Before putting a home on the market or listing with a real estate agent, savvy home sellers obtain a comparative market analysis, also referred to in the industry as a CMA. You've probably received direct mail letters or post cards from local real estate agents about CMAs. These pitches offer you a free report to tell you how much your home is worth. Sellers use a CMA to figure out home pricing.

What is a Comparative Market Analysis?

Although reports can vary, from a two-page list of comparable home sales to a 50-page comprehensive guide, the length and complexity of the report depends on the agent's business practice. However, standard comparative market analysis reports contain the following data:

• Active Listings

  Active listings are homes currently for sale. These listings matter only to the extent that they are your competition for buyers. They are not indicative of market value because sellers can ask whatever they want for their home. It doesn't mean any of the prices are realistic. The offered sales prices do not reflect market value until they sell, and in buyer's markets, for example, most sell for a lot less.

• Pending Listings

  Pending sale homes are formerly active listings that are under contract. They have not yet closed, so they are not yet a comparable sale. Unless the listing agent is willing to share information about the pending sale -- and many are not -- you will not know the actual sold price until the transaction closes. However, pending sales do indicate the direction the market is moving. If your home is priced above the list price of these pending sales, you could face longer DOM.

• Sold Listings

  Homes that have closed within the past six months are your comparable sales. These are the sales an appraiser will use when appraising your home for the buyer, along with the pending sales (which will likely have closed by the time your home is sold). Look long and hard at the comparable sales because those are your market value.

   

• Off-Market / Withdrawn / Canceled

  These are properties that were taken off the market for a variety of reasons. Usually the reason homes are removed from the market is because the prices were too high. The median prices of this group will almost always be higher than the median prices of comparable sales. However, listings cancel also for the following reasons:

1. Seller's remorse. The sellers decided they cannot part with their home and no longer want to sell.
2. Priced too high. Nobody made an offer or the only offers received were low-ball offers, which were rejected.
3. The DOM were too long. Agents sometimes withdraw listings so they can put them back as a new listing and fool buyers.
4. Repair requests. The homes were once under contract and after the home inspection, the buyer requested repairs which the seller refused.
5. Seller fired the agent. It's not uncommon for unhappy sellers to fire an agent and hire a new agent.

• Expired Listings

  This group will reflect the highest median sales price because they did not sell and were probably unreasonably priced. Some of the expired listings could also show up as an active listing, listed by a new agent at a new price. Listings also expire because they were not aggressively marketed or because the home was in need of repairs.

Examining Comparable Sales

Comparable sales are those that most closely resemble your home. It is difficult to compare a tri-level home to a single-story home. Select the homes from this list that are mostly identical to your home in size, shape and condition, such as:

• Similar square footage

  Appraisers compare homes based on square footage. Larger square-foot homes are worth less per square foot than smaller square-foot homes. The variance among a group of median-priced homes ideally should not exceed more than 200 to 400 square feet, plus or minus.

• Similar age of construction

  Ideally, the age of the home -- the year it was built -- should be within a few years of other comparable sold homes. Mixed-age subdivisions are common. For example, in one area of Sacramento, a subdivision consists of homes built in the 1950s, and then they jump a couple decades to the 1970s. Although the homes are located next door to each other, the homes loaded with character from the 1950s sell for more than their newer Brady Bunch counterparts. If your home was built in 1980, say, and brand new homes up the street are selling for more, you cannot command the same price as a new home.

• Similar amenities, upgrades and condition

  Appraisers will deduct value from your home if other homes have upgrades and yours does not. A home with a swimming pool will have a different value than a home without a pool. A completely remodeled home is worth more than a fixer. Homes with one bath are worth less than homes with two or more baths. Deferred maintenance will count against you.

• Location

  Everybody knows that real estate is valued on "location, location, location," but have you considered what that means? A home with a view of the city, for example, is worth more than a home facing a cement wall. Homes located on busy thoroughfares are worth considerably less than homes on quiet streets. Compare your home to those in similar locations. If your home sits across the street from a power plant, look for other homes with power plant exposure or those located along railroad tracks, among other undesirable locations.

