It is no secret that the blazing real estate market is not so blazing anymore. If you recently bought and are looking to sell, going FSBO is the best way to save your equity.

For the last six year or so, home ownership has returned double digit appreciation in most parts of the country. Frankly, nobody can remember ever seeing a market like this. In Las Vegas, the average annual appreciation was over 25 percent in 2005. Think about that for a minute. The average Las Vegas property was doubling in value every four years! That is truly incredible.

Alas, all good things much come to an end or so the clich goes. Well, in this case it is true. The real estate market is no longer too hot to touch. It is cooling and is expected to continue to do so. Obviously, certain localities may continue to flourish, but one can say that generally the gloss is off the market. Perhaps more distressing, we can expect to see pull backs on the value of homes as demand slackens and mortgage interest rates go up.

For many people, riding out the coming cooling period on home values is the logical plan. For others, the plan is to sell and sell fast. This second group finds itself in the very unfortunate situation of having purchased a property in the last year or so with a low down payment. Put simply, they dont have much equity in the property. Combined with interest rate increases, such homeowners are under stress. To put it another way, foreclosure investors are licking their chops.

If you are one of these unlucky people who needs to sell, doing so as a FSBO seller makes a lot of sense. FSBO stands for homes for sale by owner. Essentially, you bypass the real estate agent and list your property yourself. Why is this a good choice? A real estate agent is going to charge you a 6 percent commission on the price your home sells for. A 6 percent commission on a $400,000 home is $24,000. Do you really want to give away that much of your equity? Do you even have that much in your property?

If you feel like you are forced to move your property to get something out of it because prices are dropping, there is a way to preserve as much of your money as possible. Go FSBO!