The Price Is Right

One of the most important steps in the house-selling game is pricing your house right. Here's how to pick a number that works.

One of the most important steps in the house-selling game is trickier than it appears: Pricing your house to sell. Not pricing it at what you think it's worth, but pricing it according to the current housing market. For this, you will need to think not with your heart but with your acronyms --- your CMA (comparable market analysis) and FMV (fair market value).

A CMA is a compilation of statistics on recent, nearby sales of comparable houses or “comps” (houses with a similar number of bedrooms and baths, similar square footage, etc). Your real estate agent provides the CMA to determine your FMV. In a busy market, this can be unnecessary since the agent (or you) will be able to determine the value based on knowledge of neighboring properties.