Needing real estate advice

For anyone out there that knows anything about real estate this post is for you. We need some honest true advice. We've been working really hard to finish up all the projects around our house so that we can get it on the market. We would like to try to sell our house by ourselves first before listing with a realtor to maximize our profits. The profit from selling our current house would go as a down payment for our next house. My question lies with where to price our house and here's why....

Our next door neighbor just put his house for sale yesterday. His house is about 1800 sq feet, 3 bedroom and 2 bath. His yard is about the same size as ours (BIG!!), he has a deck and above ground pool. Also, he has a storage shed. On the flip side, he doesn't have any upgrades to the inside of his house. It's still builder basic with popcorn ceilings and all. He has white appliances and builder carpet. No upgrades inside!! I called the realtor to ask info about his house and she really played up the outside because there isn't anything great about the inside.

Now, our house is 3 bedroom and 2 bath with a formal dining room and is 1500 sq feet. We have a big yard with a flagstone patio. We've done upgrades to our house like new appliances, laminate flooring, new tile in the kitchen and bath, new light fixtures, nice paint colors, scraped the popcorn ceiling off, added crown molding throughout, new faucets, painted our kitchen cabinets a nice color and a brand new 30 year roof...just to name a few things we've done.

Where do we price our house compared to his? Do we price it just a little bit higher than his since our house has the upgrades? Do we price it the same as his or lower? What do you advise? Is it a bad thing to have 2 houses competing against each other that are right beside each other?

Any and all advice is needed! Leave me a comment or send me an email. Either way I want to hear what you think. This is our first time selling a house so we don't know what to expect. I'm not necessarily looking for specific numbers as to what we should actually list our house for but more so how to price it.

I appreciate the help and advice. I'm off to watch the US Women's Soccer!! GO USA!!