When you list your home, you are going to have to make some sacrifices. Showing your home at inopportune times? Check. Keeping your house cleaner than you ever regularly would? Check! Keeping your front yard mowed and trimmed? Check!

But take a look at this picture. If you drove up to this home and I told you the interior was immaculate (it was) and the landscaping was perfect (it was), would you remember that? Or would you forever remember this house as the one that had the stretcher out front? Of course you would! LOOK AT IT!!! If this was October, you would assume it was an elaborate Halloween decoration to a haunted house!

So keeping your house clean and tidy is great when you are showing your home, but no one is going to care when they don't even want to walk in. This was not my listing, so I can't tell you whether the sellers put that out front or if a neighbor did. But that doesn't really matter. It's there!

Ill talk about this further on this week's Tuned-In Realtor (Sunday at 11am), but you have to be more diligent than this. If you have the type of neighbors that would leave a stretcher in front of your house, you have to deal with that. It might not be pleasant, but you're the one looking to maximize your home sale, right? I know most of us don't want to create friction with the people we live next to. But remember: the whole idea of selling your home is that you ARE NOT going to be living on that street any more. And if you are staying on the street, then convince your neighbors that bringing another great neighbor to the street is in their best interest, too!