You're one of the hundreds of thousands of Americans with a sign in your yard that says "For Sale By Owner". You don't want to pay someone else to do what you can very well accomplish yourself, and in today's housing market, every penny you can squeeze out of your artificially deflated property is important. And contrary to popular belief, having a FSBO sign in your yard isn't a plea for help from the local realtor association.

You've probably heard it over and over again from every realtor who can get you to stop and listen for 30 seconds: the average FSBO home sale is for 16% less than an equivalent home through a qualified realtor professional. 16% is a lot of money when you're talking about a $100,000 home. And when you get up into the $300,000 and $400,000 range it really adds up. We're talking over $50,000, which is a lot of money for the vast majority of Americans.

So based on that, only an ignorant fool would pursue a FSBO and give away the 10% difference that a 6% commission would net them, right? Well, not exactly. Let's take a quick look at the claim and the supporting data (or lack thereof) and see who the real fool is.

First, as an exercise in confidence, go out and try to find the data to back up the 16% on the realtor dot org website. Don't spend too much time though, because you won't find it. It's not there, and no one will be able to tell you where it's located. That in itself should raise some red flags in your head. Anytime someone isn't running after you waving data in their hands, they probably having something to hide. If I want to sell you something and have data to back up my claims, I want you to see it so the product will sell itself. Hiding it would not be in my best interest.

The next thing you should carefully scrutinize is the language that the NAR uses. They make their claim based on the median, not the mean. In the mathematical world, median is not the same as average. Mean is the average, median is the middle number on an ordered list. For example, the median of 1, 10, and 50 is the number 10. The mean, or average, is 20. Very different numbers with very different meanings.

So the moral of this story is, don't take everything that a realtor tells you at face value, and don't believe statistics or figures without looking at the data for yourself. The only person with your best interests in mind is you.