There’s no denying that selling your house can be a stressful decision. Many factors may have led you to this point. You might be ready for something bigger or need something smaller. You might have an amazing new job in an amazing new city. If it’s a question of sizing up or sizing down, you won’t be pressured to sell within a set amount of time. On the other hand, if you need to start your new job in three months, the pressure will be on to sell as quickly as possible. Knowing how to navigate the ins and outs of the real estate market takes a little ingenuity, but with the right resources – including a competent real estate agent – you’re sure to be looking at a “SOLD” sign in your front yard before too long.

Timing Is Everything

Well, timing may not be everything, but it’s important. If you’re not pressured to sell your house quickly, consider yourself lucky. Feel free to skip ahead to the next section. If, on the other hand, you’re faced with a pressing situation, like a new job that requires you to relocate, you’ll need to act quickly and efficiently to get the ball rolling.

As soon as you even suspect that a transfer or relocation may be possible, get in touch with a real estate agent and hammer out details like what a reasonable asking price might be. If the relocation does, indeed, happen, you’ll be that much further along in the process, and listing your house will just mean filling out some paperwork and keeping the place picked up for showings.

As a new employee about to relocate, you’re well within your right to contact your new employer to request a deferment of your start date by a few months. If your new job is set to start in the middle of the winter, for example, you’d be much better off waiting a few months to relocate to try to sell your home when the real estate market is at its peak in the warmer months.

Wait for the Warm Months

People buy houses when it’s nice out, not when there’s snow and ice on the ground. Showing a house with a lush, green front yard and trees full of leaves is a boon to real estate agents everywhere. When the sun is shining and the grass is green, potential buyers have an easier time imagining their new life in the house.

There’s no getting around the fact that winter is a terrible time to put your house up for sale. Viewers will traipse in and out with slush covered boots, the trees are bare, and everything is gray and overcast. If you can wait for the warmer months, you absolutely should. Also, potential buyers are much more open to discussing how much things like property taxes, home insurance policies, and general upkeep will cost them when they can hear birds chirping and brooks babbling.

A Special Note About the Current Real Estate Market

If you can avoid selling your house right now, you should. With property values at record lows, the current market is nowhere close to being in the seller’s favor. Upside-down mortgages (when the balance of the mortgage exceeds the value of the property), short sales (when a seller is forced to sell the house for less than the balance of the mortgage), and foreclosures are an increasing reality. Buyers certainly have the upper hand in the current real estate market, and can make demands that, even just four or five years ago, would have been considered insulting to the seller.

This doesn’t mean that all hope is lost, though. If you still decide that you want to sell your home, prepare yourself to be patient, and hold off listing until the weather and time of year are on your side. Needless to say, the best time to sell is when you can, at the very least, recoup your initial investment on the property. Give yourself as much time as possible, which will prove to be the most important factor to selling successfully.

The town of Albert, Texas is for sale on eBay –current price listed at $50,100.  An investment project?

-Edit- The ending price of the auction was $52,100.00, and it had 24 bidders.

Not very long ago, I listened to an audio-lecture on NPR about shopping and investing locally. This was from a man named Michael Shuman, he is the author of the book ‘ The Small-Mart Revolution.’ In this book he talks about the benefits of a locally owned and operated businesses. During his lecture he talked about these issues as well as some of the problems involved in attracting local investors in a fiscally responsible way.

Each community needs to develop its own self reliance and maximize the opportunities presented. This will help them to grow in a sustainable and reliable way.

Michael currently runs the site Smallmart.org and I found this article. About halfway down he has a list of things that will help you appear attractive to local shoppers.   This list includes…

1. Being locally owned – The most needed part of the equation!
2. Develop a local identity – Let people know that you are local and be proud of it.
3. Behave Responsibly – Respect the workforce and the environment if you want anyone to respect you.
4. Give back to the community – Let them know your business cares.
5. Maximize ‘Local value added’ – Do more than locate your headquarters here, put your factory or do your business here as well.
6. Cater to local markets – You can still sell to the rest of the world, but make sure you sell to those around you first.
7. Develop local partners – This could be contacting other businesses for one time events, or perhaps shopping in local stores for any supplies you need.
8. Grow deep – Expand your offerings to the local crowd.
9. Avoid predatory behavior – Just because you offer some of the same goods or services doesn’t mean that the other company is your enemy, just your competition.  Perhaps possibly even a local partner in the future.
10. Exit locally – When you close up shop, who will take over your business?

I really enjoyed the lecture that he gave, but I think I’ll need to pick up the book in order to extract as much of his ideas as possible.

I seem to be much better at picking and buying stocks than I do at selling them. The number one reason for this is because I often forget to sell on the gains. But if I could always call the tops and bottoms of every stock than ranking with investing legends would be a snap.

Where will the market top? Where will it bottom? Buying after a correction or after a company has a rough week is easy. Learning to sell right before one happens is the real trick.

So If I’m not claiming to be a great investor what exactly do I need to be doing to get there? One thing that I need to work on is determining my selling point and timeframe BEFORE I buy the stock.

From there it is a matter of sticking to your guns and selling when you have hit the mark. Of course if significant news come out you will need to re-evaluate where you are going.

If I would have been following my own advice here within the past month I would have been able to sell off one of my stocks at my price, right below the top. Now I have lost much of the gains that could be out growing in another investment.

Well, I have learned quite a bit from this, and hopefully that will make me a better investor in the future. I suppose only time will tell.

What lessons have you learned in bear markets?