A portion of home owners nationwide have always attempted to sidestep the middle man - in this case, the agent - and save money in the process. The real estate industry has long referred to that self-marketing method as "for sale by owner," or FSBO.

But the Internet has streamlined the process, increasing the number of FSBO sellers. Last year, about 13 percent of sellers conducted transactions without a real estate professional, according to statistics from the National Association of Realtors. Collier attributes the market share to the growing number of people who use the Internet to buy or sell homes. According to the Realtors association, 77 percent of home buyers last year used the Internet to search for their new house, up from 2 percent in 1995.

"Since the advent of the Internet, people have learned to do things for themselves, and now they've started marketing their homes for themselves," Collier said. "That's the motivating factor: They want to save money on the commission, and they look for avenues on the Internet especially."

Collier's Web site, which markets homes only in Maryland, currently has about 80 listings. Sellers advertise on the site for free and can choose to buy additional products. They can purchase a marketing kit, which provides tools such as signs that can be posted on front lawns. Sellers can also pay a flat fee to have their homes included on the Multiple Listing Service, a database of for-sale homes used by traditional member brokers. Then there is a hotline, where sellhomesyourself.com can connect clients with live, professional agents who can answer questions.

"We've really been picking up business lately," Collier added.

The potential of the FSBO market has not escaped the banking community. Baltimore-based 1st Mariner Bank partnered with sellhomesyourself.com and is now the preferred mortgage lender for the Web site.

"A Realtor is just a marketing company," Bill Korvin, director of affiliated business development for 1st Mariner, said. "So if customers can get the same tools that a Realtor can get, then why use a real estate company?"

The bank also figured it could score additional loans from FSBO customers who can take money they saved in agent fees and put it toward home improvements or other uses.

"This way you get national exposure," Korvin said. "It's all about marketing the product."

A quick Internet search will reveal plenty of marketing opportunities in the FSBO community. Sellhomesyourself.com is just one of a flurry of Web sites advertising homes for sale in Maryland and throughout the country. At the time this article was written, the site FSBO.com listed about 90 homes in Maryland and hundreds in other states.

"A lot of people are dead set against using real estate agents," Collier remarked.

Not surprisingly, Web sites like Collier's have acquired bad reputations in real estate circles, said Chris Reda, a broker with Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. in Baltimore.

Agents typically steer their clients away from FSBO properties and, on the flip side, often refuse to show houses to buyers who are on their own.

"Agents don't want to show them and risk their commissions," Reda said. "They avoid them like the plague."

However, statistics show that the fear might be unfounded. According to the Realtors association, the number of home owners who conducted transactions without an agent dropped from 18 percent of sellers in 1997 to 13 percent last year. Meanwhile, 39 percent of those transactions occurred between parties who knew each other in advance, compared to 32 percent in 2004.

Nine out of 10 home buyers still use an agent in the search process, according to the Realtors' data.

"I personally don't think [self-marketing] is a good process or a safe process for the home owner," said Glenn Barnes, a broker in the Reisterstown office of Long & Foster.

Selling a home requires tremendous vigilance and face time with potential buyers, he said. Most people are too distracted with their full-time jobs to put in the effort that a professional agent can.

"People want personal service that agents can give them," explained Barnes. "You still can't replace the agent."

In fact, Long & Foster has recently inherited clients looking for full-time professional service after being disillusioned with FSBO Web sites. Reda is currently marketing a house on Marshall Street in Baltimore's Federal Hill neighborhood that sat for weeks while the owners attempted to sell it with the assistance of a Web site.