If you've ever house-hunted, you probably noticed a wide variance in the quality of the homes available at similar price points. Oftentimes it's not the intrinsic quality that is so much different, it's the way some people make their houses look like something you'd actually want to live in, while others leave it up to you to have the "vision" of what a house could be.

I remember one house I visited that had every wall surface covered with family pictures. Every inch, with no space between the pictures. And they weren't all nicely framed, either. Many were montages of pictures taped to poster board, with the whole poster board then tacked to the wall. I would expect to see this in a local bar, chronicling the happy faces of the softball team the bar supports, but not in a home that would like me to be its future owner. The pictures were all over the living room, dining room, on the wall leading upstairs, on the wall leading to the basement. One bedroom had no pictures, as if there was one sane inhabitant who needed to escape the assault.

Another home appeared to have no idea anyone would actually look at its inside. It was filthy, messy and smelled bad. I tripped over a hand weight in one room, underwear sat on the floor in another room. Hey, I'm ready to make an offer!

I'm sure you would not do these things, but even the normal among us don't always have the vision to know how a house should be presented for sale. If you're putting a house up for sale this year, I'd recommend you shell out 10 bucks for Sid Davis' Home Makeovers That Sell. As the title suggests, the book offers a ton of advice on getting the most money from your home, and how to do it in the shortest time possible.

There are three big points I took from the book.

First, price your home right. Price it too low and you're obviously going to lose money. Price it too high and it's going to sit on the market. Find either an experienced appraiser or an experienced real estate agent who can give you a realistic assessment of your home's worth and can back up that assessment with evidence from recent home sales in your area.