Around this time of year, I usually get home sellers frequently asking me, 'Is it's a good idea to take a house off the market for the holidays?' Like so many things in life, there is no clear cut answer. While the winter holiday season is typically a slower period for home sales, it doesn't mean it's impossible to sell your home. But as a seller, you should seriously consider if you'll be able to handle the added stress.

Pros and cons of holiday home selling
Homes are at their prettiest during the holiday season. The lights are up. The trees are decorated with ornaments and presents. And the smell of pine trees, firewood burning and cookies baking in the oven, permeate throughout the entire house. Without really meaning to do it, your home is beautifully staged for prospective buyers.

Unfortunately, some external factors like guests and relatives have also descended upon your home making it difficult to entice potential buyers and retain your sanity.

Your college student just came home with a whole semester's worth of laundry. After months of burning the midnight oil (which I'm sure wasn't from studying), their tired bodies are in desperate need of sleep. You're lucky if they get up by 1 p.m.

While you are throwing tinsel on the tree, they're probably throwing their dirty jeans and sweatshirts all over their bedroom floor. Your sister, her couch potato husband and their two hyperactive children come to visit for a few too many days in your three-bedroom home. Three or four kids are staying in one cozy room, while the other relatives are sleeping on the foldout couch in the family room.

On Saturday night, you have an intimate Christmas party for 25 of your dearest friends. The revelry goes on untill 2:30 a.m.. The empty bottles of holiday cheer and hors d'oeuvres scattered all through the house are signs of the party's success.

Your beautifully decorated home has been quickly transformed into a war zone. If you're still planning on showing the home Sunday morning, there's no time to rest now. It's no wonder that many people find the holidays a very stressful time.

Modifying home showing schedule
With scenarios like this, it is not unusual for people to take their homes off the market or seek psychotherapy. If the above description sounds like your home, ask your Realtor to change the remarks in the MLS so that agents don't show your home during these stressful dates. Both you and your home need time to recover.

On the other hand, if your holiday schedule is more manageable, you should try and accommodate the serious buyers who want to see your home. After all, if these people are looking at homes during this time of year, they are serious potential buyers. To give yourself time to clean up from guests and parties, ask your Realtor to change the remarks in the MLS to give you 24 hours notice before a showing. And to accommodate your exhausted college student, don't show it before 1 p.m., or to be on the safe side, better make it 2 p.m.!

Steven Hyman is broker and owner of Century 21 Sunset Properties Half Moon Bay, CA.

Over the past couple of weeks I've been helping a friend look around for a new condo here in the Chicago metro market. While he's currently just window shopping and hasn't entered into any serious talks with potential sellers, he's your ideal buyer — especially during this slow housing market. His credit score is over 800, he has about $65,000 saved for a down payment, and he has a steady, well paying job. With that said, I was shocked by the treatment we had received when we both contacted some listing agents to show us their properties. Don't get me wrong, there were some real estate agents who went above and beyond their call of duty when it came to arranging a time for us to tour their homes and to provide us with as much information as we needed. But there were also a good handful of agents that needed to brush up on their customer service skills.

Here are 5 things real estate agents shouldn't do when dealing with homebuyers:

1. Don't judge a client by their attire. While I'm not going to win a million dollars at the poker table, I'm usually pretty good at reading body language and facial expressions. And the look that my friend and I received from an agent last weekend was one of complete disinterest. My friend was in his weekend attire: baseball hat, tennis shoes and college T-shirt. Since we looked young, the agent didn't take the time to talk-up the details of the condo and show us around the building. We actually had to ask her to show us around the rest of the building. The agent even said to us, 'I was going to run some errands before the next client comes, but I guess we can look around the building really quickly.' While my friend's T-shirt and baseball cap might not be screaming high-roller, his savings account says otherwise.

2. Don't blow off a call. After scrolling through several listings online at HomeFinder.com I found a couple of potential condos my friend would be interested in. I placed calls into the real estate agents listed on the property listings. A couple of the agents called me back the same day to schedule a showing. But one agent didn't return my call until three days later. At that point, we'd already booked enough showings for the weekend, so we didn't feel the need to schedule any more. In a slow market, where there plenty of bargain home deals available, agents should treat every call they receive with a sense of urgency.

3. Don't keep rescheduling showings. I had one agent call me back three times to reschedule a showing. After the third phone call, I told the agent, 'Thanks, but no thanks.' I understand agents will get multiple requests to see the same properties on the same day, and ideally they'd like to schedule their showings close together. But agents need to find times that fit the potential buyers' schedule, not their own.

