2025 Home Selling Advice from a Real Estate Expert

Realtor and FastExpert partner Aaron Gray has almost 2 decades of real estate experience and has helped hundreds of clients sell their homes, with 99.2% receiving their final list price. He shares his expert home selling advice beyond the normal declutter and depersonalize.

Preparing your property to be marketed for sale can be accomplished the easy way or the hard way. Unfortunately, many home sellers unknowingly chose the hard way.

Some people feel confident in their sales abilities because of their success on Facebook Marketplace; however, selling a home is a different, much more challenging market.

Oftentimes, the choice to list and sell the home themselves is motivated by a desire to save money. Saving money is a great idea. However, in 2024, the median for sale by owner (FSBO) property sold for nearly 13% less than agent-assisted sales. In reality, many FSBOs lost money trying to save it and often created and or endured a stressful process unnecessarily.

Social Platforms Can Be Deceiving

There’s a false sense of confidence that’s often driven by the vast amount of information available in our tech-driven society.

Everyone has a platform from which their views and opinions, whether right or wrong, can be promulgated. Sadly, many are providing theories without any proof to support their positions. This abundance of information gives homeowners confidence that they can sell their homes on their own without headaches or hiccups in no time at all. 

Selling a Home Takes Knowledge and Skill

A few social media posts cannot provide the vast knowledge and skill to sell a home for top dollar. Trying to navigate the complexities of a real estate transaction without understanding the process and its nuances, the required forms, or having the requisite knowledge and skill can not only land you in court, but can also take a huge mental and or emotional toll on you.

In this article, I will share my top five tips and home selling advice in 2025.

I will not cover things such as curb appeal, decluttering, depersonalization, cleaning, eliminating odors, paint colors, and repairs. These are all very important parts of the process and things you can readily find available. Instead, I want to share things that may not be as widely talked about. 

Before we dive into the tips, here are my qualifications. I have been selling real estate as a full-time real estate agent since 2008. I have sold hundreds of homes during this time. Over the past 5 years I have helped more than 170 sellers achieve their home selling goals, on average netting them approximately 96% of their original list price and nearly 99.2% of their final listing price. Their average days on the market during this time was 40 days. I share this information solely to confirm that I am not simply sharing theories. I am sharing my professional experience in the home selling process.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s dive right in.

More Than Property Preparation

In addition to preparing your property for sale, you must also prepare yourself for the home selling process. Letting go of a place of memories is difficult and it’s important to prepare for the mixed feelings that will come when selling a home. In addition, there are unexpected events that can effect that sale and it’s essential to be ready for any curveballs that come your way.

Preparing Yourself For the Curveballs

No one has a real estate crystal ball. No one can predict the real estate future with 100% certainty. While there are many factors that give economists and other forecasters reasonable expectations for the direction the real estate market will go, nothing is completely sure. Not one person saw, forecasted, or planned what happened in 2020. 

The Pandemic took everyone by surprise. There were no precedents to turn to for wisdom or guidance. We all played things by the proverbial ear. Looking back, many of us managed to make it through, and we are better as a result.

When selling your home, expect curveballs and be prepared to be flexible.

Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

We have all heard this before, but how do you plan for the unknown?

How do you know just what to factor in when you begin?

When representing clients in the sale of their property, one of my roles is that of an advisor, providing home selling advice. In this capacity, my responsibility is to provide my clients with the most accurate and up-to-date information so that they can make informed decisions. This information paints a very clear picture, including the best and worst case scenarios that may happen during the course of their sales process. I let them know that regardless of what happens, I will be their trusted guide throughout the entire process. I let them know that they are not allowed to worry until they see me worry; and I never worry! This settled confidence proves reassuring to my clients.

When the unknown occurs when you are selling your home, it’s best to hold onto the facts, do your best with what’s available, and rely on your real estate agent.

I Did Not See That Coming

In real estate two things are certain in every transaction: time is of the essence and unplanned things may happen during the course of a transaction.

While we cannot predict uncertainties, my advice for home sellers is that simply knowing that something could happen is half the battle.

Buyers can spend the money set aside for buying their new home on something else. They can open new credit that affects their debt to income ratios (DTI). They can lose their job, have buyer’s remorse, not be able to sell their current home and a list of other things. While they may throw a curve in a smoothly flowing transaction, these can be resolved in most instances. 

The other half of the battle is the knowledge, experience, and skill of the real estate professional and their team. The beauty of selling so many homes is the knowledge gained from each transaction and the wealth of home selling advice. This experience becomes another tool in a realtor’s tool belt. 

Understanding the Market and Timing

In real estate, time is of the essence is a critical aspect for all parties involved in any real estate transaction. Timing can be the difference between an offer being accepted or securing a good interest rate for buyers. It can also be the determining factor for a seller’s property winning out over the competition. Furthermore, timing impacts one loan officer, real estate agent, or home inspector being hired over another.

When Should I List My House For Sale?

Conventional wisdom says that the Spring and Summer months are the best times to list properties for sale. The rationale for this includes: the change in weather, grant programs that become available during the Spring season, buyers receiving their income tax returns to go towards their purchase, an increase in inventory, and buyers and sellers waiting for the current school year to end or planning for the coming new school year to begin.

