If you're interested in saving thousands of dollars when you sell your home, you need to consider trying to sell it yourself. By selling your house yourself rather than paying a real estate agent, you can save around $12,000 on a $200,000 sale.

By following a few simple tips, selling your own home can be easy.

The two key ingredients are time and advertising. An effective ad and a couple of hours each week taking phone calls and juggling inspections can be the difference between a good profit and disappointment.

Most people are intimidated by the marketing part of selling a home. But there's no reason to fear marketing your home because, there’s really not much to it. All you need is to be able to do is write a description of your real estate, have some good photographs taken of the real estate property, and place an ad. It's as simple as that!

But remember, you're not selling a building. You're selling a home and a lifestyle.

So how do you go about writing the perfect description? First, note some of your favorite places in your home and what you like to do in them. For example, maybe your favorite area is the kitchen because you love cooking on while looking out your new bay window. Next, make a list of your favorite local restaurants, cafes, and other places in town. Once you have your list together pull a few good ones to include in your real estate property description. Keep it around 150 words.

Now the photos of your real estate property. Don’t include cars, garbage bins, or the road in your photos. Clean your house and remove any clutter before taking inside shots. Make sure to capture the colors inside and outside of your home, but keep it fairly simple. Use a digital camera and save the photos of your home on a CD or on your hard drive.

Finally, the ad. There are a number of places to post an ad. There are newspapers, free classified sites like Craigslist and real estate sites like Realtor.com.

Whether you do all the creative work yourself or employ a professional, you’ll probably still save thousands. Hell, do a super job with advertising, and you just might interest more potential buyers and possibly even sell your house for more.

Average advertising conveys a building. Quality advertising conveys a home.

This article was prepared with the help of Glenn Murray.