By: KeyCrew Media

Most sellers think the hard part of listing a home is finding a buyer. According to Kristin Egmont, a Connecticut real estate agent working in Fairfield and New Haven County for more than two decades, the hard part is what happens before the listing ever goes live.

Egmont has a consistent process she walks every seller through before she orders photography, sets a price, or touches the MLS. The preparation stage, she says, is where most of the value gets created, and where most sellers fall short. Here are the five things she covers first.

Start With Where You’re Going, Not What You’ll Get

Before any conversation about price or timing, Egmont asks a more fundamental question: where are you going next? The answer determines almost everything else about how a listing is structured.

A seller who needs to buy before they can close on their current home is in a fundamentally different position than someone who has already secured their next place. In a market where buyers typically want to close in 45 to 60 days, a contingent sale can reduce competing offers and, in some cases, lose the buyer entirely. “Setting expectations early is the most important thing,” Egmont says. “As long as everyone is in alignment, it’s manageable. But sellers need to understand what they’re working with before we price and launch.”

Look at the House Through a Buyer’s Eyes, Not Yours

Sellers tend to experience their own home through memory and attachment. Buyers experience it through photographs, first impressions, and a mental checklist of what needs to be fixed. Egmont’s second conversation is about closing that gap.

She walks the property with sellers before any photographer is scheduled and often recommends changes that sellers initially resist, including paint, landscaping, decluttering, and furniture rearrangement. She recently had a seller paint an entire second floor before listing. She has also staged empty homes to answer the question buyers ask most often: can I fit a real bed in this room? “Buyers today are shopping emotionally online before they ever step foot in your house,” she says. “The first showing happens on Instagram, Zillow, Realtor.com. If the home doesn’t photograph well, buyers may never even schedule an appointment.”

Get Specific About Timing, There’s More to It Than You Think

Timing questions go deeper than “when do you want to move?” Egmont asks about school-year deadlines, job relocations, family dynamics, and whether there is a hard closing date on the other end. Each answer shapes how she structures the launch strategy.

Sellers with flexibility get a different plan than sellers working against a deadline. For those with time, she often recommends starting the preparation process three to six months before the intended listing date, a practice she is seeing more sellers adopt as they recognize that rushing the preparation stage is a costly mistake.

Decluttering Is Not Optional

Decluttering comes up in almost every seller conversation, and Egmont’s position on it is consistent. The issue is not aesthetic. It’s psychological. Buyers looking at a cluttered room stop seeing the room.

“If you have a collection of figurines on a shelf, buyers are just staring at those figurines,” she says. “They’re not seeing the room as a whole. You want to show them the size of the room, not everything that’s in it.” Even after sellers have done their own clearing out, Egmont and her photographer will often rearrange furniture and remove additional items to make sure each space photographs well. Getting a storage pod, moving furniture off-site: small moves that change how a buyer experiences the home from the first image they see.

Pricing Is a Conversation About Psychology, Not Just Comps

The pricing conversation is usually the most loaded one. Egmont’s position is direct: pricing high is not a negotiating strategy. It’s a risk. Overpriced listings attract fewer showings, generate less competition, and often end up accepting lower offers after sitting long enough to go stale.

The goal, she says, is to position a home so it creates urgency and strong early activity. She uses a specific example to illustrate how pricing affects outcomes. A buyer approved up to $750,000 was bidding on homes listed at $639,000 that were selling over $700,000 in competition. That same buyer recently secured a home listed at $700,000 with no competing offers, because the seller priced at market rather than below it, and still achieved what a competitive bidding process would have produced. “Pricing is a moment in time,” Egmont says. “We look at the comps up to a week before going on the market, not just what sold six months ago. Sellers who trust that process consistently end up with stronger outcomes.”

Kristin Egmont is a Connecticut real estate agent specializing in Fairfield and New Haven County. She has worked with buyers and sellers in the local market for more than 20 years. Learn more at kristinegmont.com.

Disclaimer: This article is based on information provided by the expert source cited above. It is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or real estate advice. Readers should conduct their own research and consult qualified professionals before making any real estate or financial decisions.