A married pair of social workers are approaching retirement and hope to soon sell their house in Brentwood, Tennessee, a ritzy suburb of Nashville. For years, the property values there have escalated. But as they approach the market, the couple are taking no chances on the sale of the six-bedroom colonial revival house they bought in 1999.

“We aren’t big salary people. We couldn’t imagine buying a house in our neighborhood now. Yes, people want to live here. But the local market is starting to weaken. So, we don’t want to push our luck,” the husband says.

As he notes, for-sale properties are lingering unsold longer than before -- with days on market increasing. What’s more, some pending sales have flopped after buyers backed out in search of better deals.

“These failed listings are cautionary tales for greedy sellers who list too high. We don’t want to get humbled because we’re in a hurry to retire,” the husband says.

Brentwood is hardly alone in experiencing an increasing number of canceled sales. In December alone, about 40,000 home purchase agreements were canceled in the United States, says Chen Zhao, head of economics research at Redfin, the national real estate brokerage.

“High housing costs and rising inventory have made homebuyers more selective,” Zhao says.

As she explains, buyers seeking to cancel often cite a home inspection report that finds significant problems with the property, such as a malfunctioning HVAC system or a leaky roof. But the cancellation might truly be due to fears of overpaying.

Daniel Harbuck, a real estate broker and the author of “Unlocked: Homebuying Secrets No One Has Ever Told You,” doesn’t know the Tennessee social workers in this true story. But he agrees that careful pricing is in the sellers’ interest.

“Your home’s price tag? It’s the ultimate first impression. Nail it, and the buyers come running. Flub it, and watch your profits vanish. In this real estate game, the price is your power move,” Harbuck says.

Here are a few pointers for home sellers:

-- Look for an assertive listing agent to represent you.

“In all markets, selling a home to make an immediate move is anxiety-producing, and all the more so at a time of economic uncertainty,” says Stacy Berman, a longtime real estate agent in Maryland.

She recommends you search for an agent with extensive experience selling properties in your community. Another key is to rely heavily on referrals from neighbors and friends who’ve sold in the same area.

Don’t know anyone from whom to seek referrals? Another approach is to call the managing broker of a major realty office nearby. Ask the broker to refer you to an experienced listing agent with a substantial track record selling homes similar to yours in your price bracket.

-- Factor in your competition before pricing.

Eric Tyson, a personal finance specialist and co-author of “House Selling for Dummies,” says that prior to accepting any pricing recommendation, all sellers should do at least a nominal amount of research.

“Ask your agent for a list of properties near your home that have sold recently. Then get in your car and drive by these homes, noticing how they compare with your own,” Tyson says.

If your drive-by tour raises questions in your mind about whether your listing agent is suggesting too high or low an asking price, request a justification for the recommended price. Then reach your own conclusion.

“At the end of the day, it’s the owners, not the agent, who have the final say on pricing,” Tyson says.

-- Weigh a plan to price slightly below others nearby.

Remarkably, sellers in a desirable area can often receive more for their property if they price it just slightly below its apparent market value.

“Pricing a little lower than the competition can generate excitement. More people are likely to bid if they perceive the property to be a good value. And this can create an auction effect that could help you at the bottom line,” Tyson says.

-- Try to delegate many of your presale chores.

Sellers typically spend several months or more preparing their property for market. They cull through belongings, paint wherever needed and clean exhaustively.

But if you’re selling under time pressure, chances are you’ll have no more than a few weeks to get the home in showing condition.

One obvious way to cut back on your home-prep time is to hire contractors for work you might normally do yourself. Tyson says that sellers working against a tight deadline can get a lot more accomplished in a shorter time if they delegate.

-- Create a contingency plan for your property’s sale.

Sometimes even a home that’s in good condition and correctly priced will fail to sell in a reasonable time for reasons hard to determine.

To avoid panic in this situation, Tyson recommends that people who must sell in a hurry develop a plan B for coping if the process takes longer than expected, compelling them to move before their place is sold.

Perhaps you’ll arrange for a trusted family member to take responsibility for your home sale. Or maybe you’ll want to “buy” time by renting out the house for six months or so.

“You’ve got to look at the big picture. What matters is not only your financial well-being but also your emotional health,” Tyson says.

(To contact Ellen James Martin, email her at ellenjamesmartin@gmail.com.)

