Ready to List Your Home for Sale? Ten Tips to Make it More Marketable and Get a Quick Sale!

For the past fourteen years, we've lived in the sourthern part of New Jersey. America's "Garden State" with one of the highest population density factors in the nation. We are also burdened with the nation's highest property taxes, made even more intolerable by a 7% (up from 6%) state sales tax which went into effect last year. Quite frankly, it has become ever-increasingly difficult and unpleasant living in the state. We are readying our home (again) to list it for sale. (When it was first listed a year and a half ago - just around the time that the housing market started to nosedive - we were offered just $60,000 under our asking price - which my (idiot!) husband turned down and refused to negotiate. He stood firm in his belief that we should get our full asking price on our home, listed at just under a million dollars.

Interestingly enough, our realtor had said that in general, the 'first offer is the best offer' - and we found that to be true. We ended up pulling our house from the market so that our youngest daughter could finish her last year of school here. When you're listing your own home for sale, keep my experience in mind. Your first offer from a buyer may very well be your best offer - the one that is most negotiable, the one that actually made the prospective buyers so impressed with your home that they took a chance to even make an offer - and speaking of chances, they're probably quite high that this buyer will be willing and able to negotiate with you. Don't hold onto the false hope or sense of pride that just because your house didn't receive an immediate full price offer - very, very few homes in this market today do - that it isn't a good one.

Whatever the circumstances that prompt you to consider selling your house - empty nesters, a job transfer, downsizing, moving your growing family into a larger home - you, too, will be faced with the task of making your home stand out against all others in a very competitive market. I'd like to share some of the ideas and tips that we found and utilized to make our home stand out. (By the way, we're now in the process of getting ready to re-list it for sale - wish us luck!)