The decision to sell your home is rarely reached easily. Once you decide it’s the right time to sell, a "to-do list" quickly develops in order to get your home ready for sale. This to-do list will no doubt be very long, but three items should definitely be included: 1) Evaluate and fix up your home, 2) Gain an understanding of your property value, and 3) Decide if you will get a real estate agent or try to sell the home yourself.

First on your to-do list should be to evaluate your home with a critical eye. Start from the outside, as if you were a potential buyer arriving for an open house. Look for dead patches of grass, bushes that need trimming, and broken birdbaths that you've been meaning to replace. Be sure that anything like bags of mulch, remodeling supplies or junk that hasn't quite made it to the curb are thrown away or placed out of sight. It's easy to get so used to walking right by that stack of wallboard in your driveway that it becomes part of the scenery. You can be sure potential buyers won't want it to be part of their scenery. Do the same thing through the rest of your home. Replace dead plants, or add some if you don't have any.

Strive to make your home and the areas around it look impecably clean, spacious and solidly sound. Light up dark corners, purge clutter, and clean and organize every aspect of your house from kitchen cabinets to the garage. Now is the time to repair that leaky faucet, squeaking door, patch the hole in the wall and repaint, tear out the old shag or wall-to-wall carpet, etc. Put away or store personal items – you want to depersonalize your home so that a prospective buyer can imagine making it their own.

One thing that shouldn't be on your to-do list: major home improvements. Keep in mind that all improvements should be aesthetic or cosmetic at this point. One thousand dollars worth of improvements will not increase your selling price by $1000, so don't invest the money or time in adding that room over that garage that you've always dreamed about.

Also on your to-do list: finding a qualified real estate agent or decide to sell your home yourself. Selecting a real estate agent immediately puts you in touch with a network of buyers and provides some directed and effective advertising that your home is on the market. And, more importantly, provides you with their experienced negotiating skills on your behalf. Selling your home yourself means that you will need to do a bit more legwork to advertise your home and be available to show your home to potential buyers, but it also means that you will receive more of a profit when the house sells.

The next item on your list (and one that you should do periodically throughout the time you own any home) is to watch property values in your neighborhood. Find houses that are similar to yours and find out the list price, as well as the selling price. You can do this by touring the open house, talking to the sellers or the buyers, or striking up a conversation with that nosy neighbor who seems to get the scoop on everything in your neighborhood.

Selling a home can be an involved process, but one that is definitely easier if you have a plan, a to-do list and some elbow grease to prepare for the sale.

American Homeowners Association (AHA)®