If you are thinking about selling your home, there is a good chance you have already looked it up online.

Most sellers have.

There is nothing wrong with curiosity. The problem starts when that number begins doing real work in your head. When you build your expectations around it. When you decide whether to sell, what to ask, or whether to take an offer based on what an algorithm says your home is worth.

Here is what you need to understand:

Your Zestimate is not market analysis.

Selling your home is not just about getting a sign in the yard. If you are planning to sell in the Shoals, especially if you also need to buy your next home, the smartest work starts before your listing ever goes live.

Florence was not the beginning of the Shoals’ settlement story, but when the Cypress Land Company laid out the town in 1818, it changed the future of Northwest Alabama.

Before Florence was founded and before Alabama became a state, the Shoals already had a settlement story centered around water, Native homelands, French traders, early roads and the spring that became Tuscumbia.