[Christien]

I like the idea of an a-la-carte system, where you'd be able to pick and choose what services you want from a realtor. If I were trying to sell our house, I'd start with as much DIY as possible, see how it goes, then pay for more and more services as required, based on viewings, offers, etc. I would definitely pay for an MLS listing, but probably little else beyond that, to start. You can learn anything you want about staging and presentation from HGTV or the countless magazines in line at the grocery store. Then, if traffic isn't coming or offers aren't rolling in, I'd look at the next step the realtor could do for us.

This process wouldn't work if you needed to sell fast, but if you need to move fast, then I guess you have to pay up for full service.