All of us have something in common with our homes. Sure, style, design, and location are at the top of the list, but how about age? As we age, buyers, especially the baby boomer generation, are looking to transform their homes into a place that they can stay in for as long as possible or they're hoping to find one that's already equipped for them to age-in-place. So how old your home and you are, are reason to give some thought to if your home needs age-appropriate adaptation in order for you to be most comfortable. And, in doing so, you may actually make your home more valuable to a wider audience of buyers, should you ever sell it.

According to the National Homebuilders Association, making a home suitable for the golden years is economical sound. The baby boomer generation (77 million people) makes up 28 percent of the U.S. population. Assisted living for this generation can cost more than $60-thousand per year, not counting moving expenses.

That's pretty pricey. So, if you've taken some steps to make your home an age-in-place sanctuary, then make sure you highlight those renovations if you ever list your home on the market. If you haven't made any revisions, perhaps, some minor adaptations can make your home stand out and more comfortable for any age.

"People who are middle-aged and younger are also opting to use products that are safer because they see the benefits. They are choosing to use tiles that have textures that prevent slippage. They're looking for ways to make the home look aesthetically pleasing and assist them with moving comfortably into their later years," says Steve Walton, Senior Design Consultant for Marrokal Design & Remodeling.

The most common renovations involve widening hallways, making bathrooms more expansive, opening up showers, adding railings in bathrooms and around the house so that wheelchairs and walkers can easily fit. "Hallways are generally three feet which is wide enough to get a wheelchair through, but the door openings in a standard home are about two-foot-six or 30 inches wide. So those need to be widened to a minimum of two-foot-ten or three foot which is a standard width," says Walton.

Larger showers are popular and a good investment. "The universal design of a walk-in shower has mass appeal because of its convenience and easy access for all. "If you have the space, that's best; if not, then the shower has to be remodeled so that the doors are frameless. That way, there's no frame or track that sticks up and prevents the wheelchair from rolling over it," says Walton.

Textured, no-slip tiles are becoming more popular, regardless of age. Filling in sunken living rooms so that there's no change from one room to the next is also commonly requested by contractors. Often adapting a home for an aging-in-place family is a tiered process. Homeowners start with a few things and then gradually have work done over the years. Inside the home, safety is what prompts many to take action, things like adding lighting at the bottom of the stairwell can certainly help the elderly but it's also added value for any homeowner no matter the age. Outside the home there can also be mass appeal by removing steps and adding a gradual slope; it allows easy access for wheelchairs and baby carriages. Here's another good tip that often more modern homes already have -- levers instead of doorknobs. They are easier to open whether someone is elderly or has an injury such as a broken arm.

Yet another benefit for homeowners is that some aging-in-place remodels are considered medically necessary tax deductions. Check with your tax accountant to learn more.

Congress continues to make changes in the tax code in response to the housing crisis. A key change helps millions of homesellers who owe more on their mortgages than their dwellings are worth. These sellers have negative equity — a condition known colloquially as being upside down or underwater. Legislation that went on the books at the start of 2007 significantly benefits some upside downers and does absolutely nothing for others.

This is how the break works. Suppose Sela Sellers disposes of her residence in a lender-okayed short sale that erases the unpaid part of her mortgage. Or suppose the lending company forecloses on the dwelling, subsequently sells it and cancels a portion of her debt. Generally, the tax code calls for Sela to report partially or entirely forgiven amounts on her 1040 form. Not any more. The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 includes a provision that allows homesellers like Sela to exclude as much as $2,000,000 of canceled debt.

Sela excludes (sidesteps) taxes only if she satisfies two stipulations. First, the security for her mortgage is her principal residence, meaning the place she ordinarily lives most of the year. Second, she incurs the debt to buy, build or substantially improve her principal residence. There is no relief for Sela’s home equity loans or cash-out refinancings, except to the extent that she uses the proceeds to make improvements. Other fine print prohibits relief if her lenders forgive debts on vacation homes and other second homes or rental properties.

Long-standing rules generally require debtors to report all forgiven debts on their 1040 forms, just the same as income from salaries or investments. The Internal Revenue Service taxes forgiven amounts at the rates for ordinary income from sources like salaries. Some forgiven debts sidestep taxes. The law specifies several carefully hedged exceptions. They include bankruptcies and insolvencies.

