How to put a house on the market??? Help please.

[tennisgal]

DH and I have made the decision to start preparing to buy a bigger house. We live in a two bedroom house (although it is 1800sq ft, it's only two bedrooms). We want to start looking for a bigger house before I get pregnant again and are on a timeline then. Anyway, our house is worth about $75,000.00 so nothing too expensive. We are looking to purchase in the $150,000.00 range. I'll be perfectly honest, we have three kids and have had two dogs and the carpets have seen better days. They're not terrible, but there are two spots that the dog loves to scratch her nails at and so it is snagged. We have had them cleaned many times and it doesn't make much difference appearance wise. Should we just buy a rug and put it in front of the door (b/c that where one of the spots is)?

Also, we have very little furniture, like college dorm room bare, b/c we knew this was only our starter home and didn't want to buy anything that wouldn't work in our "real" home. Is there anything I can do to make it less bare looking. The living room is really big but it only has two couches and a tv on a tv stand.

I have put away a lot of our books and and extra kitchen things, but we homeschool so that room needs to stay essentially intact, any ideas for making it seem less offensive (maybe that's the right word). Like we have a climber with a slide in there and a table and chairs set and of course toys and books (albeight VERY organized).

We're going to call a realtor tomorrow and see what she has to say.

Btw: We live in Southern Indiana so no big market dropout or anything like that. The market is slower but it's not really terribly saturated and prices aren't bottom dollar

[Shaynas_Mommy]

 I live in southeastern IN and we had 2 houses on 3.5 acres up for sale about 2 years ago and we could not sell them. We even dropped the price 60,000 and still couldn't get even a single looker. We took it off the market and remodeled and just stayed here. Anyways on to your question- you want to have as little furniture as possible so keep it the way it is. You don't want a bunch of furniture overcrowding a room and making it look too small. Take down any family photos and personal things you have as well. You want a potential buyer to be able to see themselves living there. Take the climber/ slide thing and put it outside and clean all appliances off of your counters. Make sure it looks clean everywhere and keep your belongings to a minimum.

ETA- If you are looking for a good realtor, contact a lady named Pam Ginder. She's in southeastern IN so I don't know if she would go out to your area, but she is an awesome realtor and has one several awards here in Indiana. If she can't help you I'm sure she can recommend a good one in your area. Here is the link to her info

http://www.remax.com/residential/find_an_agent/