Selling a Home - Costs?

[my4girls]

when we sold our house fixed two of the things they asked for after the inspection- about $800ish in our case
and a few hundred for staging/ rental of the storage unit to clear things out

I think that was it

[Pom]

All we paid was for a final cleaning after we had furniture moved out, REA 5% and 3% closing costs/buyer's assist on full price offer.

[arch01]

We didn't pay any of the buyer's closing costs. We spent about $750 on repairs from the inspection. We also started moving things into storage right when we listed the house-$120/month.

[badgergrl]

Where I live there is a transfer tax sellers pay

[mslhb]

Realtor fees were 5%. Normally would have been 6% but we got a discount from our realtor since we were doing a buy and sell with them. We paid $3K of our buyers closing cost. Also spent about $600 to fix stuff on the inspection remedy list. I think the movers were about $1500. We were lucky and maybe spent $50 on a few items to get the house ready to sell. Very happy that we didn't need to rent a storage unit to de-clutter but were prepared to do that if needed.

[lemon]

Transfer tax applies where I live too. I forget the percentage, I think 1.5% of the sales price, but it's split between the buyer and seller.

Also, at closing, you will be responsible for your portion of property tax from the last time you paid (or escrow paid) up until the date of closing. So that usually ends up being a chunk of money right there. But you'll also get the remaining balance of your escrow account paid out to you after you close too, so sometimes it's a wash.

[thedutchgirl]

Title company costs for closing, which around here run $500 to $1000.

Plus, when we put our house on the market our agent paid for a stager. We had to do very little except move and remove some furniture but even the little decoration pieces the stager wanted added up. Not much, but I think we spent maybe $250. If you pay for the staging consult yourself, I know around here that's about the cost.

[lys]

Generally selling fees will be about 6-7% of the selling price for realtor, transfer fee, title insurance (both buyer and seller buy this) and prorated property taxes.  Add repairs and any buyer closing costs you cover.
Talk with a local realtor to get a reasonable estimate for a house in your price range.

[barefootcontessa]

recently closed on a property:

- legal fees were $475 plus $35 to payoff mortgage and another $35 to track wire transfer and another $45 for recording fee
- grantor's transfer tax (transferring deed to new buyer) 1/10 of 1% of sales price
- termite inspection was $140 (we also had some minor termite damage which cost us $450 to treat).
- we had a lot of repairs ($1600) and also had to mitigate radon in our basement ($1200).

In preparing the house for the market, we had the gutters cleaned ($200), heat pumps (2) cleaned ($300), interior of house painted ($2300), landscaping work ($750). We also had to replace the carpet but that was because ours was gross.

We had to pay $4K in buyer's closing costs which is typical for our area in this price range.

GL!

[puppylove64]

Dec 24, 2014 10:28:16 GMT -5 lys said:

Generally selling fees will be about 6-7% of the selling price for realtor, transfer fee, title insurance (both buyer and seller buy this) and prorated property taxes.  Add repairs and any buyer closing costs you cover.
Talk with a local realtor to get a reasonable estimate for a house in your price range.

I am about to sell my house and my realtor told me 3.5% would be worst case scenario if I have to pay buyers commission too, plus property tax. I thought that percentage seemed low. I live in a LCOL area and she is somewhat a friend, but not enough that I would be hurt if she didn't discount for me. Any idea why she told me 3.5 and you estimate 6-7? Should I be worried about other costs popping up? Think it is cheaper here or she is doing me a favor?

[lolo]

Another cost that can arise is staging.

[kadams767]

Dec 26, 2014 8:26:26 GMT -5 puppylove64 said:

Dec 24, 2014 10:28:16 GMT -5 lys said:

Generally selling fees will be about 6-7% of the selling price for realtor, transfer fee, title insurance (both buyer and seller buy this) and prorated property taxes.  Add repairs and any buyer closing costs you cover.
Talk with a local realtor to get a reasonable estimate for a house in your price range.

I am about to sell my house and my realtor told me 3.5% would be worst case scenario if I have to pay buyers commission too, plus property tax. I thought that percentage seemed low. I live in a LCOL area and she is somewhat a friend, but not enough that I would be hurt if she didn't discount for me. Any idea why she told me 3.5 and you estimate 6-7? Should I be worried about other costs popping up? Think it is cheaper here or she is doing me a favor?

Everything is dependent on location.  Where I live, the Seller pays the realtor fees, so that is typically 6-7% right off the bat.  Then there is the transfer tax, which here is $9 per every $1000 of the purchase price, allocation of property taxes/water/sewer, seller's legal fees, some recording costs and I think sellers also pay the survey costs and initial title search here. 

