Agents help you establish an asking price by looking at what similar houses have sold for in the past and by comparing your property to what is currently on the market. This isn't rocket science. Since an agent's compensation is based on how much you sell for, how objective is their pricing advice?

If an agent advises you to drop your price by $5,000 they're only risking a few hundred dollars and hedging they'll get their commission faster. While you could be out thousands.

When you list with an agent a big part of their promotional focus and budget is spent promoting 'themselves' instead of your property. Their advertising often never includes important information about your property like the price or address so that potential buyers need to contact them for more information. This is how agents attract new clients for themselves.

When agents don't provide enough information, it forces buyers to visit your home, even if it obviously doesn't match what they're looking for. This is a waste of everyone's time - except the agent who often uses this opportunity to try and interest the buyers in a different home.

Congratulations. You've just cleaned and vacated your home for the past two hours to help your agent sell the house up the street.

Agents benefit from a terrific, cooperative system which allows other agents and buyers to search for your property.

The downside? Agents charge an arm and a leg to use it in the form of a big commission.

Agents arrange property showings based on their schedule, not yours. When you choose to use an agent your home must always be show-ready so that buyers can drop by with very little advanced notice.

If your name isn't Martha Stewart then you know how difficult and time consuming keeping every room of your house show-ready is. It's especially difficult if you have kids.

If that wasn't bad enough, the agents who show your home are rarely the agent you actually listed with. What do they know about your home? Probably not much - certainly not as much as you do.

Agents take the mystery out of the negotiation process. The problem is that they're normally the ones who put the mystery into the negotiation in the first place. Agents seem to make this process look more complicated than it actually is. Probably to justify their commission.

Agents must be the world's most expensive courier service. In most cities it would cost you more in commission for an agent to deliver an offer than it does to deliver it yourself by helicopter.

In an agent transaction, the lawyer typically handles all the legal closing details only after they've been forwarded the paperwork from the agent. Usually, at this point your decisions and concessions are already binding before your lawyer actually has the chance to advise you on its contents.

Even if your agent happens to have a law degree in a box in their closet it still presents a possible conflict of interest.