Does this sound silly?

[Jessica Hood]

I have been bothered by this for some time and now that I have experienced people to ask... I just have to ask.

My parents own the home I live in. We are preparing the home for sale. It needed a lot of minor work which my husband and I have been doing ourselves. From all my research thus far, I have learned that you want your property to look as best as you can to get the most potential out of the situation. So for me, that means making sure everything is fixed/working and that it looks good visually.

My parents have a real estate agent they have worked with since 1995 and they really like him and trust him. He's an older fellow and very nice. We had him come by the house while we were still doing some work on it. Some things still needed painted badly, the hardwood floors needed polished, the tub needed recaulked, and I only had 2 out of 6 of the new six panel doors installed, among a few other things. The agent told me not to bother with any of it and to just list the house for sale now, as is. It seemed crazy to me because as it stands, we are not profiting much off of the sale (just breaking even) in the first place because of the economy. It's being sold out of necessity more then anything.

So, am I wrong to think it's crazy for us to just list it as is, if we want to get the most out of it? It does mean there is a delay in listing it, but that's ok for us. What are your thoughts on that?