In 2020, a software engineer in Boston told his friends he had a bright idea. Due to the pandemic, his boss let him work from literally “anywhere.” So he picked Boise, Idaho, where housing was affordable and trail-running opportunities were abundant.

Excited by the plan to move, he quickly bought a 2,300-square-foot Craftsman-style bungalow in Boise for a fraction of what it would have cost in Boston. Soon, he fully furnished the two-bedroom house and filled its two-car garage with outdoor sporting gear, as well as elaborate tool sets.

“My assumption was that this was my forever home. But that assumption didn’t hold after my boss said come back to the office full-time or get fired. So, I sprang into action to get my house ready to sell as quickly as possible,” the engineer says.

Once back in Boston, he rented a two-bedroom apartment, but after getting a moving company estimate to transport his furniture and many possessions, he ruled out taking most of them. And renting a storage unit seemed unreasonably expensive and pointless.

“It was totally unrealistic to think I’d move back to Idaho anytime soon,” he says.

Vicki Norris, the owner of a professional organizing firm and author of “Restoring Order to Your Home,” doesn’t know the engineer in this true story. But she urges homeowners in his position to streamline their space quickly.

“Delaying the project will only undermine your own plans to get on with your life,” Norris says.

To hasten a move, Norris recommends that sellers establish a “target date” by which time they must have their place ready for market. Then they should break the project into small pieces and work backward, setting weekly deadlines for the tasks that must be accomplished.

Here are a few pointers for owners seeking a quick move:

-- Get a lay of the land for the project.

Homeowners who do a thorough inventory of their clutter before attempting to handle it tend to be more efficient, says Dorcas Helfant, a former president of the National Association of Realtors.

“People who have an overview of all the stuff they’ve been keeping can make quicker decisions as they streamline,” she says.

The real estate agent you’ve chosen to list your property can be helpful in assessing the nature and scope of your clutter issues. Ask the agent to come over with a clipboard or notebook. Together, list the furnishings and caches of belongings that should be banished before your house is shown to visitors.

-- Formulate a step-by-step action plan.

Rather than proceeding helter-skelter, those who are efficient at decluttering often begin with an overall plan, says Mark Nash, a longtime real estate broker and analyst.

As a beginning step, he recommends you plot the space in your new property before deciding on the volume of items you can move. This assumes, of course, that you’ve already picked out your next habitat.

“Take out some graph paper and place all the furniture that fits and that you intend to take with you. The rest needs to go ‘bye-bye,’” says Nash, author of “1001 Tips for Buying and Selling a Home.”

-- Do a full inventory of your accumulations.

As a preliminary step, Nash advocates that you sort all small albums.

“Collect all those pesky things you continue to buy because you can’t find the first, second or third one you bought or because at the store you couldn’t remember if you have any. After you discover the rampant duplication, it’s easy to edit,” he says.

Once you have the items in any given room categorized, use what Nash calls the “three-box system” to plough through them quickly. One box should be labeled “keep,” a second “give away or sell,” and a third, “I don’t know.”

To increase your momentum, immediately arrange to have your “give away or sell” items carted off. This allows you more room to cull through the possessions from the “I don’t know” box that will require more scrutiny.

“Making decisions is easier if you have fewer things to look at,” Nash says.

-- Don’t hesitate to use trash and recycling containers.

For those who must go through the decluttering process in a hurry, trash and recycling receptacles can prove invaluable.

“It may not be green-friendly, but just taking stuff to the trash is an easy solution, plus the junk doesn’t sit around to be second-guessed for saving,” Nash says.

When picking through piles of clothing, one rule-of-thumb is “if you haven’t worn it in a year, get rid of it,” according to Nash, who also encourages you to free yourself of many old devices.

-- Seek out help from friends, relatives or paid assistants.

Under the best of circumstances, decluttering can be laborious, time-consuming and physically exhausting. Thus, Nash strongly advocates that hurried home sellers enlist the support of friends, relatives or neighbors.

If there’s no one in your circle you’d feel comfortable recruiting, you can often find reasonably priced assistance by posting a job ad, Nash says.

“You might want to hire a professional organizer to get you going. But often they’re too expensive to do all the intricate work you need to get done,” he says.

Norris recommends that those who lack the funds to hire help might consider bartering their services. For example, the software engineer from Boise could offer tech support services in exchange for assistance sifting through clutter.

