According to today's London Stock Exchange website, about 6% of British homeowners are trying to sell their home on their own (FSBO).

NAEA chief executive Peter Bolton King says that professionals will continue to be able to find clients, despite an increase in DIY home sales and the increased profile of the internet in making these channels available to ordinary homeowners.

Most US REALTORS would probably find this "no big deal" considering somewhere between 12 and 30% (in hot markets) of sellers try to sell on their own (and the vast majority of which end up listing with a professional broker). But it's not the percentages here that is interesting to me...

For starters, what makes this interesting is that these sellers aren't trying to sell on their own because the estate agents' fees are too high; most agents in Britain only receive between 1 and 2% commission anyway - some third- to half- of us commission averages. In other words, the FSBO movement in Britain, as in the US, isn't about the commission price.

So if it isn't about price, what is it about?

Culture. It's about a high-tech, individualist culture that is made possible by the modern, unfettered flow of information. Whereas twenty years ago - in Britain and the US - data about property for sale, sold and under agreement would have been "privately controlled" by brokers, today, it is not. Over the last two decades, consumers have developed a new "culture" of self-sufficiency. It's reflected in the rapid growth of do-it-yourself (DIY) everything: pumping gas, home improvement, trading stocks. It's little surprise that it's also hit the real estate industry - and increasingly so.

Yet the real estate industry - at least in the US - seems to have fundamentally misread this evolution. Their only "response" to DIY homesellers is that it's about the commission; it's about price. And therefore, the only way to compete - for both self-listed and competitive-listed listings is to "reduce the commission". Without really addressing the cultural issues involved. It's why, in a previous blog posting, there's such little "vision" in the industry - the concept that MLS has worked well and it will keep working well - just because. Which basically really only does leave the option to compete on price.

Until we start addressing the cultural evolution of today's seller population, we won't really know how to compete for their business. If the avereage seller last year had already sold 3.3 homes before (NAR numbers) then they already get the whole commission/MLS/open house/put sign up kinda stuff. They have already paid someone to sell their home many times before. And what they have learned, in the last two decades, is that every other service that has been "technologized" has had some level of price reduction or competitive advantage added to it.

Which is the real cultural issue: If we're still charging the same amount for the same things we did twenty years ago, of course more people are going to try to do it on their own - or at least try to beat the commission down. But it's so easy to not compete on price if you try instead to compete on culture. And that's done by making sure your brokerage services are aligned to the expectations and desires of a new generation of consumers who want more photos, more videos, shorter sell times, more accurate pricing, a constantly-reachable REALTOR and competent representation. For that, they will pay a good price.

In other words, they want a real estate professional who's a new breed of agent; who has understood and evolved with the new consumer tech-enabled culture.

And for that - as the Brits see - at least 94% of them are indeed willing to pay a fair price.