Like many people in today's real estate market, you may be thinking about selling your home. And like many prospective home sellers, you're probably kicking yourself for not having moved sooner, before the housing market took a nosedive.

Still set on selling? Take heart. Sure, you may take a hit on the sales price on your house compared with the market's peak, but you're also likely to get a good deal. "Selling in the down market is a good thing because you get to buy in the down market, " says Nate Martinez, a real estate agent in Phoenix.

And depending on where you live, your larger suburban home may be holding its value better than some houses. For instance, house prices in Pittsburgh, PA, Raleigh, NC, and Richmond, VA have held steady or increased slightly over the past year, according to Zillow.com, an online real estate service. Meanwhile, home values in other once-hot markets in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, FL, metropolitan area have plummeted by more than 20%.

If you decide to sell, you must do a lot more than stick a For Sale sign in your front yard. In this buyer's market, you need to hire top salespeople, set a fair price, see that your product stands out from the competition and be prepared to negotiate.

You'll also need to change your mindset a bit. Forget the extra profit you would have gotten a year or two ago. "My clients have lived in their homes so long that even though they're seeing some loss, they still have a lot of gain overall," says Lyn Dippel, a certified financial planner in Columbia, MD.

That was John Farmer's situation when he and his wife, Rosemary, put their Glenwood, MD, house on the market in May. They were ready to downsize from the four-bedroom they'd live in for 32 years. Their home sold in just over two months. "We thought it was going to take a long time, predicated on what we'd heard," says Farmer, a consultant for a utility company.

The Farmers got $15,000 less than what they were hoping for, but they still did well, given that the house had appreciated by 80% since they built it. Plus, the couple was able to negotiate a $100,000 price cut on the three-bedroom house they're building 20 miles away, in New Market, MD.

Sell now or later? It's impossible to time this real estate market. If you can wait, you can hope for a rebound. "It's like the stock market," says Kimberly Kirschner, chief executive officer of Kirschner Realty International, in Miami. "If the market is down, unless you really need the cash, it's better to hold until the market goes up."

But the market could get worse before it gets better. And once it begins to rise, it could take a long time before it reaches its earlier peak. So if you want, or need, to sell, go for it.

William Jordan, president of the Sentinel Group, an investment-management firm in Laguna Hills, believes that the bottom is still 12 to 18 months away in his part of Southern California. Then, he predicts, the market will stay flat for several years. Jordan recently advised a couple with a beach house worth $1.4 million to sell. "The value has fallen some," he concedes, "but if we sit around and wait a year or two, they could lose 10% to 20%."

Jordan says homeowners can sell and then rent another house for a year or two. "It's a good way to test-drive an area," he says. "Then, at a leisurely pace, they can buy the right property at a lower price."

In Phoenix, Martinez says the area offers deals for buyers from higher-cost areas. For example, a four-bedroom house that sold for $580,000 several years ago is back on the market for $345,000.

Price it right. Forget what your neighbor's house sold for last year. Homeowners who want to sell today need to set a realistic price for this market. "The market price is going to be less than your dream price, " says Fanny Chu, a San Francisco real estate agent. "When you sell, you must be a little bit detached."

The first step in setting a price is pinpointing recent sales prices of houses that are comparable to yours. Allyson Bernard, owner of Danbury-based Real Estate Professionals of Connecticut, evaluates comparable sales from the last two to