A lot of people are looking to sell their homes quickly because they realize that they’re underwater with their mortgage, they have lost a job or have reduced income or they simply need to downsize in order to move on with their lives. However, in today’s housing market of dropping values and plenty of competition, selling a house isn’t nearly as easy as it used to be.

During the height of the housing boom homes could be expected to be sold in a matter of days and if your house was on the market for more than a month then there was surely something wrong with your house. These days the opposite is true: it’s not unusual for a house to be on the market for 60, 90, 180 days or more. Trying to quickly sell a house without practically giving away your home can be a challenge, but it’s possible. If you’re a homeowner looking to sell your house fast or you’ve had a difficult time selling your house up to this point, then you’ll want to consider taking some of these steps.

Home Improvements Help

Yes, you’re hoping to be moving out but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set a good impression. Little improvements around the home can really help sell a house quickly.

Increase Your Curb Appeal: Before you sell your home you have to make sure people want to come inside. And to do that, you’re going to have to make sure your house looks good from the outside. Think about it: when you are shopping for homes the first thing you do is drive by different addresses to check them out, and potential home buyers are going to do the same with your house. You need to keep that in mind and look at your home’s exterior with an objective eye. You don’t have to necessarily put up new siding, have a professional gardener landscape your yard or replace your roof.

Instead, stick with the little things that will make your home more inviting. Keep your shrubs and lawn trimmed well. Try warming up your front porch or entryway with flowers or potted plants, make sure your walkways are clear and make sure your windows, screen and curtains are clean and in good repair. If anything outside is obviously broken or falling apart then it would probably be worthwhile to hire a handyman to set things straight. Here are plenty more great curb appeal ideas.

Painting and Cleaning: You’ll want to spruce up the inside of your home as well, but again, don’t go overboard. It’s likely that the people who buy your home will want to personalize it with their own changes. That being said, you do want to make sure your house is clean and dusted and that your paint colors are fresh, bright and relatively neutral.

Floors, Curtains and Furniture: Again, clean and neat are the operative words. If your curtains are torn or tattered, if your carpeting has large stains in it or if your furniture is in poor condition then it’s going to turn potential home buyers away from your home. They’re not going to be able to see past the dirt and grime and envision themselves in your space. If you have furniture that is falling apart or worn beyond repair then you may want to move it from your home, put it into storage or simply throw it away.

Correctly Price Your Home

I know, your house is the best house in the neighborhood and it’s definitely worth more than some real estate assessment says it’s worth. That being said, when you go shopping for a new place to live you want to find a good deal just like potential home buyers want to see the house you’re selling as a good deal. So seriously do your homework and follow some of these steps when it comes to pricing.

Compare Similar Homes Online: The entire real estate market has changed with the internet. Now anyone can visit sites like Zillow.com or Trulia.com and compare home sale prices, see recent listings and sales and even see photos of what many of the homes look like inside and out. Many local counties and municipalities also have home sales, deed transfers and other real estate transactions archived on their websites so you almost never have to do much digging to find out how much local homes really sell for. Remember that the asking price on a home is rarely, if ever, the real selling price. Compare your home to other homes in the area of similar size and then add or subtract a little value based on your home’s conditions, upgrades and more.

Go Slightly Lower: Sorry, in this economy if you want to sell your house quickly you’re going to have to make some sacrifices and realize that you’re not going to walk away from your house with a truckload of money. Do you best to find a decent selling price and then subtract 1%. When there are a surplus of homes available for sale (as there are now) then price matters. When potential buyers are narrowing down their decision to one or two homes the way to keep your house in the mix is to have a lower price. Make your home seem like it’s actually very well priced. Homes are selling and people are buying houses, but the houses the sell the quickest without being on the market for 6 months or more are the ones that are priced lower than perceived expectations.

Pick A Stand Out Home Price: When you’re setting the selling price for your home you need to use some basic psychology and understand how home browsing works. If you think your home is worth $203,000 and you set that as a price point then you’re going to be excluded from the thousands of real estate website searches that are looking for homes that are “$200,000 or less”. Most housing search engines allow you to look for homes with a minimum and maximum price range and those ranges are usually broken out into $25,000 or $50,000 levels. That means you could search for homes that are less than $200,000, $225,000 or $250,000 and so forth. The obvious pricing strategy to take is to price your house around the $199,999 mark so that it is still at the top of the range, but it stands out because it is below $200,000. Of course, a lot of other people have this strategy, so here’s another pricing idea to get your home noticed in the real estate listings:

Try giving your home an unusual price that’s not composed of 0′s and 9′s. Instead of $199,999 you could try pricing your home at $199,876 or $199,123. Some realtors swear that giving a house listing a price that ends with triple sevens seems to bring in a lot more interest simply because a lot of people consciously or subconsciously equate 777 with a jackpot or being lucky. Setting your house price to something like $199,777 will definitely catch some attention in the real estate listings and it could mean the difference between your house being on the market for 10 days versus 10 months.

Real Estate Agents

A lot of people look at the fees involved with using a real estate agent (usually 4-5% of the total sale price) and balk at the amount of money they are giving up. However, if an agent can actually get your home sold quickly then he or she might be well worth the effort. Here are some tips for working with a real estate agent:

Open Houses Work – To A Point: Hosting an open house does usually get people into your house that may not have normally looked, but most good agents don’t rely on them to sell a house in a timely manner. Many agents admit that open houses are more of a psychological tactic used to bring in new clients for themselves and to get a little bit of buzz going. Almost all Open Houses have a sign-in sheet left by the Realtor these days, and that’s meant to be used as a lead list for the agent, not necessarily for selling your house.

Be Open-Minded: Real estate agents often have to be the bearer of bad news by telling you that your home is not worth as much as you think it is or that certain things should really be fixed or changed in order for your house to sell sooner rather than later. Don’t take their advice personally, but rather, see the entire process as a business transaction. Remember: your agent wants to sell your house just as much (maybe even more) than you do!

Even after taking all these steps, it may still take some time to sell your house to the right buyer. There are new programs opening up which could actually allow you to make money even if you sell your home for less than it’s worth. The program requires you to short sale your home and then walk away without owing the bank the balance of your existing underwater mortgage.

The housing market is tough right now and there are lots of things you can do to help sell your house faster than you ever thought possible. Remember to look at your home objectively, listen to the advice of others and don’t be afraid to try new things. To ultimate key to selling your house quickly is offering a better value on your home than those of your competitors (which are other home sellers in the same market as you). By the same token, you want to be careful not to be pressured into underselling your house or your home’s worth. Sometimes selling a home fast is not as important as selling it for the right price, and that decision is ultimately yours alone

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