The exception introduced in 2007 benefits people whose debts are reduced or cancelled in arrangements that are known as loan modifications, foreclosures, deeds in lieu of foreclosure and short sales. This last category is the term for an owner who -- with lender approval -- sells for a net sales price (gross sales price minus legal fees, broker’s commission and other costs) that is insufficient to cover all of the outstanding debt.

In tax lingo, the exclusion is for income from the discharge of QPRI, short for qualified principal residence indebtedness. This means mortgages taken out by owners to buy, build, or substantially improve their principal residences. And the residences are the securities for the debts.

There also is an exclusion for debt reduced through mortgage restructuring, as well as for debt used to refinance QPRI. Here, there is relief, but only up to the amount of the old mortgage principal, just before the refinancing.

Another constraint is that the exclusion does not help homeowners who took advantage of the run up in real estate prices to do "cash-out" refinancing, in which they did not use the funds for renovations of their primary residences. Instead, they used the funds to pay off credit card debts, tuition charges, medical expenses, or certain other expenditures.

 

According to researchers of the Financial Trust Index (University of Chicago and Northwestern University) 81% of homeowners interviewed agreed with the statement that "it is morally wrong to walk away from a house when one can afford to pay the monthly mortgage."

Are these survey respondents correct? Is it really morally wrong to intentionally default on a mortgage debt? And, if it is, is it what we might call a grave or really serious moral wrong, or might it better be classified along with "white lies" and other "technically wrong" behaviors that many would think do not reflect a serious defect of character? To lean on some classic Roman Catholic distinctions, might "walking away" be more of a venial sin than a mortal one?

An examination of these questions is not simply an idle academic exercise. The Financial Trust Index research estimates that 26% of present foreclosures are "strategic". A strategic foreclosure occurs when the borrower is able to make the payments, but simply chooses not to. Moral considerations play a major role in preventing strategic defaults.

Of course, moral considerations are not the only ones that play a role in deterring strategic defaults. There are also credit, and sometimes tax, issues as well. Nonetheless, the moral component has been shown to be an important one.

Depending on whose statistics you believe, somewhere around 20% of homeowners in the United States are "under water". That is to say, they owe more on their mortgage than their home is worth. Many of these are candidates for strategic default. Moreover, Deutsche Bank recently released an analysis predicting that about 48% of homeowners would be under water by the first quarter of 2011. Lots more candidates.

Why shouldn’t one voluntarily default on a mortgage that substantially exceeds the value of the home? Why throw "good money after bad"? Wouldn’t walking away represent a prudent allocation of available assets? Without a doubt, doing so will entail a cost in terms of available credit. But this may well not be determinative.

What about the moral constraint? Is it really wrong – or how wrong is it – to voluntarily default on a mortgage?

Before addressing this question directly, it would be appropriate to mention at least two points of view. One is that something is wrong if, and only if, you feel that is wrong. Essentially, you cannot be wrong about your moral evaluations. Another is that all wrongs are equally wrong. There are no gradations. If a person holds either of these views, there is probably nothing more to say.

Having noted these minority exceptions, let us address the majority.

Among those who were surveyed, the immorality (or the seriousness of it) of walking away from a mortgage loan had a lot to do with the circumstances. If a home were only (only!) $20,000 under water, only 7% of those who thought it morally wrong would walk away. But the percentages increased as the negative equity increased. 37% of those who thought that voluntary default would be morally wrong would, nonetheless, walk away from a home that was $200,000 upside down.

Does this show moral weakness, or does it show moral sense? Those with a moral sense know that, on the face of it, it is morally wrong to break one’s promise. But conditions, most would agree, have a bearing on that judgment. Promise-keeping is not the highest moral value. If I promised to lend you my gun, and you are now in a clearly dangerous psychotic stage, breaking my promise would be the right thing to do, not a wrong.

Here, the duty to keep a promise is outweighed by the duty not to put others – perhaps even one’s self – in preventable danger.

Analogous thinking provides moral justification, in some cases at least, for strategic default. While a person may have a moral obligation to keep his or her promise to pay, other considerations – moral considerations – can outweigh the obligation. Maintaining the overall welfare of one’s family is a duty that would have a higher moral priority.

