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If you have considered selling your own home, then you are in good company: every week thousands of homebuyers try out the FSBO - for sale by owner - market to see if they can, indeed, sell their homes themselves. How about you? Have you considered selling your home apart from the services of a realtor? If so, then FSBO could be right for you.

FSBO continues to gain in popularity because cash savvy homeowners have realized that paying 6% interest on the sale of their homes is simply too much to pay for real estate commissions. For example a $500,000 home would cost the seller $30,000 in real estate commissions, money that could be better spent elsewhere.

If you are planning to go the FSBO route please know this:

You'll have to do most of the legwork yourself when selling your home: getting an accurate appraisal, screening and qualifying buyers, holding open houses, arranging the home inspection, obtaining the title search, staying in touch with your attorney, and more. For some homeowners FSBO is too time consuming, thus they delegate some of the responsibilities out to other family members or friends.

The marketing angle of selling a home is still very important: Unless you already have a buyer in hand, you will need to spend sometime making up signs and flyers, perhaps creating a website about your home. Likely, you'll spend the $200 to get your home listed on one of those nationwide FSBO sites.

MLS: The Multiple Listing Service is accessed by just about everyone. If you are desiring to reach the masses, you'll have to pay a fee of 700 to 900 dollars for the privilege of being listed. If a realtor brings a buyer to you, then you'll have to pay that realtor's part of the commission which is usually 2 to 3 percent.

Some FSBO sites claim that homes typically sell within two months time. This compares favorably with the 1 to 3 month period recognized by most realtors. If you can stomach the FSBO route, then 2 months of inconvenience to save tens of thousands of dollars shouldn't be too much of a hardship, right?

Should you later decide that FSBO isn't right for you, and then simply listing your home with a realtor could be the way to go. Remember: even that 6 percent rate is no longer written in stone; you could negotiate a lower commission structure and still receive the full benefit of listing a home with a realtor.