Why Pay Commission?
See How To Sell Your House Fast Without A Realtor
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Selling your house without a realtor is legal in Texas, plenty of people do it, and the reason is simple: on a $300,000 sale, a 6% commission is $18,000. Keeping that money is a real motivation.
What the commission actually buys is work. Pricing, prep, photos, marketing, showings, negotiation, paperwork, and a closing. Sell without an agent and all of that lands on you. This guide walks through the whole job: the steps, what it costs compared to listing with an agent, the paperwork Texas requires, and a third option most sellers don’t know they have, which is skipping the listing entirely and selling directly to a local buyer. We’ve been buying San Antonio houses for cash since 2011, so that last part is what we know best, and we’ll be plain about when it makes sense and when it doesn’t.
Here’s the job, start to finish.
This is where most FSBO sales go wrong before they start. Overprice it and the house sits. Underprice it and you hand back the money you were trying to save. Houses sold by owner tend to do one or the other.
The online estimate tools are a starting point, but they can miss badly, especially on a house that needs work. To get a number you can trust, pay for an appraisal, or get an actual cash offer from a real local buyer. An offer costs nothing and it’s a real number from someone prepared to perform on it.
Buyers form an opinion in the first minute, so the prep work matters. Declutter first, and take out the personal stuff (family photos, memorabilia) so a buyer can picture themselves in the space. A professional deep clean gets the baseboards, windowsills, and ceiling fans you stopped noticing years ago. Pay attention to smell too. Every house has one, from cooking or pets or smoke, and you’ve gone nose blind to yours. Finish any half-done projects, and give the yard some attention, since an unkempt lawn can end a showing before the buyer reaches the door.
You’ve clicked away from a listing because the photos were dark and crooked. So has every buyer looking at yours. Phone cameras are good now and this still isn’t the place for one. Professional real estate photography costs a few hundred dollars and it’s some of the best money an FSBO seller spends.
Without an agent you don’t have direct access to the MLS, the database agents use to list homes. Some brokerages sell an MLS-only listing for a flat fee, which gets you the exposure without the full commission (you usually pay that fee up front, sold or not). Beyond the MLS, FSBO sellers advertise on Zillow and the other listing sites, in Facebook groups and on social media, with a yard sign, and with open houses. Craigslist and even the newspaper classifieds still reach a few buyers. Reach as many people as you can, because the buyer pool for an unlisted house is small.
Buyers expect to see the house on their schedule, including short notice, so plan on keeping it clean and being available. When offers come in, expect some low ones, and expect repair requests after the inspection. You can make the repairs, offer a credit against the price instead, or hold firm. Whatever you decide, answer quickly. Most buyers expect to hear back within 48 hours.
Negotiating is also where inexperience costs FSBO sellers real money. Most buyers use financing, and if you don’t understand the appraisal, inspection, and loan process, you can get talked into concessions you didn’t need to make. Have a strategy before the first offer arrives.
Texas makes this easier than most states, and there’s a full paperwork section below. The short version: you’ll sign a standard contract, make the disclosures Texas law requires, and close at a title company, which handles the money and records the sale.
Everything above applies anywhere in Texas. A few things are specific to selling FSBO here in San Antonio and Bexar County.
Even if you’ve already moved out, don’t cancel CPS Energy or SAWS. A buyer walking into a house with no air conditioning in a San Antonio summer is walking through a sauna, and the water needs to stay on for the lawn and the toilets. Budget for those bills, plus taxes and insurance, for every month the house sits. Those holding costs are the quiet expense of a slow FSBO sale.
Who’s buying near you shapes how you advertise. A house near Fort Sam Houston or Lackland sees military families on a PCS clock. Neighborhoods near UTSA see investors and parents buying for students. Match the advertising to the buyer you’re likely to get.
In Texas, the title company runs the closing: paperwork, funds, recording. You’ll deal with them constantly during the transaction, so choose a Bexar County title company with good reviews before you have a contract, not after.
You can also sell without advertising the house at all. Direct buyers in San Antonio (us included) will look at the house and make a cash offer as-is. No repairs, no showings, no marketing, no waiting on a bank. For sellers who want the FSBO savings without the FSBO workload, that’s the whole appeal, and there’s a full section on how it works below.
The commission gets all the attention, but it’s one line on a longer list. Here’s what each path tends to cost.
No. Texas is a title company state, and the title company facilitates the transaction. You do need to get a few things right on your own:
The commission savings are real. That $18,000 on a $300,000 sale stays in the deal, though remember the buyer’s agent usually still gets paid.
You control the process. Your price, your terms, your timeline, nobody else’s opinion.
FSBO can be fast when you already have a buyer. Per the National Association of REALTORS, 77% of FSBO homes sold in about two weeks, mostly because those sellers already knew their buyer, a family member, a neighbor, a tenant. If that’s you, FSBO makes a lot of sense.
Pricing is hard without market experience. Overpriced houses sit and underpriced houses give away money, and FSBO sellers do both regularly.
Negotiating against professionals. The buyer’s agent negotiates contracts for a living. You’ll do it once, on the largest asset you own.
The workload is real. Showings on other people’s schedules, marketing out of your own pocket, paperwork on your kitchen table, and a sale that still isn’t guaranteed. When a listing expires unsold, or a contract fails during the option period, all that time and money is gone.
Gathering these before you list saves scrambling later:
If you read this far and the FSBO workload sounds like a second job, the third path is selling directly to a cash buyer. This is what we do, so here’s exactly how it works with Capstone Homebuyers, and you can compare us against listing on our compare page.
You tell us about the property, which takes under two minutes and costs nothing. We do a quick walkthrough on your schedule, then make a guaranteed all-cash offer within 24 hours. If you accept, you pick the closing date, as fast as 7 days or up to 90. We close at a local title company, you collect your money by wire or check, and we handle everything in between. The full step-by-step is here.
We look at what the house would be worth repaired, estimate what the repairs will cost, and make our offer from there. That’s the whole formula, and we’ll walk you through it on your house. The offer is fair, in writing, and honored. Some investors quote a high number to tie the house up and then chip away at it before closing. That’s not how we work, and a lot of our sellers came to us after exactly that experience somewhere else.
No repairs, no cleaning (take what you want and leave the rest), no showings, no advertising, no commissions, no fees, and we pay all the closing costs. If the house needs serious work, that’s exactly the kind of house we buy.
If your house is in great shape, you have time, and you’re up for the work, an FSBO sale or a good listing agent can net you more money. A cash sale wins when speed and certainty matter more: a move on a deadline, a house that needs repairs you don’t want to fund, an inherited property, or a sale you just want done. We’re a local, family-owned San Antonio company with an A+ BBB rating and a 5.0 Google rating, we’ve bought 200+ houses here since 2011, and the offer costs nothing to get. Call (210) 446-4686 or send us the property below, and you’ll have a real number to weigh your FSBO math against within 24 hours.
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