The premise is worth correcting first, because it changes the answer a lot: most of what it costs to sell a house is not out of pocket. It comes out of your proceeds at closing. Commission, title and escrow or attorney fees, transfer taxes, prorated property taxes, any concession you give the buyer. All of that is deducted from the sale price at the closing table. You do not write checks for it in advance. So the number people quote as "the cost of selling" is mostly money you never touch. What is genuinely out of pocket, meaning before closing and from your own bank account: Any repairs you do before listing. Cleaning, and staging if you use it. Professional photography, if your agent does not cover it, though most do. A pre-listing inspection, if you choose to get one. Moving costs. That is usually the whole list, and for most sellers it runs from very little to a few thousand dollars depending on how much prep the house needs. You control almost all of it. Now the situation where the answer changes completely, and this is the one nobody raised. If your sale price does not cover your mortgage payoff plus your closing costs, you will have to bring cash to closing to make up the difference. That is real out-of-pocket money, it can be large, and it is the scenario people get blindsided by. So run this calculation before you do anything else: Get an actual payoff quote from your lender. Not the balance on your app. A payoff includes interest to the payoff date and sometimes fees, and it is a different number. Include any second mortgage or HELOC. Get a realistic sale price estimate from a local agent, based on closed comparable sales. Ask that agent for a seller net sheet, which one of the answers above correctly mentioned. It lists every line and gives you the number at the bottom. If the bottom line is positive, your true out-of-pocket is just the prep costs. If it is negative, you need a plan before you list, and that plan might involve bringing cash, negotiating with your lender about a short sale, or waiting. Three smaller things worth knowing. Commission is negotiable and it is not set by any association or law. It is your largest line item, so it is worth a real conversation, though I would negotiate it against a specific marketing plan rather than shopping on rate alone. Property taxes get prorated at closing, and whether that lands in your favor or against you depends on whether your state collects in arrears or in advance. Your agent or closing agent can tell you which way it cuts. And buyers frequently ask sellers to cover part of their closing costs. That comes out of your proceeds too, and it is capped by the buyer's loan program: generally 3, 6 or 9 percent on conventional depending on their down payment, 6 percent on FHA, and generally up to 4 percent on VA. Worth knowing before you evaluate an offer, because a higher price with a concession can net you more than a lower price without one. Ask for a net sheet at three different sale prices before you list. Seeing the bottom line side by side answers your question better than any general figure I could give you. I am a real estate professional, not a lender or an attorney, so get the payoff from your servicer and the net sheet from a local agent. My name is Zoltan Peresztegi and I work in Los Angeles, the South Bay and on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, so I am not your North Dakota agent. If you want an introduction to a strong listing agent in the Fargo area who will run that net sheet honestly rather than optimistically, message me and I will make one. Zoltan


