Kay
The first step is to establish current market value of your home. Agressive pricing is crucial in this market.
Lenders are currently requiring their appraisers to evaluate properties under contract by using comparable solds no older than 3 months.
You can either contact a few local agents in your area to do CMA's (comparative Market Analyses) on your home. Or you can pay an appraiser to evaluate your property.
Which ever you choose, let the professionals know you are selling your home and want an aggressive value to sell in this market. Direct them to use most comparable sales that are no older than 3 months.
If you have called Real Estate Agents to do CMA for you, also ask them the average difference between asking price and closed sale price in your location.

Just see thousands houses I sold over Internet, you all will believe the tips I am going to share with you would work and answer your question. http://cnj.craigslist.org/search/rfs?query=stn+just+sold&…

First, you should NOT exclude professional realtors, but you need to add one more clause in the standard contract that "listing agent" only get 1%, where as "selling agent" get 5% (yes, you need 6% in current market to motivate professionals), and in the case YOU bring in the buyer, you will only pay 1% to the listing agent who would be getting something for the paper work. In some cases, you may need to kick back 3 to 4% to the buyer, and keep 1% for yourself.

Secondly, doing so, you shall be able to motivate 99% of realtors if not 100% realtors to bring matched buyers to your, yet, you shall work WITH realtors as a team to market your house. This is very important during current market.

Third, you will obtain all the SOLD info from your listing agent and go to free website like Craigslist to announce "sold" info every day like this one in NJ http://cnj.craigslist.org/search/rfs?query=stn+just+sold&… You have to be the person to do it since your realtor, or just any realtor is bounded by the law, NOT to be able to annouce other realtor's listing.

Four, Why announcing SOLD units is important, especially in current market. On the one hand, any media should have balanced report, on the other hand, many prospective buyers will be able to tell the fair market price of the current market.

Five, you can build up a community blog like this one at Edison Hollow South http://raspberryct.blogspot.com/ which is currently SOLD OUT! yes, sold out, so real estate is very hot huh? and proactively helping your neighbors,especially, competitors to sell their units. Why help your "competitor?" Because, your true enemy is "timing", if you were able to help your neighbors to sell their units FAST, you shall see your term soon will arrive, and at better price once you helped the lower ones sold.

Six, Identify all the neighborhood info, such as train, bus, schools, mall, ...etc, just anything your family need to make life easier, and put them into a "wiki message" and post on Internet such as Craigslist.org in your area. A great example would be like this one http://newjersey.craigslist.org/rfs/556629358.html that you keep annoucing SOLD units info, and at the botton post your for sale info. Keep in mind, you want to post the comparable SOLD houses to your own, either at the same town or neighborhood town, that way, the prospective buyers will have much better idea and all the necessary info to make quick decision.

Seven, Refer all buyers who came to you but NOT match yours to your listing agent, or just any realtors you saw may be a fit in realtor.com. Why? because, you will have this "matching game" move much faster, and many of your realtors in town or in state may be able to put thru a deal. That not only help them to make some extra commission, but the most important thing is that you help many of your competitors SOLD. One more side effect is that you may even help some move up sellers sold their house, and make them become buyers of bigger home.

Eight, Go visit all your neighbors's open houses, and share with them info, and help them sell. Back in 90's there was 55 units listing for sale in my community out of total 220, I visited everyone to identify who must sell and who were not, I was able to pursuade many sellers to take of the market, and the for sale units dropped to under two dozens in just a few weeks. Then, of course, you will either refer buyers to them directly or thru their listing agents if they must sell like some owners retired and moved to nursing home.

Nine, If your house affordable by first time buyer, normally under $450k, due to the fact over $417,000, the loan become jumbo that would be higher rate and harder to get, you should keep in mind, many of your buyers renting apartment, and may have only 60 days to shop and buy and move in, so you need to get familiar with all the apartment complex in the area.

Ten, Tell everyone you know real estate is in great demand now especially mortgage rate collapsed http://bankrate.com/brm/graphs/graph_trend.asp?tf=180&ct… that will help many qualified buyers making correct decision. If get counter argument, show them this real time link http://cnj.craigslist.org/search/rfs?query=stn+just+sold&… and ask them if it is not right market, why so many houses sold?

There might be several steps like the right price and good staging...but definately purchase a virtual tour of your home for sale or rent and get it up on the Internet ASAP. This housing market dosent' give you many choices, you need as much exposure as you can get! A virtual tour of your home for sale displayed on the Internet is the way to go...it is safer, no waiting for no shows, no everyday house cleaning... plus you can run an ad in the paper and refer interested parties to your online tour saving everyone valuable time and gas. An excellent web site to check out is
TourByOwner.com Their sister web site HomeScenes.com is designed for real estate listed properties only...in the event you decide to list your home with a real estate agent later. Note tours on TourByOwner.com can be transferred to HomeScenes.com for a reasonable processing fee to your agent if you list.
TourByOwner.com tour pricing is very affordable and the online ordering system and online flyer system is easy to use! Activity Reporting System Too! If you are not in their photography service area, you can upload your own UNLIMITED photos and they will build a tour for you! Good Luck!

1. Find a board certified real estate attorney who will help you write the contract. Other GP attorney's will tell you they can do it, but with all the in/outs of the contract and all the changes going on I would only use one who writes lots of contracts and preferrably one that is board certified in real estate law.
2. Find a lendor who can prequalify your leads.
3. Get a neighbor, friend, or realtive to show the home and take your phone calls. Normally as an individual, you'll be tempted to give away too much information and be too personally involved to negotiate from a position of strength, so let a detached party assist you with this. This will also provide a level of safety for you as well. That way you are not letting total strangers in your home while you're there alone.
4. Study up on real estate law somehow. You'll want to use the right keywords in your advertising and disclosures, but not ones that will get you in trouble. New is often thrown about by homeowners, but has varying definitions. What may be "new" to the seller, is "used" by the buyer if it has been used once or it takes six months to sell the home.
5. Buy and read a couple of books on the subject. I'll bet you can find one on Amazon or at Half Priced Books.
6. There's probably a lot more to do, but those are a few of the first steps I would take.

I suggest you interview three Realtors, glean from them what you can, and have a go at it. Some people can sell their homes on their own. Just rmember, on average, homes sold directly by sellers, according to a NAR study 2007, average about 16% less.

I'd have the Realtors prepare an Estimate of Seller's Net Proceeds and estimate what you would net with a Realtor, versus how much you might net. Remember that 90% of the time a buyer sees the home they purchase with a Realtor, so you would not want to exclude 90% of the buyers unless you had very strong reasons.

Good luck. I hope you can do it.

There are many people who are real estate and business-savvy who can manage to sell their own property themselves and don't require a full-service Realtor®. But, Kay, the fact that you're asking what your first step should be tells me that you aren't one of them.

If you're not familiar with the process, and haven't done this before, I strongly recommend hiring a real estate professional to assist you with the sale. There are too many nuances, and too many land-mines along the way, to attempt to do this yourself with little or no prior experience. This is too important a business transaction to trust to an inexperienced salesperson, and unfortunately that appears to be what you are.

I would recommend that you interview some Realtors and see what they offer and that way you can have a good idea of what you would need to do

Kay,

Go to my website and click on "Selling Your Own House" it will explain some of the things you need to do and consider. Hope it helps.