When you’re selling your home with flat fee MLS it’s important to know what the market is like. Part of the reason the market is important is because it will have a direct impact on how quickly your home will sell, what advertising you need to do and how your price your home. The other part though – which could be even more important – is that understanding the market helps you to see what buyers want and don’t want to see.

Obviously, buyers don’t want to see clutter and too much evidence that the seller lives there, but that doesn’t mean they want to look at empty houses. This is part of why home staging is important – buyers want to see bedrooms that look like bedrooms and living rooms that look, well, lived in.

Similarly, if you’re selling with flat fee MLS and are thinking about doing a few updates to the home before listing, you’ll want to know that buyers these days are looking for homes that are energy efficient. Now, that doesn’t mean that you need to go out and buy the latest and greatest energy efficient appliances, but you will be able to increase the interest in your home with double paned windows that insulate the home from the weather or with more efficient heating and air conditioning systems.

In addition to looking at the trends and what buyers are looking for (and what they don’t want to see), looking at them can help you to be the type of seller buyers like working with. If you’re realistic, willing to listen to their needs and meet them halfway, your home will move off of the market far more rapidly than if you’re unyielding or try to cover up a flaw that you know the home has.