“No one should have to singlehandedly take on such an overwhelming project,” Norris says.

(To contact Ellen James Martin, email her at ellenjamesmartin@gmail.com.)

For more than two decades, a sales executive worked for Aetna, the Connecticut-based managed care company. She took a buyout after CVS Health bought out Aetna in 2018.

Now 62, the divorced executive feels a sense of urgency about fulfilling her bucket list. High on the list is her desire to downsize from the spacious Gothic-style house she owns in the prestigious suburb of West Hartford.

“The time is totally right for me to make my big move. My plan is to sell a house that’s way too big for me and move to an apartment in Lisbon, Portugal. That will be my base, and I’ll travel all over Europe from there,” she says.

Luckily for the woman, Hartford remains one of the most in-demand housing markets in the United States, according to Mischa Fisher, chief economist for Zillow, the major real estate company.

He says Hartford is a metro area where attractive homes are expected to remain in short supply and prices are continuing to rise as the spring market approaches.

“Competition among buyers will be stiff, and sellers will have the upper hand in this year’s hottest markets. Shoppers will need to tap all the resources they can muster,” Fisher says.

But given her long tenure in the Gothic house, the retired executive must confront a radical downsizing process to make her property worthy of showings for the buying public.

“I admit to being a terrible pack rat, so realistically it will take weeks to unload all my excess possessions,” the woman says.

Years ago, she was inspired to downsize by a book written by Dave Bruno -- a marketing expert and key figure in the so-called voluntary simplicity movement -- titled “The 100 Thing Challenge: How I Got Rid of Almost Everything, Remade My Life, and Regained My Soul.”

During his downsizing campaign, Bruno, who now runs a small marketing firm specializing in digital media, pared his personal possessions down from 300 to just 100 and has kept that level for several years.

With less energy spent managing a spacious and crowded house, Bruno says he was able to sharpen his focus on higher priorities, including his family, friends and writing. Happy with the results of his challenge, he convinced his wife and children that downsizing the family’s housing would also yield significant quality-of-life improvements.

“By moving to a smaller place, we have more time to relax and enjoy family time. We’re living below our means and saving for our kids’ college funds,” Bruno says.

He adds: “In the United States we buy things -- even big houses -- in pursuit of contentment. But by endlessly acquiring the right things, I believe we measure our distance from the good life. We are always getting, but never getting there.”

To be sure, many Americans of all ages still favor large houses and are especially likely to seek more space as their young families grow. Even so, inventory-tight neighborhoods are now beginning to witness a gradual increase in supply, with some of the newly listed properties sold by downsizers.

Here are a few pointers for downsizing owners:

-- Realize that a smaller lifestyle can take many forms.

As a downsizing seller, your vision could be to stay in the same suburban community, though with a smaller and less financially demanding home. Alternatively, you could choose to leave suburbia and reinvent your life in an urban loft or a rustic rural cottage.

“There isn’t one right lifestyle of simplicity; it’s all individual. Your goal could be to get closer to nature, more involved in civic life or more involved in spirituality. To create your dream, focus on what gives your life juice,” Bruno says.

Though many view downsizing as a form of sacrifice, he says it can lead to greater richness.

“We need to ask whether the pressure of payments on a big house is worth it,” he says.

-- Begin with small victories in your quest to live more compactly.

Even before you put your current property up for sale and begin searching for the right smaller place to buy, Bruno suggests you begin a methodical process of whittling down your accumulations to contain your material life.

“Start in your bedroom closet. We all have too many clothes, and this is one area where you can score an early victory against clutter,” Bruno says.

He found it relatively easy to reduce the size of his wardrobe without consequences and says others could experience this as well.

“As you go through your clothes, select a unique outfit for every day in a two-week period. Put your extra clothes in storage for two months and see if you even miss them,” Bruno says.

After that, look for other satisfying victories by sifting through your “junk drawers” one at a time. Next, head to your garage for a purging.

-- Allow yourself adequate time to make the transition.

Bruno cautions homeowners that the process of downsizing, from the day you make the decision to move to the day you close on the purchase of a smaller property, can be time-consuming.

“You need to allow yourself plenty of time to make this transition and especially to sort through all your things. It took years to accumulate all that stuff, so you’re not going to clear through all of it overnight,” he says.

(To contact Ellen James Martin, email her at ellenjamesmartin@gmail.com.)