One of the prime reasons people want to sell their home or property privately is to save on the real estate selling commission/fees.
If you have decided to sell your property privately, you should be well prepared.
Selling your home is always stressful; while the following information can not entirely eliminate stress from selling, it will help you get organised, acquire knowledge and tools that are necessary for a successful sale and hopefully help you sell with a much less stress.

1. Know The Market: Get familiar with the current real estate market in your area.
   Is it going up or going down or is it steady.
   
2. Check Out the Competition: Check out the recent sales of comparable homes, how are they selling, how many similar homes are in the market and how long does it take to sell.
   This should help you to establish the asking price.
   
3. Decide Selling Strategy: How do you want to sell you r property, the traditional way where you price your property a little higher than the market or the new popular way of selling by pricing it below the market and inviting bids.
   
4. Establish the Listing Price: Once you have decided the marketing strategy, and you know the market, decide the asking price of the property.
   
5. Get Pre-Sale Home Inspection: Most of the buyers would have a building inspection condition in the agreement to buy your property.
   If you are not aware of the problems, you are likely to lose the sale.
   So why not get the homes inspection done and fix the problems before they become big problems in selling your home.
   
6. Marketing: There are different Medias to advertise your property and most of the Medias would get you some kind of response, but that is not good enough.
   You should know which media will get you the most and effective response.
   Internet has become the major source of information for buyers; while newspapers advertising is becoming less and less effective.
   Go through the ads of the real estate brokers and see how they advertise the homes.
   You could pick up some tips on writing effective ads.
   This will save you time, money and speed up the selling process.
   You will need a 'For Sale" and an "Open House" sign for selling your home; go to a sign company and get professional signs done.
   You will also need some flyers highlighting important features of your home with quality photographs.
   Seek professional help; if you need some, this is not where you want to save money.
   
7. Home Staging: Selling is becoming more and more sophisticated.
   To get most from the sale, many are seeking the help of professional Home Stagers.
   Builders of New Homes have used Home Staging services for decades but the resale market has recently adopted this marketing tool.
   From simple cleaning up of the clutter and rearranging the furniture to full furnishing like a model house/suite can be provided by Home Staging Companies.
   Cost varies according to the services required and can range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars.
   Most of them who have used them would use Home Staging again.
   
8. Know and Rearrange Your schedule: Either you, your spouse or some one whom you can trust, will need to be at home to show the property.
   It would be of help if you can pre-arrange the schedule of your activities in such a way that it allows you the time you will need to be home for this.
   You do not know when an interested buyer will call and enquire about your home; if you can not answer the calls, arrange for a professional answering service so that you do not lose any potential buyers.
   
9. Showing Your Home: It sounds simple but even showing your home in a professional way needs learning and experience.
   Do some study on this subject before you try selling your property privately.
   
10. Know Your Current Mortgage: If you have a mortgage, talk to you bank and find out the outstanding amount.
    Is the mortgage fully open or is there a penalty for paying off the mortgage prematurely.
    If there is penalty, find out how much it is; try to negotiate the penalty down and also find out how this penalty can be reduced..
    As this penalty will reduce the net proceeds from the sale of your home, time to find this penalty is before and not when you have an offer on the table.
    If you are buying another home, investigate the possibility of taking this mortgage with you to your new home; many banks do allow this and this may help you save the prepayment penalty.
    
11. Get A Mortgage Commitment For Your Property: Most of the buyers would require some kind of mortgage.
    If the mortgage can not be arranged on a short notice, you will lose the sale.
    Speak to your bank manager or a mortgage broker so that a mortgage can be easily arranged for a qualified buyer.
    
12. Negotiations: Negotiations are a very important part of the selling process.
    It takes years of learning and experience to know these skills and to be good at it.
    So, if you are not good at this (you might think you are but you may not be), get some professional help as this is not what you can learn in a short time.
    Lack of professional skills in negotiations may cost you the sale or you may short change yourself.
    
13. Have Legal Help Ready: When you get lucky and you have a buyer who is interested in buying your home, you need to have the legal papers ready to close the deal without losing any time.
    Having legal help at a short notice and at after hours would go a long way in securing a solid binding sales agreement.
    

If all this sounds little bit too overwhelming, hire a professional real estate broker to help you out on some of the issues or give him the complete turnkey task of selling your home.