Do you need MLS® to sell privately?
Short answer: no. Nothing in Alberta requires your home to be on the MLS® System to be sold. But it is a real trade, and it is worth understanding before you list rather than after.
What the MLS® System is
The MLS® System is the co-operative listing service that real estate boards across Canada operate for their members. Realtor.ca is the public website where those listings appear.
Putting a listing there requires a licensed member brokerage. RealEasy is a technology platform rather than a brokerage, so a RealEasy listing is not on the MLS® System or Realtor.ca.
What you are doing instead
A private sale — for sale by owner (FSBO). You publish the listing, you set the price, you receive the offers, and you decide on every term. We provide the site, the structured offer form, the yard sign, and the tools around them.
No commission comes off your proceeds, because there is no seller-side commission in the arrangement at all. Here is how to sell your house without a realtor in Alberta.
The trade, plainly
You give something up. You should know what it is.
We would rather say this here than have you discover it three weeks into a listing. The two sides below are the same decision viewed from either end.
What you give up
The agent-facing channel.
Agents search the MLS® System daily for their buyers. A listing that is not there does not appear in that search, and that is the largest single difference.
Some agents will not bring buyers.
There is no seller-side commission funding their side of the deal. Some will still write an offer if their buyer wants your house; some will not.
The work of selling.
Photographs, the description, showings, and the judgment calls on price and on offers are yours rather than delegated.
What you get for it
No commission on your sale.
A flat platform technology fee set from your list price, fixed when you accept an offer, and owed only if the sale completes.
Every term is yours.
Price, deposit, possession date, conditions, and inclusions come to you directly, and you accept, counter, or decline each one.
No exclusivity period.
There is no listing agreement locking you in for sixty or ninety days, and no obligation you have to wait out.
On a $500,000 list price, a commonly quoted Alberta commission works out near $19,000; the RealEasy platform fee for that price band is $2,250 plus GST, payable on completion. Every band, and how the fee is set →
If not MLS®, then how
The five ways a buyer reaches your listing.
This is the question the MLS® question is really asking. Here is every route, named, so you can judge it yourself.
Buyers browsing RealEasy
Every listing sits in the same searchable catalogue, filterable by city, price, beds, and property type. Buyers browse and make offers for free, so there is nothing standing between a buyer and your listing.
Search engines
Your listing gets its own public page, indexed like any other, so someone searching your neighbourhood, street, or building can land on it directly.
Saved searches and match alerts
Buyers save the criteria they are hunting on and are notified when something matching publishes. A buyer already looking for your street and your price is told about your home the day it goes live.
The yard sign we provide
A sign remains one of the strongest sources of local buyers for a private sale. The people who already want to live on your street drive past it, and the code on it opens your listing.
Your own link, shared
One link, sent to anyone: neighbourhood groups, local classifieds, your own social accounts, and the people you would have told anyway. Word of mouth finds a surprising number of private buyers.
RealEasy is newly launched in Alberta. These are the routes a listing travels on the platform today, described as they work — not a claim about traffic volumes we have not yet earned. We would rather you weigh a real mechanism than a number we made up.
Questions that follow this one
Can I list on the MLS® System and on RealEasy at the same time?
That depends entirely on the listing agreement you signed with your brokerage — most contain an exclusivity term. Read your agreement, and ask your brokerage before publishing anywhere else.
What if a buyer shows up with their own agent?
Nothing leaves your proceeds automatically. Conventionally a buyer's agent is paid out of the seller's commission, and there is no seller-side commission here for one to be paid from. If the buyer asks you to contribute to their representation, that is a term in their offer like any other — yours to accept, counter, or decline.
Do private sales get less for the home?
Studies disagree and none of them are about your house. What we will say is what we can stand behind: your sale price is whatever you accept, and the commission that would have come off it does not. Price your home with a professional appraisal or your own research if you want a figure you trust.
Is a private sale legal in Alberta?
Yes. An Alberta homeowner may sell their own property without a licensed agent. What you cannot do is trade in real estate on someone else's behalf without a licence — selling your own home is not that.
What RealEasy doesn’t decide
We state what the platform does and what the fee is. We do not tell you what to list for, whether an offer is good, or whether a private sale suits your property. Those judgments are yours, or a professional’s you hire.
Alberta has no cooling-off period on a real estate sale
MLS® and Realtor.ca are registered trademarks of The Canadian Real Estate Association, used here to describe those services. RealEasy is not affiliated with CREA or any real estate board. The commission comparison uses a structure of 7% on the first $100,000 and 3% on the balance, commonly quoted in Alberta; commissions are negotiable and vary by brokerage and listing agreement, so your figure may differ. This page is for information and is not legal, financial, or real estate advice.
Know the trade? Then list it.
Listing is free, and your exact fee is on the page before you publish. Nothing is owed unless your sale completes.