Selling real estate is no easy task. You might think that selling a property involves nothing more than nailing a 'For Sale' sign in your front lawn and then being inundated with offer after offer but it is not as simple as that. For some reason many homeowners looking to sell their house have that vision and we're here to put an end to such blissful thoughts.

If you have any hopes of selling your home you need to be serious about the process that goes with selling real estate. Hiring a real estate agent, improving your home's curb appeal, cleaning it from top to bottom inside and out, don't forget about washing all those hard to reach windows and hosting home showings are just a few things you'll have to do in order to sell your home. On top of what you have to do you also have some very important decisions to make that will determine the outcome of your sale. One of the most important things you'll have to decide on when listing your property is to determine what its initial listing price should be.

Many real estate agents advise their clients to get a property assessment completed so they can determine how much their home is worth. Once that value has been figured out homeowners will either decide to list it for that much, list it for less if the market is in a slump, or list it for more if they're feeling greedy or selling in a seller's market. Pricing too high might seem like the most desirable option but it is one that can lead to a negative outcome if you're not careful.

The real question is how high do you want to list your property? If it's only a few thousand dollars more then you should be okay; however, if you're asking for much, much more than what other nearby houses for sale are asking for then you could be asking for some trouble. What real estate shopper would want to purchase a home that not only do they know is overpriced to begin with but is asking for more than any other home in the market? That's just a recipe for disaster and can lead to your home sitting on the market for much longer than you had ever anticipated.

What factors might influence the price you list your home for sale?

Do you really want to watch other homes for sale be sold while yours sits on the market, day after day, month after month, waiting for that one desperate owner to pay above market value for your home? Sure, it's a risk that can pay off if your home does sell, but it's one that's more likely to come back to bite you than pay off for you in the long run. Think long and hard about pricing your home too high before you reveal to the real estate buying public what your home's initial listing price is.