Costs of selling a home include more than just paying to get it on Zillow. If you aren't prepared for these "unexpected costs", then you could be in trouble financially. In this post, we're going over 6 costs of selling a home that you should expect before you get into the selling process.
Most people underestimate how much selling a home can actually end up costing you money. This seems a bit counterintuitive: how could selling my home end up costing me money?
Besides a tough real estate market, there are a number of costs and expenses associated with selling real estate that many people forget about or don’t realize exist. It’s important to factor these costs of selling a home into your overall budget & your listing price to ensure that you’ll come out of the sale on top instead of in the red.
Let’s look at 6 unexpected costs of selling a home that you should come to actually expect and plan for in the future.
Home inspections are a key part of the home buying and selling process. Home inspection services benefit both sellers and buyers.
As a seller, a pre-listing inspection is a great way to uncover any issues the home has before it’s shown to buyers. This also gives you a chance to perform any repairs the home needs in order to make it more attractive to potential buyers.
However, the home inspection services themselves are a cost you have to factor into your budget. Anything that’s uncovered in the inspection may also become an expense as well, so be prepared.
Speaking of issues uncovered during home inspections, any repairs that the home needs before being listed will fall on you. These things can add up, so make sure you have a repair budget set aside.
Making these repairs yourself will make the property more attractive to buyers and it can get you a higher price in the long run.
Making the property more attractive to buyers means more than replacing a leaky faucet or missing shingles. Making key renovations can significantly raise the asking price of your home.
Bathroom and kitchen renovations are some of the most popular, but landscaping, painting, deep cleaning, and upgraded appliances are some other options that can greatly improve your home’s look and value.
What you renovate and repair will depend on your own budget, the home itself, and the market you’re working with. Keep budget in mind when setting money aside to use for renovations.
Home staging involves making your home as blank of a slate as possible so people can imagine themselves living there. This sometimes means redecorating, changing up the aesthetics of certain rooms, getting new decor (blankets, photos, linens, etc), removing distinctive pictures & art, etc.
Some people do this themselves to save money, but many opt for either their real estate agent or a professional home stager to come in and do their magic to make the home staged and ready for potential buyers.
At the very least, you’ll need to spend time and some money making sure it’s staged yourself.
Real estate agents make the home selling process so much easier. But, they will require payment and often take commission fees that range from 4 to 6 percent of the selling price of the home.
That doesn’t sound like much, but even just 4 percent of a $400,000 dollar home amounts to a lot… $16,000 to be exact! This commission usually comes out of the seller's cut of the money, so keep that cost in mind!
It only makes sense to end this list with the closing costs. These are all of the final fees and costs associated with closing the deal. This could include taxes, insurance fees, mortgage fees, appraisals, and more.
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