Welcome to Selling Your House For Dummies, the perfect companion to Home Buying Kit For Dummies, the #1 bestselling real estate book (that we also happened to write). If you’re like most people, your biggest investment is your house. Sell your house wisely and you not only save yourself loads of time, but you also pocket thousands — if not tens of thousands — of dollars more than you would otherwise. Making a big mistake in the sale of your house, on the other hand, can easily cost you additional weeks — perhaps even months — of work and headache, as well as half a year’s worth (or more) of your take-home income.

One of Ray’s treasures is a well-worn fortune cookie message that says, “A wise person knows everything. A shrewd person knows everyone.” We apply that same principle to house sales. Real estate is a team sport. In this book, we show you how to put together a winning team, and we alert you to key points to consider throughout your sale. Follow our advice and your house is as good as sold before the For Sale sign even goes up.

We don’t care whether you decide to sell your house or how much of the transaction you attempt to handle yourself. It’s not that we’re insensitive; we simply don’t have a vested interest in the sale of your house. What we do care very deeply about is that you make the best possible decisions for your situation. If those decisions mean staying in your current home instead of selling, or if they mean selling through a good local real estate agent, that’s terrific. We wrote this book to help you avoid making mistakes in your selling decisions and to ensure that you sell your house in the best way possible.

How This Book Is Different: The Eric Tyson/Ray Brown Difference

We’ve received great accolades for our Home Buying Kit For Dummies. Selling Your House For Dummies fills a void for house sellers: It’s a user-friendly book totally oriented to your needs as a seller.

If you’ve visited your local library or bought books on selling your home, you may be familiar with the shortcomings of most house-selling books. In writing this book, we attempt to avoid those shortcomings. Thus, we expect that you’ll find our book is

• Holistic: No one sells a house just for the sake of selling it. Selling a house creates tax and financial ramifications, particularly if you’re selling to buy a more expensive home, relocating to a different part of the country, or retiring. Most other house-selling books, however, don’t help you consider these bigger-picture issues of personal finance before you sell. In Part 1, we come right out and tell you that some people who are thinking about selling their current homes shouldn’t.
• Educational: Most house-selling books are written by real estate agents or their firms. Such books are long on singing the praises of real estate agents but short on specific advice, helpful tips, and caution signs. That’s why many of those other books are 100 pages or so long. The authors aren’t interested in sharing the innermost secrets of selling real estate; they’re more interested in promoting their own business by convincing you to use a real estate agent. We wrote this book first and foremost to educate you.
• Jargon-free: Books written more to confuse the reader than to convey information use all sorts of insider terms that make things sound more mysterious and complicated than they really are. In this book, we try to keep everything in plain English. We even include a glossary, just in case you do encounter a term that appears to be Greek or Latin to you!

Foolish Assumptions

We’re not trying to scare you — quite the contrary. We just want to make it clear that, even though selling your house isn’t brain surgery, you can easily make mistakes, especially if you’re overconfident or do a poor job selecting people to work with in the transaction. When we wrote this book, we made a couple of assumptions about you:

• You’re humble: You realize that you aren’t a house-selling expert.
• You’re smart: Even though you’re not an expert, you realize the value of getting as much information as you can. This trait bodes well for your upcoming experience in selling real estate.

Although you’re likely to hire some professionals to help you sell your house, you still need to educate yourself about all aspects of the transaction. Why?

• You’re the one who ultimately must make the decision about whether or not, and when, to sell your house. No real estate agent, loan broker, or anyone else who has a vested interest in the sale can objectively advise you about whether you should sell your house or when is the best time for you to sell.
• You’re the one (if you do decide to sell) who must interview and hire competent and affordable people who can help you with the sale. You need to know what all the people you hire do, why they do it, what to expect from them, and what they expect from you.

Oscar Wilde said, “Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.” We want to add a corollary to this observation: “Learning from other people’s mistakes is infinitely better than learning from your own.” Selling Your House For Dummies saves you money, time, and heartache — but only if you read it!

Icons Used in This Book

Just as you use tasty seasonings in your favorite recipes, we’ve sprinkled helpful icons throughout this book to draw attention to key points or to denote stuff that you can skip over.

This icon flags key strategies that can improve your real estate deal and, in some cases, save you mounds of moola. Think of these icons as pointing out little words of wisdom that we would whisper in your ear if we were close enough to do so.

Numerous booby traps await novices as well as experienced house sellers. This explosive symbol marks those mines and tells you how to sidestep them.

Occasionally, we suggest you do more research or homework. Don’t worry; we tell you exactly how to go about your investigation.

To ensure you don’t forget important points, this icon serves as your little reminder, like a string tied around your finger.

This icon marks stuff you don’t really have to know, but may come in handy at cocktail parties thrown by people in the real estate business.

Beyond the Book

In addition to the material in the print or e-book you’re reading right now, this book also comes with a free access-anywhere Cheat Sheet that can help you think about the best ways to get your house sold for top dollar. To get this Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Selling Your House For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box.

Where to Go from Here

You don’t need to read this book cover to cover. But if you’re a beginner or you want to fully immerse yourself in the world of house selling, go for it! However, you may have a specific question or two today and want some other information tomorrow. No problem there, either. Selling Your House For Dummies is lighter on its feet and easier to use than other house-selling reference books. Use the table of contents or the index to speed your way toward what you need to know and get on with your life.