To Realtor or Not To Realtor?

This is the question we are now faced with. The decision has been made to sell the farm and start over, smaller, somewhere else. Our whole life is being upheaved, tossed around a bit, until it settles back down on a different farm, possibly in a different state, or even a different country!

In the mean time, I must offer my gorgeous Andalusian stallion up for sale, and sell my beautiful black Miniature Horse stallion as well. We can't be trucking around the country dragging along two stallions, without a plan or a safe place to keep them. I'm very sad, but willing to make these sacrifices, to make a better life for my family a reality.

Living the way we are, from pay check to pay check, is not working for us. We would like a different life, surrounded by our fresh, organic garden. Our own farm fresh eggs, laid by our little chickies, and fresh milk from our own cow. Of course we will always have a pony! I have my little shetland gelding that I will be training to drive next year. All this without a mortgage payment is the goal.

In the midst of all the decisions being made about what we downsize and what we keep, we also need to decide if we use a Realtor to sell the house or try on our own, saving us and the new buyer a HUGE amount of money!

The problems:

• advertising. We can't possibly get the house out to all the people looking to buy, by ourselves.
• the banks. They are slow to offer loans in this unsteady market. Realtors know where to go to get the money.
• the paperwork. There is a moutain of paperwork that needs to get done when selling a house. That's scary too!

On the other hand if we do it all ourselves we can save as much as $22,000 for ourselves and then offer the house at a much lower price to the buyer. Is that worth doing all the above work ourselves? I think so... it's really just the advertising that scares me the most!!

I have interviewed two Realtors so far and have one more to interview this week. Then we will make our decision (hopefully!!). This is a gigantic undertaking and one not entered into with out a lot of thought. Whew! My poor brain has been smoking with all the thinking going on around here =)