Now that the decision was made as to which agent to hire, and the contract has been signed, the fun begins.

When you were buying, do you remember the excitement you experienced when a new home came on the market and you could hardly wait to go see it? Well, now that you are a new seller, the excitement is similar - you are probably anxiously awaiting the rush of potential buyers storming your home.

If your home is priced well that is what you should see in the first week or so of the listing, unless the buyer pool for your home, due to style, location, and price range, is limited. We see, over and over, that the first several weeks of a listing is when the largest number of buyers will come to visit the home, and it is exciting for the seller. It does mean:

• always being prepared to show the home
• keeping it picked up and show-ready AT ALL TIMES
• being as flexible as possible to allow buyers in.

This can be tough if you have jobs, kids, pets and other tasks nagging for attention - balancing it all, to get your home sold, IS a challenge. Somehow having lots of buyers makes it easier to bear.

It also means that if you have not taken care of minor repairs, decluttering, and other issues you need to do so immediately (it's best, of course, to have done this BEFORE the home went live on the MLS). You don't want to turn off potential buyers who are excited about the new listing).

Now for some possible bad news. If you are NOT seeing many buyers, say only 3 - 5 in a several week period, then you may have a problem. And you need to talk to your agent to see what that might be. If it is very slow everywhere in your market it may simply be market conditions (especially if marketing times are several months on average) or buyer hesitation. But if other things are selling and buyer activity is steady, you may have a pricing problem. Did you, by some chance, insist on a higher price that what your agent recommended? Hmmm. It's also possible that while the comps suggested your price, the market is sending a message that the price may be off. It may be too early to be concerned, but perhaps not.

Try to recapture the feelings you had as a buyer when you went to see a house, OR perhaps saw a listing on-line and decided to pass. What were the reasons? Now look at YOUR home and YOUR listing and put yourself in a buyers shoes. Might there be some reasons why buyers are not coming to see your home?

So talk to your agent to find out what may be going on.

FIRST TIME HOME SELLER SERIES:

Article 3 First Time Home Sellers – Don’t Forget These Questions

Article 2 First Time Home Sellers – The Agent Interview

Article 1 First Time Home Sellers – Getting Started