Selling a home these days requires the most intense efforts ever.

The days are long gone when sticking a “for sale” sign in the front yard was all it took to get a home sold.

Now, it requires effort – and lots of it.

Not only does it now require a home to be in the most stellar condition cosmetically, but the price also has to be right, among a variety of other things.

But despite the slowing housing market, many home sellers still opt to try and sell their home by themselves as a For Sale by Owner of FSBO. Most people who choose to go this route are doing so in order to avoid paying the commission charged to real state agents.

Doing a FSBO has obviously been a lot harder to do than just hiring an agent, because the home seller has to do everything on their own, but some new developments in the industry are making the FSBO a lot easier to do.

A recent article from The Los Angeles Times by Gayle Pollard Terry, “An Internet boost for do-it-yourself home sellers,” discusses how homeowners who are looking to sell their home without an agent can now list on the Multiple Listing Service for free.

The MLS is the mecca of home sales.

It contains listings for thousands of different homes, and in the past, brokerages charged independent sellers a fee for listing a home on there if you were doing so without an agent, but now the times look to be changing.

“Spreading the word about a home you're selling yourself just got cheaper. Without paying a penny, sellers who go the FSBO (for sale by owner) route can add their houses to a Multiple Listing Service in California and 19 other states via a new online realty broker, http://www.iggyshouse.com.”

The MLS has long operated as a way to get people to use real estate agents, and has charged independent sellers without representation a variety of fees in order to list their property on the site; but now iggyshouse.com seems to be changing the way things operate.

“The MLS — the biggest, most encompassing listing database of homes for sale — has long excluded those who try to sell their homes on their own, with few exceptions. The service remains important for sellers because agents routinely depend on its information, and Multiple Listing Services provide listings for many online sites, including the widely used http://www.realtor.com , which is owned by the National Assn. of Realtors.”

“The Realtors group has established guidelines for an MLS associated with its constituency — member agents and brokers. Most agents are members. Privately governed, an MLS is not required to accept listings from nonmembers.”

Igyyshouse.com is allowed to not charge its patrons to post on MLS because they are a member of MLS and are allowed to make postings. According to its Chief Executive, Joseph Fox, this is the first website that will allow its members to post their home on MLS without an agent for free.