This book is about getting your home sold in any type of market. We show you how, through strategic thinking, to understand real estate as well or better than many of the professionals working in the business. You will be able to directly apply what you learn here to the sale of your home. You will sell it successfully and will minimize your stress while doing it.

We will also guide you through all of the stages of a sale, discussing what truly motivates buyers and specifically what gets you top dollar for your home.

Selling your home is not just about hitting all your marks and completing checklists. What it’s really about is the understanding of the process and the people involved in it. There is a huge element of psychology in the sale of real estate. Knowing how to use it your advantage is what makes you more money than another seller who does not. We’re going to teach you how to do it.

Part 1, “Getting Ready to Sell,” is a comprehensive guide to all the decisions you need to make and the things you need to do before you put your home on the market. It starts with creating a plan of action and then screening and hiring the best Realtor that you can find. You may have decided to sell your home on your own, without the aid of a professional. We have dedicated an entire chapter to selling a FSBO (For-Sale-By-Owner). The two most important things you must do before you put it on the market are to price it properly and stage it well. These two things are of paramount importance.

Part 2, “It’s Showtime: When Your Home Is on the Market,” talks about how your home will actually be put on the market, how to manage showings to your home’s greatest advantage, and the power of the Internet for maximum exposure. Also in this section are some very important chapters for getting top dollar. We discuss buyer behavior patterns in both a rising and falling market as well as devoting an entire chapter to selling your home anywhere, anytime, and in any type of market. There are also some special kinds of sales that we address in Part 2: estate sales, relocation for a job, selling income-producing properties, and flipping homes. While the basic approach to marketing these homes is the same as any other, they have their own special set of considerations and challenges to deal with.

Part 3, “Negotiating and Closing the Deal,” is all about keeping the deal together, which is as important as receiving the offer in the first place. After all, what good is a fabulous offer if it never makes it to the closing table? We will show you how to scrutinize and evaluate an offer before you accept it, how to negotiate, and what happens at an inspection, the final walk-through, and the closing table. We’ll show you how to calculate your profit and reduce your liability. And we’ve concluded the book with all the ways to make packing and moving simple.

On a personal note, we hope that you enjoy reading this book as much as we enjoyed writing it. We feel strongly about every single chapter and hope that they give you all the information and guidance that you’ll ever need to sell a home.

We’ve added a few helpers to define terms used in the main text and to provide you with additional tips and warnings. You’ll find these located in boxes throughout this book.

We’d like to thank our families for being instrumental in the writing of this book—mostly our husbands, John Gentile and Bob Severance, whose love and support made it all possible. Our children: Katie’s little Jack; Nancy’s Jessica, Maddie, and Julie, who were all supportive in so many special ways. A special thank you to our literary agent, Janet Rosen, at the Sheree Bykofsky agency—the catalyst for it all. Without her tremendous support and guidance, this book would not exist.

We’d also like to thank some of our professional friends who gave of their time and advice so generously: Tom Conk (CPA), David Rubenstein and Joanne Cabe (mortgage brokers), Melanie Factor (attorney), Kate Pruim (home renovator), Dan Casella (Goman’s Moving Company), Charles Mabee (May-Pan Moving), Roy Scott and Deborah Campbell (our brokers), and our friend Jay who gave us our start in the real estate business.

Thank you to our parents, Jerry and Marge Rubacky and Bill and Gloria Lawrence. And finally, to the others whose feedback was so appreciated: Maggie Chess, Anthony and Donna Gentile, Carol Garcia, Jerry Rubacky Jr., Susan Kempton, Maryanne Rubacky, Frank Pita, Frank Rubacky, Susan Severance, Sandy Neville, Barbara Lawrence, Nora Keefe, Denise Brown, Maeve Walsh, and Mike Rubacky.

We’d like to thank the editors of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Selling Your Home for all the ways they guided, collaborated, and inspired us: Mike Sanders, Michele Wells, Ginny Bess Munroe, Kayla Dugger, and Amy Borrelli. Every suggestion and edit made the book better.

All terms mentioned in this book that are known to be or are suspected of being trademarks or service marks have been appropriately capitalized. Alpha Books and Penguin Group (USA) Inc. cannot attest to the accuracy of this information. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark.