Buying without an agent
How to buy a home without an agent
An unrepresented buyer does the buyer agent's job: finding homes, judging value, writing the offer, and steering the deal to closing. The real safeguards are your inspection, appraisal, title search, and contract, and those do not come from an agent.
Buying without an agent used to be unusual, mostly because it cost you nothing to use one. The seller paid. That math changed in August 2024. Now a buyer who wants an agent has to sign an agreement promising to pay that agent before touring a single home. A lot of buyers looked at that and decided to handle it themselves.
The job you are taking on is real but learnable. You find homes, you judge whether the price is fair, you write an offer with the right protections, and you manage the due diligence between contract and closing. The things that keep you safe are an honest inspection, a lender's appraisal, a clean title search, and contingencies that let you walk if something is wrong. An agent does not perform any of those. Specialists do.
The arc
The sequence, start to finish
- Get your financing sorted first. A real pre-approval from a lender, or proof of funds if you are paying cash. This sets your budget and makes your offers credible. To get ahead of it, size your price range from income and debts.
- Decide what and where. Price ceiling, must-haves, and the few neighborhoods you actually want. Narrow beats broad.
- Find homes. The portals, listing agents directly, open houses, and for-sale-by-owner listings. To look across borders, platforms like Anyone.com list owner and agent homes in many countries, so you can search worldwide and message sellers directly. Reach out yourself instead of waiting to be shown. Buying in another country entirely? Our guide to buying property abroad covers ownership rules, costs, and financing market by market.
- Tour and evaluate. Look past the staging at the roof, the systems, water, and the layout. Take notes and photos for every home.
- Check the value before you offer. Pull your own recent comparable sales so your number is grounded, not emotional.
- Write your offer. Price, contingencies, closing date, and what you ask the seller to cover, including a possible buyer-agent credit.
- Inspect and do diligence. A professional inspection, the appraisal your lender orders, the title search, and the HOA documents if there is an association.
- Close. Review the Closing Disclosure at least three business days out, do the final walkthrough, sign, fund, and get the deed recorded.
By country
Buying without an agent, country by country
Who pays the agent, whether the main portal will even show you an owner's listing, and what a buyer actually pays to complete. The answers are different everywhere.
- Australia Roughly $16,500 of agent commission inside the price of a $750,000 home, at 2.2%
- Austria €16,200 on a €450,000 flat, with the seller charged the same again
- Belgium About €12,700 of agency fee inside the price of a €350,000 home, at 3% plus 21% VAT
- Canada C$19,775 on a C$700,000 Ontario home, at 2.5% plus HST
- Croatia €6,250 on a €200,000 apartment at 2.5 percent plus VAT, and nothing at all if you sign no contract
- Cyprus €10,710 of agent fee inside the price of a €300,000 property, at the statutory 3 percent plus VAT
- Finland About €10,000 of commission inside the price of a €250,000 flat, against €159 to list it privately
- France About €15,000 of honoraires on a €300,000 net price, plus roughly €950 of extra duty if they are charge vendeur
- Germany €14,280 on a €400,000 house, and it cannot go into the mortgage
- Greece €6,200 on a €250,000 flat, against roughly €11,500 of costs you cannot avoid
- India ₹94,400 on a ₹80 lakh flat at 1 percent with GST, and the seller pays their own share separately
- Ireland Between €4,920 and €12,300 of agent fee inside the price of a €400,000 home, once 23 percent VAT is added
- Italy €9,150 on a €250,000 home, at 3 percent plus IVA, and the seller pays the same again
- Malaysia RM 22,680 saved by the seller on a RM 700,000 home, and about RM 36,000 that you pay regardless
- the Netherlands Around €6,000 of selling commission inside the price of a €450,000 home, at about 1.3%
- the Philippines ₱150,000 to ₱250,000 of broker's fee inside the price of a ₱5,000,000 house, at 3 to 5 percent
- Poland 18,450 zł on a 600,000 zł flat at 2.5 percent plus VAT, owed by whoever engaged the agent
- Saudi Arabia SAR 43,125 on a SAR 1,500,000 home with VAT, owed by whichever side hired the broker
- Singapore S$14,000 on a S$700,000 flat at the usual 2 percent, all of it the seller's
- Spain Around €14,500 of agency fee inside the price of a €300,000 home, at 4 percent plus 21 percent IVA
- Sweden About 112,000 kr of commission inside the price of a 4,000,000 kr home, at the 2.8 percent average
- Turkey ₺96,000 on a ₺4,000,000 flat, against total buyer closing costs of about ₺178,500
- the UAE AED 42,000 on an AED 2,000,000 purchase, on top of roughly AED 84,800 of government fees
- the UK Around £4,500 of agent fee inside the price of a £300,000 home, at 1.25% plus VAT
- the United States $11,340 on a $450,000 home, at the 2.52% average for that price band
Go deeper
The parts worth getting right
Common questions
Can I buy a home without a buyer agent?
Yes. Nothing requires a buyer to be represented. You can also hire only the pieces you want, such as a real estate attorney to review the contract or an inspector for the property, without taking on a full agent.
If I have no agent, who pays for that side?
No one needs to. There is no buyer agent to compensate. You can ask the seller to credit the amount they might have offered a buyer agent toward your price or your closing costs.
How do I see homes without an agent?
Contact the listing agent or the for-sale-by-owner seller directly to schedule a showing, and go to open houses. A listing agent can show you their own listing; they just represent the seller, not you.
Is buying without an agent risky?
The protections that actually matter are your inspection, the appraisal, the title search, and the contingencies in your contract, not the agent. Do those four well and you are protected against most of the things that can hurt you.