whatever route you take, keep the closing statement and the invoices.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Figures and rules carry the year they were published; check the cited source for the current version.

Josef Eckmair MBA

Co-founder, CheckValue · Managing director, CBDNOL GmbH · More than 20 years in real estate in Tenerife and Austria · Reviewed by Christian Eckmair

Josef Eckmair MBA is co-founder of CheckValue and managing director of CBDNOL GmbH (Ansfelden, Austria). He has more than 20 years of real estate experience in Tenerife and Austria and writes about appraisals, taxes, selling costs and valuations for professionals.

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