No matter how dead the real estate market is, no matter how long you or your realtor has tried to sell your house, staging for sale properly will help you sell it as quickly as possible.

With today's slow real estate market, it is more important than ever to do everything possible to make yours the most attractive, appealing and next to sell house around.

Here is what we did to stage ours:

1. We got rid of most of the refrigerators from the porch. Naturally, we had to leave one smaller one, the Kelvinator, because it was a gift from my husband's first wife. I remember the day she dropped it off here. It was pouring rain when a wild woman in a pickup backed into the yard, got out, climbed into the back and kicked the fridge, the La-z-boy and several armloads of clothes onto what used to be grass before we started the compost heap. That was how I learned Bob's wife had found out about us.

2. We donated all of our unused vehicles to Goodwill. They even came and towed most of them a
way.

3. We fixed the septic tank so that when you flushed the toilet it went out instead.

4. We took Bob's wanted posters down. After all, we did not want the place looking like a post office, plus folks want to be able to picture their own hanging there.

5. We repainted the walls a neutral shade after spackling over the birdshot holes from when Bob was cleaning his shotgun.

Here is what I actually did:

I got in the car and took a ride around the neighborhood, noting the addresses along with a general description, of the other houses for sale. Then I drove up to my house and parked in front. I started a list of things that could be better, like the peeling paint over the garage door, the cracked walkway and so on. I even put down clearing off the driveway and trimming the front bushes.

Then I took walk around, writing down everything that could be better. I wrote down things that I had been meaning to fix up for years, though I did not know if I even needed to repair them in order to sell my house.

Next I tried both screen doors, opened the front door and walked inside, noting that the key could have turned a bit more easily. Taking notes as I went from room to room and then into the basement, I accumulated a fairly lengthy list.

Paring the list to manageable size gave me some feeling of control, even though I had not started doing the work yet. It was important for me to know I was moving forward rather than simply waiting for buyers to come. Listing a house for sale in a slow or slowing market is not like the Field of Dreams: list it and they shall come. It's more about understanding what buyers are looking for and then making sure that it's your house.

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