Selling My House: How Much Does it Cost?

Unfortunately, selling your home isn’t free. From start to finish, you will need to spend money to successfully sell your home. Whether  you decide to rent furniture for staging, steam clean the carpets, buy some new light fixtures or pay the brokers’ commission, you’ll need to be financially prepared for this process.

Here are some costs you may be expected to cover leading up to the sale of your home:

• Repairs on the home prior to listing
• Minor updates
• Professional cleaning
• Staging
• Professional photos for marketing *most agents pay for this, but some require you to*
• Repairs following inspection *this can also be offered as a credit to the buyer at closing*
• Fee for your attorney
• Commission for both listing and buyer agents
• Possible early payoff fee to your lender
• Portion of buyer’s closing costs if part of contract to purchase
• Transfer tax

The total cost varies greatly depending on where you live,the house you have, activity on the market and how much money you’re able to put in toward a successful sale.
Overall, you want to estimate that your costs to sell will be about 8% of your sales price.
So, if you sell your home for $250,000, you can estimate that all of your closing costs, commissions, and fees will add up to about $20,000. You are better off over-estimating and being pleasantly surprised at the closing.

For more information on getting ready to sell your home, download our FREE Seller's Guide Here.