Beyond the observation that promise-keeping is not the highest moral value, it is also important to remember that a mortgage note is not like a typical promise. To be sure, almost all notes contain the phrase "I promise to pay…" Still, with a mortgage, the borrower and the bank make a deal. The deal is: "if I don’t pay, you can have the property."

Mortgages are secured notes. They are not like borrowing from your grandmother. If you willingly default to her, shame on you. She has no recourse. But, if you default to the bank, they can take your property. That is the deal they made. The property may not be worth what they lent you, but whose fault is that? They are big boys and girls. They made a business decision, and in today’s market, they lost. (No wonder that so many appraisals are now coming in under current market value.)

Moral considerations are one of the chief barriers to strategic defaults. They probably exert more weight than they should. The lender made a deal. If you don’t pay, he gets the property. So now, in 2009, he gets the property; and he doesn’t like it. That is regrettable; but a deal is a deal.

A few years ago, few people in the housing market had ever heard of a short sale.

Mention the term today and people, whether they are homeowners or real estate agents, just roll their eyes.

The practice, which involves selling a property for less than the amount owed on the mortgage, has grown in popularity as an exit strategy for financially strapped homeowners because it doesn't ding a credit report as deeply as a foreclosure. But because the transactions have to be approved by first and second lien holders, they are languishing. Some real estate agents try to steer clear of them entirely and even specify in their listings that a property is not a short sale.

The Obama administration is aware of the frustrations. In mid-May, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced plans to streamline the process by offering financial incentives to mortgage servicers and investors that accept short sales, much in the same way that they are rewarded for refinancing or modifying troubled mortgages.

Four months later, homeowners, real estate agents and lenders are still waiting for specific details of how the plan would work. A Treasury Department spokeswoman said an update on the program is expected in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, homeowners like Dallas O'Day are in limbo.

O'Day, a Chicago attorney, and his family relocated from California in June 2004 and bought a Mediterranean-style home in Chicago's Beverly neighborhood for $395,000. They rewired the house, stripped and refinished the wood floors and the woodwork and did other work to restore its charm.

Last year, personal circumstances prompted them to list the home for sale just as the housing industry's meltdown was picking up steam. With no takers and no longer even expecting to break even on his investment, O'Day relisted the 2,700-square-foot home in January as a short sale.

Four months and three price reductions brought the house down to $384,900, at which point a potential buyer made an offer in late May. O'Day accepted it and submitted the paperwork to the lenders holding first and second mortgages on the home.

He has yet to receive a response. Meanwhile, the family has moved into a North Side apartment, the refrigerator has broken in the home and there's evidence of mold in the basement.

"The only thing we keep hearing is they keep wanting current payroll stubs, bank statements and taxes," said O'Day's real estate agent, Pam Decker at Prudential Biros Real Estate in Evergreen Park.

"What has astonished me is that in the presence of one of the softest housing markets I can remember, we're hitting up on four months and they've just had a person assigned to look at it, that they would move at such a glacial pace," O'Day said. "My expectation is I'll be renting until whatever blemish is gone. I've just accepted the fact that at some point it'll be foreclosed upon because I just don't think the banks will pull it together. I feel like I've done everything I can do."

During the second quarter, 14 percent of all home sales were short sales and they were made primarily to first-time buyers who may have more flexibility to deal with the long wait times, according to a survey by Campbell Communications. The sales volume could be much greater. Two out of three short sales never close.

"In general, you have to have three offers for every completed short sale," said survey designer Thomas Popik. "The first offer, the buyer walks before they get a yes or no. On the second offer they walk a good part of the time. The third offer is the charm because it's been in process long enough at the lender that [the lender] knows they want to do this.

"Home buyers are now putting in half a dozen verbal offers, hoping that on one of them the lender will say yes. What this is doing is bogging down the approval [process] at the mortgage servicers. It's just gotten to the point that everyone has started engaging in unproductive behavior. It's a vicious cycle."

The process of getting a short sale approved involves a packet of documents that includes bank statements, tax returns, letters explaining any other sources of income and a hardship letter explaining why a short sale is being sought.

