7 tips for a home sale in a soft market

Buyers want to see that you've cared for the home during your time there. An indisputable way to showcase that is to hire a home inspector to go through the house with a fine-toothed comb and to rectify any major issues the inspector finds.

Of course, the buyer is going to hire his or her own inspector -- but this helps convince the buyer that the home has been kept up well. It also prevents the buyer from issuing a laundry list of demanded fixes, which some buyers do in an effort to further lower the sales price after their offer is accepted.

"It says 'We've thought enough of this property to make sure that if there are any unforeseen problems, then we have taken care of them for you,'" says Dorcas Helfant-Browning, an agent with Coldwell Banker in Virginia Beach, Va., and past president of the National Association of Realtors.