We have seen some dirty tricks played by housing agent in dealing with property transaction recently in local newspaper. I am not surprise as I have experienced before, and nearly fall into such trap. One should not believe totally what the agent said, therefore should verify truthfulness of their claims all the time.
As a seller to protect our full interest, I decided to market and sell my property in mid of 2008 on my own without engaged an agent . It was a great experience rewarded with saving in agent fees of 1-2%. We started with advertising (newspaper & online property web portal) , showing buyer around , negotiate a deal , engaging lawyer and closing the deal all on our own. The whole process cost us less than $100 (mainly in newspaper advertising) . I know my property better than any agent , I deal directly with potential buyer , I shared with them openly. More importantly, I give my full attention on this deal; rather depend on some agent which has many other properties on hand or other agenda.
Both myself and wify are not in sale&market portfolio. Yet , we managed to so it without any problems. Seller out there, pls DIY. As a potential buyer, I prefer to deal direct with you too to achieve win-win deal.