After the packet is submitted to a mortgage servicer, it has to be entered into the system, a person has to be assigned to it, and an appraisal has to be ordered for the property. On average, it took loan servicers 9 1/2 weeks to respond to a short sale offer, Campbell's survey found.

"You've got to stay on top of these banks," said James Orrico, a real estate agent at Professional Residential Brokerage LLC in Oak Brook. "I call on my files every day. If you don't stay on top of them, you'll lose it."

But not every real estate agent is willing to deal with the process. Online realty company Redfin doesn't show or write offers on short sale properties "because of the slim chance that you'll get the home," according to its Web site.

A number of factors are contributing to the delay. Lenders say their top priority is keeping people in their homes, and their own and the government's loan modification programs are taking the bulk of their

"The modification [program] was just like an atom bomb that dropped on [servicers]," said Matt McCabe of National Short Sale Center, a company that acts as a negotiator between borrowers and mortgage lenders. "They had a really hard time reacting to that increased demand."

Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, which services more than 8 million mortgages, said it has cut the average 60-day response time on short sale offers to 30 to 45 days.

"We're not satisfied with that number," said Tamara Swain, senior vice president of real estate owned and short sales at the lender. "The current goal is 15 to 20 days. This has been a big learning process of a function that wasn't very prominent a couple years ago."

Also delaying the process is that if a home can't be saved, servicers are keen on trying to recover as much as possible for what could be multiple investors and that requires a fair amount of due diligence.

"The challenge is buyers always want to pay as little as possible and sellers want to receive as much as possible," said Tom Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which services 10.3 million mortgages. "The bank is the server in the middle."

From a prospective buyer's standpoint, purchasing a short sale property can be preferable to a foreclosure because if the borrower stills owns the home, he or she is likely to take better care of it.

However, with so many distressed properties for sale, and other homes selling conventionally at drastically reduced prices, there's a wealth of inventory available allowing buyers to get a quick yea or nay to their offer. Some buyers make offers on multiple short sales or write the offers so they can walk away if a lender doesn't respond within a certain time frame.

Xia Zhao and her family thought they'd found their next home when they walked into a Jefferson Park townhouse that was listed as a short sale. It was large and near her son's school. However, they walked away from the offer after a month because they still hadn't received a response and were worried they wouldn't be moved in by the time school started.

Instead the family bought a new town home with a price that was cut by the developer in the city's Old Irving neighborhood.

"I guess we're not people with extreme patience," Zhao said. "What if you wait for a couple months and this goes away? You have to start all over again."

"Most people really aren't in a situation where they can deal with the uncertainty," said Zhao's real estate agent, Eric Rojas at Prudential Rubloff. "Even when you explain that it's not accepted until the bank accepts it and you build these safeguards into the contract, people are dropping out, left and right. These sales would get done, but people just can't wait."

Chicagoan Marie Cabrera, a real estate agent at Baird & Warner, is hoping she has found a purchaser with some patience.

After being unable to sell her own condo in the luxury Palmolive Building, Cabrera decided she didn't want to simply wait for her lender to foreclosure on it. Earlier this month she listed it as a short sale, priced at $1.15 million. Within a week, she had a cash offer of $1 million that she sent to her lender.

"I have no idea whether the bank will take it," Cabrera said. "I have an offer that's solid and they're willing to wait."

, why they're gaining in popularity.

Regardless of whether you are in foreclosure, if selling your home will not net enough to pay off your existing mortgages, you may want to consider selling on a short sale. For many years, there were few reasons to sell on a short sale, apart from earning the real estate agent a commission, but times have changed.

Why Agents Recommend Short Sales

You'll hear the myth over and over: "Short sales protect credit." That's only partially true. Your credit will tank if you fall behind on your payments. Experts say agents who repeat that mantra without clarification do so out of ignorance or self interest, take your pick.

There is one exception. If you have no 60-day-plus late pays on your credit report, Fannie Mae may still offer you a loan to buy another home. However, most people who sell on a short sale are in default past 60 days, so this exception does not apply to them.

A short sale could ruin your credit rating. It might not happen right away, but sooner or later, unless the bank has specifically agreed not to report the shortage, the bank may report it as a Score Factor Code 22. That score factor relates to delinquencies, derogatory records and collections.

