I feel like I can offer a slightly different perspective on this than many of the posters. We sold a house using no realtor on either the buyers or sellers side. Here is how it worked.
FIRST let me say.....if the houses you are looking at are already contracted with a realtor you will be doing yourself NO favor by not getting one. Basically, the sellers contract with a realtor for a certain percentage (usually 5-6%). Then that realtor splits profits with the buyers realtor. If there is no buyers realtor they get double commission. In this case absolutely get a realtor. You will not save anything. They will still be paying the same percentage to their realtor. No negotiation room. It would be stupid.
Here is our story:
After 23 months of living in our house my husband got a promotion that involved a relocation. He was immediately contacted by a coworker that she was very interested in purchasing our house and to please let her look at it prior to contracting with somebody. She and her husband were VERY experienced with the home buying process. He is a general contractor and they have flipped and invested in many properties. They came and looked at it and said they absolutely wanted it. We did our homework. We "interviewed" 5 realtors who came and looked at our house. We had purchased the house nearly 2 years earlier for $270,000 and the price of homes in the area have been rising. The Realtors said they would list between $305-$325. The general concensus was that we would be able to get $300-$315. Great now we had a starting point.
We contacted the buyers and told them that our plan would be to list the home for $320 with a realtor. They then called and offered us $295. We counted back at $300 and everybody was happy. Fantastic. Because of their home ownership history (lots of houses, no issues) and large down payment they were not required to do a formal inspection or appraisal. We each hired separate attorneys (ours was $600 flat fee theirs $700 flat fee). We met 2 years and 1 day after we had initially purchased the home (to avoid tax penalty) and signed the paperwork. Bing bang bam.....easy peasy.
Here is my takeaway:
-I would not have done this as a buyer. I am not experienced enough or comfortable enough. However, as the seller there is less risk.
-we saved at least $5000-$10,000 dollars and the homeowners saved about $10-15k from not having to pay realtors.
-it was very stress free. Awesome not to have to go through and inspection and appraisal. We had to do no repairs. They bought it as it.
-this worked because they were very experienced and very comfortable with the thought of repairs and such. I would not have gone this route with average buyers.
-the attorneys specialized in selling houses. I felt like all the paperwork went as smooth as having realtors.
-it was nice to have the personal connection to the buyers. They painted their nursery a week before we closed. We slept in the house the night of closing. It was all very casual. It worked on our timeline and saved us from having to deal with showings and whatnot.