When first meeting / interviewing make sure you've set aside ample uninterrupted time to sit down and discuss the possibility of selling your home. This is when you'll discover exactly how your home compares to the current market, what price it will take to actually get it sold and approximately what your expenses will be. Here you will also learn what if anything can be done to have your home show as well as possible. Have your listening ears open so you hear all the details of what's explained. This is one of your largest investments and you want to understand exactly what to expect. Make this appointment a priority.

· Make sure you let us know exactly what you owe on the home including any 2nd mortgages and / or equity lines. We need to know what you owe so we can crunch numbers letting you know exactly what you can expect to walk away with. If you are behind on payments while it may not be an easy thing to discuss, you need to make sure we are aware of this because we can possibly help keep your home from going to foreclosure.

· Let us know what your motivation and / or reason for selling is. Realizing this can feel like private information if we know what your goals are, we are better able to help you achieve them. If you are looking to buy we can help ensure you have access to all homes that are for sale based on what you're looking for, and look out for your best interests on the purchase side. If you are divorcing, we are in tune to dealing with this already challenging time and we can help make it as easy for both of you as possible. If you're relocating, we can help get you in touch with the right agent in your new area to ensure you get the same excellent care there. If you're looking to rent, we can get you in touch with folks that can help you find the right rental property as well. Remember, our goal is to help make the entire experience for you as stress free as possible.

· Before your home goes on the market make sure it's in the very best possible condition it can be, especially on the outside. More now than ever before buyers are riding by to see the outside prior to scheduling a time to see it. Make sure yours shines above the competition so they will choose yours as one they want to see. We will give you tips and ideas of things we think will help it show the best. As your home is on the market as hard as it can be, you want to maintain it in this condition all the way to the final closing.

· Let us know up front how you prefer to communicate. There are so many ways now a days, and we want to make it as easy for you as possible. Is it email, text, phone, or mail? Whichever works best for you we will honor. While we're marketing your home, don't hide out in frustration. If you have questions, concerns, and /or comments please be sure to let us know so we can ease your mind and take excellent care of you.

· Understand that in today's market there are much fewer actual showings than there have been in the past. Because buyers are able to get onlline and see everything about your home including interior photos, the address and directions, it's almost a two step elimination process before they ever walk through the front door. First they see your home online and then in most cases they ride by to see the outside and location prior to scheduling an appointment to see your home. Be patient, while it may seem you aren't having any activity, you actually are. This also means when you finally do have a showing, it's much more quality showings than it was in years past where we as agents carried around the big mls book deciding which homes we showed to buyers based on what we thought they wanted.

· Be patient with the time it will take to sell your home. We are in one the most challenging housing markets many of us have ever experienced. It's taking much longer to sell a home than ever before and it does take a lot of patience as a seller.

· When you get feedback from the showings that take place, be open to hearing it. The agents are only trying to help and give honest opinions and information that will help to get the home sold.

· Understand that we as your agent may never show your home. Obviously our goal is to get it sold as quickly as possible and we want to ensure maximum exposure to buyers in the marketplace not just those we're working with. Now if we have a buyer that is pre approved financially and looking for a home like yours, we're certainly going to show it. If we sell it ourselves we make twice the money so that would be great for us. Unfortunately due to the nature of the business in many cases there are two agents involved one representing the seller and one representing the buyer. With over 1,000 active Realtors across the Valley, other agents and companies will be showing your home way more often than we will. Our job is to actively and aggressively market your home to buyers direct as well as to other agents.