Selling your bike might have felt like a big step. Selling your car was even bigger. However, nothing comes close to selling your home. For many of you, it’ll probably be the biggest sale you’ve ever made. That’s why it’s important to ensure that the sale runs smoothly. Part of a smooth sale, though, is realizing that the sale actually begins long before any money is handed over for the property. In fact, the sale begins long before you’ve even found a buyer, or prospective buyers, for the home.

The real beginning of a sale is the selection of a real estate agent. This is the person who will guide you at every step of the way throughout the selling process, so make sure this individual is someone you respect and trust. The agent should be knowledgeable about the real estate industry and about your specific neighborhood. He or she should have references backing his skills up. Check our “Selecting an Agent” section for a list of questions to ask yourself when you’re out real estate agent-hunting.

Once you’ve chosen your real estate agent, the next step is to prepare the house for sale. This is a very big portion of the sale process, as it involves cleaning the house, fixing and repairing any less-than perfect areas and throwing away large amounts of clutter that could diminish the attractiveness of your home. It may even involve rearranging the furniture so that rooms in the home look bigger and brighter. Be prepared to buy things to make your home more appealing—new curtains, floor tiles to replace chipped or broken ones and fresh paint for both the interior and exterior of the property, for example. The extra bit of money you invest in the aesthetic details of your home will come back several times over when you get an attractive offer from a buyer.

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