Real estate agents should not give legal advice to clients facing foreclosure nor assure sellers that their credit rating will not suffer adverse affects. Those who insist on this practice may find themselves facing a process server down the road and be praying that their errors and omissions insurance will cover them.

Here are the main reasons why agents encourage sellers to do a short sale:

• Agents get paid by the lender to do a short sale.

   

• Agents don't get paid if the seller loses the home to the bank by going all the way through foreclosure.

   

• Even if the home never sells on a short sale, the agent gets free publicity (and new business) through signage, open houses, marketing and posting listings online.

Benefits for Foreclosure

Although going through foreclosure is often painful and embarrassing for sellers, there are benefits:

• No mortgage payments to make.

   

• Foreclosure proceedings take months to conclude.

   

• The home is still yours until the foreclosure is final.

   

• No strangers are traipsing through your home.

   

• Banks sometimes give cash for keys after the public sale.

Drawbacks to Foreclosure

Few people, apart from the sellers who choose to buy and bail, really want to experience a foreclosure. Memories are made in a home, and losing it can shatter future dreams. Here are other drawbacks to foreclosures:

• The right of home ownership is striped away.

   

• Homeowners return to the rental market as a renter.

   

• The bank may post a Notice of Public Sale on your front door.

   

• Your credit takes a nose dive, and a foreclosure will remain on your credit report for 10 years.

   

• Under Fannie Mae guidelines, without extenuating circumstances, you will not be eligible to buy another home for 7 years.

Benefits for Short Sale

Of course, you will make your real estate agent happy because agents are happy to take listings. But what about you? What do you get out of a short sale?

• Retain some dignity in knowing that you sold your home.

   

• You won't suffer the social stigma of the "F" word: foreclosure.

   

• No mortgage payments to make, unless you choose to make them.

   

• You can meet the new owners.

   

• You will be eligible, under Fannie Mae guidelines, to buy another home in 2 years instead of 5 to 7 years.

   

• If your credit report does not reflect a 60-day+ late pay, under Fannie Mae guidelines, you will be eligible to buy another home immediately.

Drawbacks to a Short Sale

You may experience some of the same drawbacks as a foreclosure, but they might seem less intense.

• Waiting for the bank to respond to an offer is frustrating.

   

• The bank will want to examine personal records such as tax returns, bank accounts, assets and liabilities, in addition to asking for a hardship letter from you.

   

• Accommodating buyers will mean keeping your home in spotless condition for weeks or months until an offer is received and putting up with traffic through your home.

   

• There is no assurance the bank will accept a short sale offer.

   

• The derogatory credit will remain on your credit report for 7 years.

   

For many sellers, though, the chance to buy another home in two years is the real motivation to do a short sale. Good credit behavior can supplant bad credit after two years, even though the derogatory will remain.

Where will home prices head this fall?  It depends, in large part, on how many more foreclosures are made available for sale, as a new study by LPS Applied Analytics, a real-estate research firm, makes clear.

LPS looked at the link between sales of bank-owned foreclosures (known as REO, for real-estate owned) and the rate of home price declines. In Michigan, for example, REO accounted for 64% of sales in the first half of 2009. Home prices declined by 47% over that time, though the decline falls to just 26% when excluding REO properties.

REO accounted for more than six in 10 sales in both Michigan and Nevada in the first half of the year, the highest in the nation. California and Arizona followed with an REO share of sales at 50%.  (See all state data on the share of REO sales here, and price declines for certain states here.)

If the share of foreclosure sales increase later this year–as banks complete efforts to modify loans and as fewer traditional sellers put their homes on the market–that could generate even larger price declines. One sobering conclusion from the study: fewer homes sold in the first half of the year compared to previous years in several states, even as the share of REO sales more than doubled.

States that haven’t had as many foreclosures have seen less severe price declines, according to the LPS study.  In Massachusetts, for example, REO sales accounted for 14% of all sales in the first half of 2009. Overall, prices fell by 19% in the state, and after excluding REO sales, prices were down by 15%

When real estate markets cool down, typically inventory increases and the number of buyers decrease. Slowing market conditions make it more difficult to sell homes, yet some homes still sell. So, why do some homes gets offers and others sit on the market? The answer has very little to do with the home itself, as I've heard real estate agents claim. More likely it lies within the poor quality of the marketing efforts. Here are mistakes I see sellers and their agents repeat over and over. Don't let it happen to you.

