You want to sell your house for the best price, calmly and quickly, and you want the house to stay sold. You certainly do not want to hear about problems or unhappiness after the sale is done.

Thorough preparation will go a long way toward achieving your goals. Things will go smoother if you are ready psychologically, you fulfill your legal obligations, and you pay attention to the presentation of your house.

Getting your psyche ready
Maybe you’ve landed a great job in another state, and you’re thrilled. You’re selling because you are eager for a new life elsewhere. This is good. Going towards something attractive makes leaving a lot easier. Still, you may find it difficult to let go.

You (and your family) have grown to love your house, garden, views, neighbors, car mechanic and grocery. It may be hard for you to leave. You will need some time to ready your heart.

It could be worse. Maybe you’ve lived in your house for forty years or more, raised your family there, planted trees, stored in the basement family memorabilia from all those good years. Now you are selling, not because you want to, but because you can’t climb the stairs any longer. You may not even know yet where you will next be living.

If this is true for you, you are facing a loss, a difficult and perhaps wrenching, experience. You will need time to sort through your belongings, to sit quietly and reminisce, to come to a degree of peace with your separation from your life as it has been.

Most importantly, you will need whatever time it takes to find where you are going. Hopefully, you will come to look forward to a new home, a new chapter in your life.

Legal obligations
No matter what your house is like, whether you are selling "as is" or not, by law disclosures must be made. Sellers are often worried about disclosing what is wrong with their houses but, generally, they shouldn’t be. Buyers greatly appreciate knowing the facts about a house and they are far less likely to later complain (or sue) when they know the truth.

If there is something particularly scary about your house (it’s sliding down a hill?), better to have a buyer who knows this up front, someone who understands what he’s taking on. Yes, there will be people who will run away once they know what is wrong. They are not the right buyers, but the right buyer does exist. Believe this; it is true.

So it behooves you, legally and practically, to disclose in writing anything about your house that may give a buyer pause. This includes, but is not limited to, broken and nonfunctional parts of the house, leaning retaining walls, cracked and uneven surfaces and water coming in anywhere.

If you have a mind to, you can also include in your disclosures notes on maintenance and upgrades made during your ownership, also personal comments about your time in the house, what you have enjoyed while living there. Buyers like knowing these things.

You will need, at a minimum, a termite report. It just isn’t good to have your agent say, "No, we don’t have a termite report yet." A report should be available when the house is first shown. No exceptions.

It is also frequently advisable to have a general physical inspection done before marketing. This inspection is fairly expensive, and it will not substitute for the buyer’s own inspections. But it can be a great assist to buyers (and therefore, to sellers) to know as much as possible about the house before an offer is written.

Also helpful is supplying receipts for major work that the seller has done (earthquake retrofit, new roof, etc.) and, in some cases, bids for repairs that the buyer may want to make (fireplace and chimney, for example).

In some cities, ordinances require that certain work be done when a house is sold. In Albany, for instance, the sewer lateral to the house must be in good condition. Often replacement is required. Whether it is the seller or buyer who pays for the work, the cost should be determined before a house is put on the market.

And the house needs to be cleared of enough belongings that inspections can be made. If the termite (or other) inspector cannot get to the walls of the garage or basement, if he cannot access the attic, you will have an incomplete inspection. This is bad because it leaves open questions.

Market presentation
Perhaps you have a picture-perfect house, well maintained, well furnished, clean, with a pretty garden. Nothing needs to be done to get your house ready. That could be true but often, we find, houses that seem very "together" do still need things done for best presentation.

Often, for instance, there is too much in them. When 50 or 100 people walk through your house, as they do when it is held open, less is definitely more. To show your house to best advantage, it may be advisable to simplify, to remove furniture and collectibles. You want to allow potential buyers to move freely inside the house, and you want them to be able to see the house itself, not be distracted by too many possessions.

Also, you will probably want to have your windows washed, make sure porches are swept, and that your door locks work smoothly. By law, smoke detectors must be operable in certain places in the house and the hot water heater must be strapped to current code.

But maybe your house is in poor shape. You haven’t had the wherewithal to keep up with maintenance. In fact, it’s such a wreck, needing "everything" that you’ve decided to do "nothing".

It’s not a good idea. No matter how bad the health and appearance of a house, there is prep that should be done. It needs to be clean. Even if the plaster has fallen from the ceiling leaving holes to the sky, all surfaces should be clean. Windows, walls and floors, bathrooms and kitchen, the front walk, the basement – all must be clean.

The seller, the seller’s agent and the house should be ready from the moment the house is first shown. Cleaning, painting, inspections, disclosures should all be completed. It is a big mistake to put a house on the market before all is in place.

The amount of time it will take to get ready psychologically, legally and presentation-wise varies considerably. For some sellers (sometimes out of necessity) everything is ready to go in a few weeks. Most sellers take several months, but we’ve worked with people who needed a year or even two years to get ready. Time well taken does pay off.