Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"The biggest factor is what economists call the market. The market really determines what price you can get for your home. Unfortunately what a lot of people do is they say, 'Alright, I paid X dollars for my house, I should be able to get X plus Y dollars, because I put this that or the other in the house. I really like this house so someone else should be paying me a lot more than what I bought it for.'

"That's fine, but what happens is what if a buyer -- a potential buyer -- can go down the road and buy that house for X minus Y. Why would they pay X plus Y for you?

"The bottom line here is ... that you have to be smart about this. You have to, as a person pricing your home, look at what comparable homes in you neighborhood are selling for or have sold for and use that as a indicator for what you can get. Because if you don't, if you insist on pricing your home much higher, and say I am not going to take anything less than that. Yeah you can put it up for sale for that, but it is just going to sit and sit and sit.

"So you have to be very realistic and let the market -- the marketplace -- dictate what you can get."