BAD MARKETING: Uploading Badly Shot Photographs Online

Pictures speak volumes and are noticed before the written word. Since it's the first thing a potential buyer will see, why leave a bad first impression? The job of a photo is to entice the buyer to want to see more of the home in person. It should not give the buyer a reason to cross the home off her list. Don't publish photos like these:

• Pictures too dark with drapes / blinds closed
  
• Photos turned sideways
  
• Photos of cluttered rooms
  
• Uncropped photos with unnecessary elements in the pictures
  
• Photos of pets sleeping on the sofa
  
• Not submitting enough photos -- or uploading only one unflattering photo of the front of the house
  
• High resolution photos without adjusting pixels for the Internet

BAD MARKETING: Withholding Important Information or Descriptive Comments

When there are tons of homes on the market, simply tossing out a property address while noting the numbers of bedrooms and baths is insufficient information for a home buyer. It doesn't tell a buyer why she should make an appointment to see the home. Good marketing tells a buyer why this particular home is better than the dozens of others on the market. Sellers should focus on:

GOOD MARKETING

• What makes the home unique?
  
• What was the motivating factor that made the seller buy the home in the first place?
  
• How can a negative factor be addressed that will accentate its positive attributes?

BAD MARKETING: Underestimating the Importance of Broker / Agent Previews

Just like buyers, agents don't have the time to look at every home on the market. So, what can you do to entice them to come see yours? Because agents are more likely to sell a house they have toured, sellers need to attract selling agents.

GOOD MARKETING

• Catered lunches. Go beyond the ordinary sandwiches and bottled water. Food motivates, and don't let anybody kid you about this. Be creative with culinary selections.
  
• Offer drawings for small gifts or gift certificates.
  
• Give online certificates  that can be immediately e-mailed.

BAD MARKETING: Restricting Access for Showings

If an agent can't easily show your home, she is going to show another agent's listing instead. Don't give an agent a reason to pass up your home. Any of these can hamper showings:

• No lockbox on the property
  
• Restricted hours to show
  
• 24-hour notice
  
• By appointment only

GOOD MARKETING

• Call first, lock box

BAD MARKETING: Offering Less Commission Than Other Listings

It's not that agents are greedy creatures who show only high-fee listings--which is against the law, although some are highly motivated solely by income--but agents tend to view lower-commissioned listings as those in which the seller isn't very motivated to sell.

• If the seller isn't motivated, it could mean the seller isn't willing to negotiate on price.
  
• In slow moving markets, buyers expect to negotiate.
• Agents whose buyers want to negotiate will show only listings where negotiation is possible.

BAD MARKETING: Not Including Buyer Incentives

Some multi-million-dollar listings offer sports cars as a home buyer incentive, but it doesn't have to be anything that expensive. An incentive doesn't even need to cost the seller if the home price is structured to account for the discount. Here are typical incentives:

GOOD MARKETING

• $$ credit toward the buyer's closing costs
  
• Home protection plan
  
• Pre-paid homeowner association fees for a year
• Buy-down mortgage interest rate
• Weekend getaway for two

BAD MARKETING: Saying No to Print Advertising

You can't keep your home sale a secret and expect to sell it. Whether you pay for advertising or your agent does, you need to let everyone know it is for sale. The best way to do that is to advertise.

GOOD MARKETING

• Sunday classifieds in daily newspaper
  
• Picture classifieds, if offered during the week
  
• Local weekly or bi-weekly newspaper

BAD MARKETING: Saying No to Virtual Tours

Buyers today begin their home searches online. There is no better way to initially view a home than in the comfort of one's own pajamas at home in front of the computer, looking at a 360-degree tour. Some buyers won't even consider a property listing if it doesn't include a virtual tour. Basic requirements are:

GOOD MARKETING

• Minimum of two spins and preferrably more if space lends itself.
• High resolution photos that buyers can print themselves.
• Ability to download photos so buyers can e-mail the pictures to friends / family.