Why Selling on Your Own Could Cost You More

By Mark Callender

Hello, my name is Mark Callender and I am a licensed real estate agent with RE/MAX Results. Because I have been helping families buy and sell their homes for more than 18 years, I am now helping their children to buy their first homes and their parents to downsize. No matter the direction you’re moving, my goal is to make the process as calm and enjoyable as it can be.

One of the biggest mistakes we see home sellers make right now is focusing so much on saving a small amount upfront that they end up losing significantly more on the final sale price. It’s stepping over dollars to pick up dimes, and it shows up in a few different ways.

It might be a seller going the for-sale-by-owner route to avoid paying a commission, or skipping the prep work that makes a home show well, or pricing the property too high because a Zillow estimate said the home was worth more than it actually is in today’s market.

Each of these moves feels like it’s saving money at the moment, but when the home sits longer, attracts fewer showings, or sells below what it should have, the math tells a very different story.

The real goal is what you net, not what you skip. The commission, the prep costs, the time spent getting the pricing and marketing right, those aren’t expenses that shrink your profit. When they’re done correctly, they’re investments that grow it. The right pricing, the right marketing, strong negotiation, and a solid launch strategy are what put the most money in your pocket in the shortest amount of time. Sellers who understand that are the ones winning in the Twin Cities market right now.

What we’re seeing with FSBO (For-Sale-By-Owner) sellers. We recently sat down with a for-sale-by-owner seller who was genuinely frustrated. They weren’t getting showings, they didn’t have a clear sense of where to price the property, and the guidance they’d been piecing together from Google and Zillow wasn’t giving them the full picture. They were doing their best with the information they had, but without the right strategy behind the listing, the home was just sitting there while they continued carrying the costs of owning it.

We see it play out the same way more often than you’d think. A seller tries to save by handling it themselves, and after weeks or months of little to no traction, the home ends up selling for less than it would have with the right agent, the right pricing, and the right exposure from day one. The commission they were trying to avoid ends up looking small compared to what they left behind on the final number.

If you’re thinking about selling in the Twin Cities and want to make sure you’re protecting your biggest asset, we’d love to help you build a strategy to do so. We can walk you through what your home is actually worth in today’s market, what updates are worth making before you list, and how to position the property so it attracts strong offers quickly.

Watch our video above for the full breakdown. You can reach out anytime at 612-961-9448, email us at mark@markcallenderhomes.com, or visit callenderhometeam.results.net. We’re happy to talk through what makes the most sense for your situation.