I often speak with people in the Charlotte Region trying to sell their home "For Sale By Owner" while introducing them to my real estate brokerage. When I ask them how they are marketing their home, a common response that I get is, "Well, I have a 'For Sale By Owner' sign in the yard, and it's on Craigslist. That's about it." While there is absolutely nothing wrong with Craigslist, (in fact we also advertise our clients' homes there) selling a home is not as easy as selling your 5-yr old patio furniture.
If you want to grab a quick bite to eat but you aren't sure exactly what type of food you are craving, chances are there is some place in your town where you can drive and find several restaurants to choose from all within a few blocks of one another. In other words, if you are hungry, you know where to go. The same is true with buying or selling used furniture... Craigslist and Ebay are two great places where those items can be bought and sold.
With real estate, it is entirely different, as there are hundreds of places where homes are advertised. 
There is no specific "Fast Food Lane" for houses. Craigslist is a good website, but how do you know that your buyer knows that? What if your buyer is working with a real estate agent, as more than 80% of home buyers are? If your home is not on the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS), your buyers and their agent may never know your home is for sale. Their real estate agent may have the buyer set up with an automatic search of the MLS that sends the buyer new homes that come on the market each day. If the buyer likes this process, they may never venture out to look at any other website for homes. Their agent could do their own search and simply show the buyers homes that the agent thinks are appropriate for them. If your home is not available on the MLS, your buyers will just find another home.
Maybe your buyer is not working with an agent, or even if they are, maybe they enjoy looking at homes online so they don't just rely on their agent. While it's certainly possible that they may choose to look at Craigslist to find their next home, odds are that they will be looking at one of the other hundreds of websites that show homes for sale. Realtor.com is the top website in the country for buyers looking to buy homes, but Yahoo! Real Estate and Zillow aren't far behind. If your home is not on these websites, your buyers may end up falling in love with someone else's home instead of yours.
Maybe they are looking specifically for a "For Sale By Owner" home. However, if they know about Craigslist, they may think of it as a place to buy used furniture, not homes. Instead of Craigslist, they look at websites that specialize in homes and search HomesByOwner.com hoping to find that special home that their agent missed. If your home is not on the "For Sale By Owner" website the buyers were looking on, they may have found another home instead of yours.
Maybe the buyers have heard you can search for homes on local real estate company websites. There are a lot of great search tools on some of the local and national company websites, so many buyers find a site they like and do all their home searching there. Since the real estate company websites get these homes from the MLS, if you aren't on the MLS the buyer will miss your home here too.
The point is, in real estate, you just never know where your buyer is going to be looking for their next home. You can't just put your sign out and put your home on one or two websites and think that a buyer is going to find your home. While of course it is always possible, it is highly unlikely. In order to give yourself the best odds of successfully selling your home, you have to have a strategy that BLANKETS THE MARKET and puts your home on ALL of these types of websites and venues.
If you still want to sell your home "For Sale By Owner", search out all the websites you possibly can and advertise your home everywhere. Unfortunately, most of these sites cost some money, but you need to get the most exposure possible to get as many buyers to your home as you can. If you decide you want to let a professional advertise your home, be sure to ask the agent where they will advertise so your home is marketed on all these different types of websites. Every agent has their own marketing plan, so make sure you know what they will be doing to advertise your home.
Though of course I have my biases, I always like to say...
Selling your home on your own is a lot like playing the lottery... you might get lucky, but don't count on it.
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