4. Don't be dishonest. Real estate agents want to do whatever they can to sell their client's home. That's a part of their job description. But agents that create misleading marketing materials for their listings can come off deceitful. As in any business, sometimes your reputation is all you have, and if people feel you aren't being upfront with them, that could reflect poorly on your company and fellow co-workers.

Take for example one condo unit we looked at last Saturday. The Web site listing and printed sale sheet indicated a private parking spot was included in the listing price. The agent later informed us that the actual asking price was $30,000 more because of the parking space. She said it was a misprint. It's a misprint when it happens once. It's misleading when it's on all your marketing materials. Even if it was a mistake, not correcting inaccurate information is bad business.

5. Don't be rude. While this last rule of thumb maybe a no-brainer, you'd be surprise from what I've experienced during the home search with my friend. I had one agent during an open house talk on her cell phone the entire time we were touring the home. It wasn't until we were about to leave, she'd finally asked us, "Do you have any questions?"

First-time homebuyers typically need some extra TLC. Some of the best agents that my friend and I met during our home search were informative, attentive and upfront with their answers. The agent is an extension of their client's home, and a good impression can mean the difference between a sale today and a home that sits on the market for six months.

Got hot local housing tips or a story you want to share? Contact Amy Le at openingdoorsblog@HomeFinder.com.

For homebuyers with good credit and solid down payment funds, it's likely that 2008 has been one of the best times to buy. Here in the Chicago metro market and in cities across the United States, this year will also be remembered as the time when home values took a nosedive, and selling your home meant fewer showings and less lucrative offers. But while today's real estate market appears to favor homebuyers, it is still possible for those selling their homes to get ahead of their competition and turn a profit.

Here are 5 easy steps you can take to sell your home in a shifting real estate market:

1. MOTIVATION TO MOVE. For those 'just thinking' about moving to a nicer, larger home, tremendous discount opportunities await most buyers. But home sellers today face long market times, repeated price reductions, lowball offers, and a bevy of buyer loan qualification requirements. If you don't have the patience for these potholes in the road, or don't want the headaches, you may want to consider delaying your moving decision until the real estate market stabilizes.

2. PRICE YOUR HOME CORRECTLY FROM THE START. We often plead with our clients – despite what their friends and family might advise them – to not test the waters with a higher market price. This could greatly work against you in a down real estate market. Take a close look at the SOLD PRICES — not the ASKING PRICES — of comparable properties within a three-month time frame. You should also look into the listing prices of homes in historically more expensive neighborhoods slightly further away from your location. Use these guidelines to help you determine your ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM ASKING PRICE.

Depending on your timing, the condition of your home and your specific needs, it might also be prudent to set your asking price lower than these comparable properties. This will ensure a faster sale closer to your asking price. In addition, be cautious of some automated home pricing Web sites. These sites can sometimes OVER or UNDER ESTIMATE home values in an area because they don't factor in upgrades and renovations in a specific home or the neighborhood surrounding it.

3. LOWER YOUR LISTING PRICE QUICKLY AND SYSTEMATICALLY, UNTIL YOU RECEIVE AN OFFER. Every property, in any kind of market – weak or strong – will sell eventually at the right price. It often takes some time to find the correct pricing level. If you have no offers within the first two weeks your house is on the market, REDUCE YOUR ASKING PRICE a minimum of 3 percent until you receive an offer. Continue this pricing strategy until the house goes under contract. In today's market, you may find yourself having to lower your asking price once or several times to sell your home. My advice to you: It's better to have a counter offer that maybe lower than you had planned, then to keep your price too high and receive no offers on your home at all!

4. STAGE YOUR HOUSE PROPERLY. Home staging involves preparing your house for a sale. If done right, staging can create an instant positive impression on homebuyers. From lighting to effective use of props and furniture, staging can mean the difference between a home that sells today, and one that lingers on the market for six months.

5. HAVE YOUR PROPERTY SHOWABLE AT ALL TIMES, AND WITH SHORT NOTICE. Today, with scheduled showings fewer in number and qualified home buyers at a premium, you should view every interested person as a potential buyer. Remember, in a slow real estate market, buyers don't care if you're too tired to show your place. They will just go to the next seller who has made the time and effort.