[nomad100]

Dec 26, 2014 9:01:22 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

Dec 26, 2014 8:26:26 GMT -5 puppylove64 said:

I am about to sell my house and my realtor told me 3.5% would be worst case scenario if I have to pay buyers commission too, plus property tax. I thought that percentage seemed low. I live in a LCOL area and she is somewhat a friend, but not enough that I would be hurt if she didn't discount for me. Any idea why she told me 3.5 and you estimate 6-7? Should I be worried about other costs popping up? Think it is cheaper here or she is doing me a favor?

Everything is dependent on location.  Where I live, the Seller pays the realtor fees, so that is typically 6-7% right off the bat.  Then there is the transfer tax, which here is $9 per every $1000 of the purchase price, allocation of property taxes/water/sewer, seller's legal fees, some recording costs and I think sellers also pay the survey costs and initial title search here. 

This is pretty much the case where we are too.  Plus we are on a septic system so that would need to be pumped and inspected (about $600).  

puppylove64  I would ask her to give you a breakdown of the expected fees since 3.5% sounds like a great deal (and much lower than most places since the seller usually pays the buyers realtor fees in both states I have bought/sold in). 

[lemon]

Dec 26, 2014 8:26:26 GMT -5 puppylove64 said:

Dec 24, 2014 10:28:16 GMT -5 lys said:

Generally selling fees will be about 6-7% of the selling price for realtor, transfer fee, title insurance (both buyer and seller buy this) and prorated property taxes.  Add repairs and any buyer closing costs you cover.
Talk with a local realtor to get a reasonable estimate for a house in your price range.

I am about to sell my house and my realtor told me 3.5% would be worst case scenario if I have to pay buyers commission too, plus property tax. I thought that percentage seemed low. I live in a LCOL area and she is somewhat a friend, but not enough that I would be hurt if she didn't discount for me. Any idea why she told me 3.5 and you estimate 6-7? Should I be worried about other costs popping up? Think it is cheaper here or she is doing me a favor?

Yeah, I would ask for clarification on whether or not she meant 3.5% total for both buyer and seller's agent commission, or 3.5% for just the buyer's agent commission.  And I would ask her directly what percentage she plans to charge you to be your seller's agent, if that's your plan.  You don't want any surprises at closing if you can help it.

Where I live currently, it is more common to pay 4-4.5% total for both agent's commissions, but where I lived previously in the south, it was more common to pay 6% total.  So it's totally region dependent.

[IrishBelle]

We had to pay to get out of our mortgage early. Is that something that's common in the US?

[niq]

We paid $1800 to have mom's 1100sqft condo deep cleaned and put a fresh coat of paint on.

[mainelyfoolish]

Dec 26, 2014 9:57:32 GMT -5 IrishBelle said:

We had to pay to get out of our mortgage early. Is that something that's common in the US?

Prepayment penalties on mortgages are uncommon in the US. 

[joenali]

Well we are asking out sellers for a new roof...

[lys]

Dec 26, 2014 9:21:00 GMT -5 nomad100 said:

Dec 26, 2014 9:01:22 GMT -5 kadams767 said:

Everything is dependent on location.  Where I live, the Seller pays the realtor fees, so that is typically 6-7% right off the bat.  Then there is the transfer tax, which here is $9 per every $1000 of the purchase price, allocation of property taxes/water/sewer, seller's legal fees, some recording costs and I think sellers also pay the survey costs and initial title search here. 

This is pretty much the case where we are too.  Plus we are on a septic system so that would need to be pumped and inspected (about $600).  

puppylove64  I would ask her to give you a breakdown of the expected fees since 3.5% sounds like a great deal (and much lower than most places since the seller usually pays the buyers realtor fees in both states I have bought/sold in). 

This -- where I live the seller pays both realtors commissions  and that starts at 6%. Then when you add the other items you quickly reach 7% -- or more.
I cannot imagine 3.5% covering both the buyer and seller realtor fees  or is your friend not charging you for her fee?

[moolarkey]

Here the realtor's commission is usually 6 to 7%. If a different realtor represents the buyers then the seller's realtor and the buyer's realtor split the commission in an amount they agree on between themselves - sometimes it is 50% to each realtor but other times it might be 4% to seller's realtor and 2% to buyer's agent.

The first house we bought, we made an offer on it, they asked us to come up $500 and gave us 3 options for paying that $500. It's been long enough that I don't recall the exact specifics but I think it was so they walked with $500 in cash. We agree to that and just wrote them a check for $500. They had bought the house with an adjustable rate mortgage. When we bought it, it had just made it's final jump in monthly payment amount. We didn't know, until we went to the closing and saw all the figures that they were upside down on the house. They had to pay $7,000 to the bank and $7,000 to the realtor out of pocket. 14k. yikes.

We made some changes to that house, sold it about 7 years later and just about doubled our money on it. I felt really bad for them at closing when I realized how much they owed, they lost money on that house but we made an offer, they accepted it and life moved on for all of us.