All of these have merit. Yet, we must still consider the current context. For example, the inventory of available homes for sale reached an all-time low in 2024. Although 4.06 million homes were sold, many buyers were still unable to purchase a home due to low inventory and high competition. This shortage of inventory puts most homeowners with a decent property, in a decent area in a good position to sell regardless of what season it may be.

How Do I Position My Property to Stand Out?

One sure fire way for your home to stand out is to be ahead of everyone else that will list a home in the Spring.

People will always need a place to live. In many instances, serious buyers do not wait until the spring market. Furthermore, waiting until spring for buyers and sellers, means more competition.

While it is true that more buyers are typically available during the Spring and Summer, home sellers only need one buyer. My home selling advice is to list early before there’s more competition.

Low inventory and an abundance of buyers may indeed mean a higher sale price for your property. However, properties must appraise at those higher rprices and buyers need to qualify for higher mortgages and/or have any required additional funds for the higher purchase price.

Hire a Proven Professional 

This is critical. Although a real estate license is not required for you as a homeowner to sell your own property, that does not mean you should undertake the task without one. In addition to market knowledge, there are rules and requirements that could land you in the middle of litigation if you attempt the FSBO route.

There are approximately 179 things a real estate agent does that the average person is unaware. Not knowing, and/or doing some of them could affect your experience as well as your success with your sale.

What Should I Look for in a Real Estate Agent?

There is no one size fits all checklist to determine the best real estate agent fit for you and your property. Research shows that many people hire the first agent they speak with, but it’s essential to interview multiple agents before deciding who to work with.

However, you need to be sure of a few key things when considering your agent.

We have already made the point that time is of the essence. Therefore, you want to know how available the agent is. Is real estate their full or primary occupation or is their time divided between real estate and another career? This is not to suggest that agents with other commitments are not able to help you. However, there should be a conversation regarding your expectations of availability and communication. 

Market knowledge in your location is also helpful, but it is not necessary to have sold homes in your area. The fact that an agent has not yet had the opportunity to sell in your area should not disqualify them from earning your business.

Previous experience in the home selling process is of greater importance. You want to hire an agent with a proven track record of selling homes, or an agent with a mentor or broker who is actively assisting them. Every top producer had to begin with their first sale.  Some homeowner hired them and helped them cut their real estate teeth. An eager young agent that has an experienced mentor could be an excellent asset when selling your home. On the other hand, a seasoned real estate agent with a proven record of sales brings a wealth of knowledge.

My home selling advice is to read reviews, interview several agents and then make a decision as to who best fits your needs.

What Are Previous Clients Saying?

Here is where an agent’s social footprint comes in handy. Most successful real estate agents have a website, a social presence on one or more platforms, and reviews on sites such as FastExpert.

Social media and reviews are a good way to learn more about agents. Homeowners can do their due diligence before making a decision. Read what other clients say about the agent you are considering. People tend to write about their experiences in order to help (or warn) other home sellers. 

Other Skills to Consider

In addition to the number of homes sold, investigate an agent’s involvement in the real estate industry beyond selling homes. Find out if they are a Realtor or a non-realtor. Realtors abide by a code of ethics and have additional training and support non-realtors do not. Realtors go above and beyond the minimum licensing requirements.

Also, check to see if the agent is involved in their local, state, and or national realtor associations or if they have any designations. These additional designations show an agent’s continued investment in their professional development. A few key designations are Seller Service Representative (SRS), At Home With Diversity (AHWD), Real Estate Negotiation Expert (RENE), and Pricing Strategy Advisor (PSA).

The benefit of hiring an agent with designations is a more knowledgeable agent who is better equipped to represent you in the sale of your property.

Proper Pricing

There is a lot of information available on pricing. Since this is a critical part of the process, my home selling advice is to realistically analyze the market and lean on your real estate agent to determine a price.

Supply and demand do come into play in the sale of real estate. However, when a buyer is financing their purchase, the institution lending the funds has something to say about the property’s sale price. An appraisal is required when using traditional third party funds as well as some non-traditional funding sources. Pricing a property properly from the start can be the difference whether your property sits or sells. 

Testing the Market

A homeowner is free to list their property for at any price they desire. Some believe that the lack of inventory gives them the upper hand and buyers will pay whatever price they list the property.

Some sellers like to use the list high and negotiate down as a strategy. This is not the best strategy. Buyers are pretty savvy these days. They will compare your property to other properties in the area that are similar to your property. If your pricing and condition are not supported by recent comparison sales (comps) your property may be on the lower end of desirability. 

Preparing For Your Next Location

Sometimes the home selling process moves much faster than expected. Many homeowners do not know what to expect in the sale process. Some actually underestimate the time it will take to secure a buyer until an offer comes in. Far too often a seller is caught off guard when this happens. 

A Good Homelessness

During the initial interview with a homeowner I cover what happens after the property is sold. Before we discuss the sale price or anything else, one of the first things I give as home selling advice is to make sure my client has or will have a place to live once the property is sold. I jokingly let them know, “I have a track record of making people homeless.” 

Find an Expert

If you’re thinking of selling or buying a home, FastExpert has over 50,000 real estate agents throughout the Nation that can guide you. Read reviews, compare statistics and easily message potential agnets to find your best fit.