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My wife and I bought from a FSBO person (I know I'm opening a can of real estate worms here, but ...) and we did the purchase agreement ourselves. We got a decent price (we loved the house and the seller refused to pay a commission if we used an agent) so we figured, "Let's all save some money!" Anyway, there weren't major problems but a lot of little ones. They basically got away with just installing a sump pump (and having the hose go out the wrong side of the house) but the garage doors and side window should have been replaced and a toilet was on the fritz and there was a joist that needed reinforcement. And as we speak, the SH*T TRUCK is at our house vacuuming out our grinder/ejector pit because the electric shorted out on the unit and it stopped working a few days ago (we didn't know because no electric = no alarm). Not sure if that's the previous owner's fault, but I'll throw it in there. The unit's electric box had crappy seals and a giant hole in the side. I almost got electrocuted last night trying to troubleshoot. So it probably should have been in a little better shape 1 1/2 years ago when we moved in. After flipping the circuit breaker, a bang, a shooting flame and a cloud of smoke, I threw in the towel and called the proper fecal authorities. Sick!

My point is we should have legitimately gotten a few thousand in fixes and/or credits that we didn't get because we were starry-eyed first-timers. Which gets back to the math of "Does an agent make sense or not?" Would the fixes cost less than the commission paid to someone to negotiate them for you? Not sure. For us and the price house we were in, we probably still came out a little bit ahead. Next time, though ...