What's the story with being your own estate agent?HIGH PERCENTAGE-BASED commissions, and question marks over what some estate agents do to earn them, have seen a growing number of people with houses to sell looking for cheaper alternatives. And when you consider the potential savings that can be made, it's not hard to see why.

As house prices rocketed through the boom years so did the fees some estate agents pocketed. If a house in Ranelagh sold for €200,000 in 1998, an estate agent made anywhere between €2,000 and €4,000 plus VAT for facilitating the sale. Today, the same house might sell for €1 million with the agent's slice anywhere between €10,000 and €20,000 - up over 400 per cent in 10 years.

As the market moves from a sellers' one to one which favours buyers, many sellers are looking at ways to speed up the process and cut down on costs. Some of the more progressive, consumer-focused estate agents have recognised the need to offer better value and now charge flat fees instead of a percentage of the eventual selling price.

Another, even cheaper alternative may be the DIY option. Self-sellers can go it completely alone with a handmade sign and their own advertising, but there are also Irish online services offering sales support to homeowners through the provision of professional-looking For Sale boards and advertising on their websites. Estimates of how many people sell privately in Ireland vary between 3 and 10 per cent, a number which pales in comparison to the US where over 30 per cent of properties are sold privately - although the commissions charged by US realtors would make their Irish counterparts green with envy.

IT'S HARD TO argue with the go-it-alone numbers: commission of 1.5 per cent plus VAT at a rate of 21 per cent on a house sold for €600,000 will earn an estate agent €11,000. If a seller opts to sell the house privately using the services of a company such as privateseller.ie it could cost them as little as €199, the price of the basic package.

This includes the For Sale boards and online advertising on the Privateseller website until the property is sold. For an extra €200, the company will arrange for the seller's home to be photographed and will give advice on how to stage their home for potential buyers.

According to Fiona McLoughlin, who set up Privateseller three years ago, sellers can use the money saved to offer lower prices to get a quicker sale. She says that 65 per cent of the houses currently for sale through her operation have previously been listed with estate agents. She accepts the private route is "not for everyone" but says "there really is nothing an auctioneer can do that you can't do yourself."

John Byrne* and his wife decided on the self-sell route after a disappointing experience trying to sell their house in Athlone through an estate agent. After a year on the market, their two-bedroom house with an asking price of €330,000, attracted just three viewings. "It was an unusual house, certainly, but we should have got more viewings." After a frustrating year the couple came across privateseller.ie and decided to give it a go.

"We got viewings straight away," he says. They had a "huge amount of impromptu callers" and rather than spending hours decluttering as they did for pre-arranged viewings "we said take us as you find us". He thought he would have been uncomfortable showing people around his house. "But I'd no problems. If anything I was too honest when it came to pointing out faults. The guy who bought it was a local who arrived one evening when we were having tea. He was wearing torn jeans and was the last person I'd have expected to buy but he came back with an offer of €370,000." The deal was concluded by last Christmas.

"I'd have no reservations about selling privately - it certainly worked for us although I do accept there was a degree of happenstance and serendipity about the whole thing."

A COUPLE OF ARGUMENTS against self-selling immediately spring to mind. Sellers may have to devote an enormous amount of time in the evenings and on weekends to viewings, and some buyers may be put off by having to view properties in the presence of the owners. While you can be brutally honest about a house's shortcomings in the presence of an estate agent, you might feel distinctly inhibited when being given the tour by the person who's directly responsible for said shortcomings.

Timid, inexperienced sellers might be tempted to accept the first price offered while a hard-nosed estate agent might be better equipped to hold out for a better price and even play interested parties off against each other, particularly in a challenging market.

"For some people it is a big leap to go it alone," says McLoughlin. "It is a different dynamic than using an estate agent, certainly, but one that people get used to very quickly. I have never had any negative feedback about the direct contact between buyers and sellers."

Then there is the advertising; while private sellers can advertise freely on the self-sell specialist sites and can advertise their homes on property portals such as daft.ie, they are excluded from placing ads on www.myhome.ie - which is owned by The Irish Times - as it currently only takes ads from estate agents.

THE PRIVATESELLER WEBSITE attracts between 20,000 and 30,000 visitors a month and the company contributes to the cost of newspaper advertising because, McLoughlin says, "the sellers are advertising us as well so it is in our interest to make it as affordable as possible".

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Alan Cooke, the CEO of the Irish Auctioneers and Valuers Institute (IAVI), doesn't think that the DIY road is one which anyone should travel.

He told Pricewatchthat a Government-appointed review group which examined the property business found estate agents' fees to be "at the low end in international terms and they offer good value to their clients". Cooke said a good agent would "more than earn his fee". He said the "simple truth" was that "no professional should be selected solely on the fee they quote. Whoever heard of surgeons negotiating the fee they will charge an individual private patient? Yet some think they should entrust their biggest-ever financial transaction to the hands of the person who offers to undertake the vital task for the cheapest price.

"Instead, select a shortlist of qualified and suitable agents and then by all means negotiate - but don't include unqualified fly-by-nights on your shortlist."

* At his request, John Byrne is a pseudonym