Q: My husband and I spent a year fixing up our place to sell.

We've been listed for months now with not one offer. We thought we had priced it well and it really looks good compared to how it looked when we bought it a few years ago. Is the market just getting slow now or what?

A: Having been a do-it-yourselfer myself for many years, I can sympathize with what you're going through. I've done major re-modeling to homes myself and was able to reap the rewards of that sweat equity in the form of a good profit. But times have changed and expectations are different than they were years ago.

The change in our market that you're experiencing is simply that our prices have gone up considerably in the last few years and, for that additional money, buyers expect a better quality house. Buyers tend to notice the rough edges of improvements done by the homeowners themselves. Things like molding that doesn't quite match, cracked tile, messy caulking, flooring that stops an inch short, new but really inexpensive carpet, cheap plumbing fixtures and off the shelf bargain cabinets are a giveaway that the work was not professionally done.

While you are comparing the house with all of it's improvements to the way it looked when you bought it a few years ago, today's buyers are just seeing what is there now and comparing it to homes in the same price range. If other homes selling for about the same price have better finish work and higher quality fixtures most buyers think that means it's a better house.

While location, privacy and square footage are all important considerations in choosing a home to buy, the way a home presents itself when the buyer walks in is probably one of the most important. You may simply have to reduce your price to attract less picky buyers for whom your improvements are a plus and not a minus.