Use SECURE AGENT LOCK BOXES if your real estate professional advises you to do so and you feel comfortable with using them. This way you can have agents with the access codes visit your home when their clients schedule last minute showings. The system does not work overnight hours. It shuts down in the evening after a certain time and doesn't start working until the next morning at 9 a.m.. This assures sellers that no one can enter their home in the late evening hours. Stay tune for more home selling tips in my next blog post. Till then, happy selling!

Visit DEAN & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO at BlogChicagoHomes.com.

Despite a rise in unemployment and falling retail sales, pending home sales remain in a stable range, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). NAR's Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a forward-looking indicator based on contracts signed in October, slipped 0.7 percent to 88.9 from an upwardly revised reading of 89.5 in September, and is 1.0 percent below October 2007 when it was 89.8.

Conditions remain uneven around the country, but some areas that are showing healthy gains in pending home sales from a year ago include several Florida and California markets, Providence, R.I.; Lansing, MI; Oklahoma City and Las Vegas.

Regional PHSI

•South: Pending home sales jumped 7.8 percent to 95.9 in October but remains 2.9 percent below a year ago.

•Northeast: The index rose 0.6 percent to 68.1, but is 14.1 percent below October 2007.

•Midwest: The index declined 4.3 percent to 79.7 in October and is 6.8 percent below a year ago.

•West: The index fell 8.7 percent to 103.7, but is 17.4 percent higher than October 2007.

New-home sales for 2008 should total 486,000 this year, decline to 393,000 in 2009 and then grow to 446,000 in 2010, according to NAR estimates — which typically tend to be on the rosier side. Housing starts, including multifamily units, are projected at 934,000 units in 2008 and 731,000 next year before rising to 772,000 in 2010.

'Price projections are challenging in an environment with so many variables and divergent local conditions,' said Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist. 'The home price correction to date has brought prices in line with fundamentals, but buyer pessimism could cause prices to overshoot downward, resulting in further economic deterioration.'

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage will probably decline to 5.6 percent in the first quarter, rise slowly to 6.0 percent by the end of 2009, and average 6.2 percent in 2010, according to NAR officials. The unemployment rate is estimated at 7.2 percent in the first quarter, rising to 8.3 percent by the end of 2009. Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, is seen at 0.7 percent in 2009. Inflation-adjusted disposable personal income is expected to grow 1.5 percent in 2009.

Got hot local housing tips or a story you want to share? Contact Amy Le at openingdoorsblog@HomeFinder.com.

If you have your house on the market during the holidays, staging with holiday décor is a wonderful way to showcase the positive features of your home. In order to do so effectively, it is important to recognize the fine line between decorating your home for the holidays and staging your home for the holidays. The goal when staging is to use the decorations to enhance your selling potential. If done right, you could be popping open a bottle of champagne earlier than expected this year.

Simple, neutral and natural
The most important rule to remember is to keep decorations simple. Potential buyers need to be able to envision themselves in this house, to see their lives in this home. Thus, the fewer personal effects you display the better. Instead of displaying those holiday cards from family and friends this year, they would be best kept in a decorative basket that can be swiftly stored for showings. In addition, while we all love showing off our family's holiday art, you should forego displaying it on the fridge while you're still showing your home.

Keeping decorations simple also means they should be used sparingly. The key to staging is to never clutter the space, but since holiday staging involves added décor this can be a difficult challenge. If you are not sure how much is too much, I suggest you use three pieces or less. This will ensure a clutter-free holiday look and feel throughout the home.

It is also important when staging for the holidays to try to keep the décor as nonreligious as possible. One tasteful Christmas tree or menorah is perfectly acceptable, but be advised that these are the only exceptions. Pictures of Santa, nativity scenes and other iconic holiday imagery should be held to a minimum or better yet, kept in storage for next year.

Instead of personal holiday decorations, use traditional, natural decorations such as wreaths and garland.

Light on decorations
Instead of these personal holiday decorations, use traditional, natural decorations such as poinsettias, wreaths, and garland. Add a potted poinsettia or two to add color and life to the family room, but get rid of it as soon as it starts to die! Hang a wreath on the front door to accentuate the curb appeal. Use garland on the threshold or mantel to draw attention to these beautiful selling features. And if you do decide to add any of these holiday decorations, be mindful not to create any permanent damage — garland, lights, and wreaths should be mounted with noninvasive adhesives.

If you have your house on the market, enjoy and celebrate this holiday season while strategically accentuating the positive features of the house. Remember to keep decorations simple, neutral, and natural. Happy holidays and best wishes for successful staging!

For more interior design and home décor tips, contact Kelly Stevenson at kellystevensonid@gmail.com.