How To Sell Your Home - Negotiating the Sale Selling your property is not an easy job. The first step is to price your home correctly. If you ask too high a price, chances are you will get few or no offers. Too many times home owners price their home high so they can later negotiate. However, with this approach you can scare-off serious buyers because they know themselves what the market is and will not even bother to make an offer. Remember, buyers are out looking at homes all the time and they know what's out there. It's probably fair to say that buyers are more knowledgeable about the market than sellers. Find out what other houses in your area have sold for. You can do this by having an appraisal done on your home by a licensed appraiser. Appraisers have the resources available to determine what houses like yours have sold for.  A local licensed real estate broker can also do a market appraisal and give a fair-market price range. Most houses are not identical so you cannot get an exact price it will sell for. After you have determined what your house is worth and what it would probably sell for, you must set an asking price that is realistic and not over priced. It has been said that the best offer usually comes from the first few buyers who view the home. This can be the case if your home is price correctly. It is true that most buyers will make a "first offer" on the house. You should consider this first offer very seriously and accept it if it is reasonable, or counter as closely as possible, assuming you really want to sell. If you do not, you could lose the buyer because in a "buyers market" as we are in, there are other sellers that would be more negotiable than you. Tip: You also do not want to make frequent price reductions. That is, purposely setting the price high to see if someone will like your house that much, and then lower the price over time. This is called "chasing the market." The longer the house is on the market, the harder it will be to sell at the price you want. Potential buyers will think others have rejected the house for whatever reason. Contributed by Maury S. Jazzetti Have a comment? mailto:info@betterlifestyles.com Website: http://www.betterlifestyles.com