How Much Does It Cost to Sell a House? Commissions, Taxes, Net Proceeds

"How much does it cost to sell a house?" is really two questions: what leaves the sale price before it reaches you (commissions, title and escrow, transfer taxes, repairs, credits to the buyer), and how much of what reaches you is actually yours after the mortgage payoff and, sometimes, taxes. Calculators answer both with a national percentage and a slider. This guide answers them line by line, with the law and local rates behind each, a full net sheet for a Los Angeles sale, and the lines a seller can move.

How much does it cost to sell a house? The formula

Every net sheet, the estimate your agent or escrow officer prepares of what you walk away with, reduces to one line:

Net proceeds = sale price − agent compensation − closing costs − pre-sale costs and concessions − mortgage payoff (− taxes, where any are due).

The total is "several percent" rather than a fixed figure because each term is set differently. Compensation is negotiated per listing¹. Closing costs mix fees set by title and escrow companies, taxes set by state, county and city, and prorations set by the calendar. Pre-sale costs depend on the house and the market. The payoff is your own history. Only the tax rules are the same everywhere, and most owner-occupiers owe nothing under them².

The term sellers most often get wrong is the first: the sale price. A net sheet built on the asking price or a portal estimate overstates the result by exactly the amount the market later takes off. Start from a defensible value based on adjusted comparable sales; the home value guide shows how.

Commissions after the 2024 NAR settlement: what sellers pay now

Until 2024 the seller customarily agreed to a total commission in the listing agreement and the listing broker shared part of it with the buyer's broker through an offer published on the Multiple Listing Service. The National Association of Realtors' settlement of the commission lawsuits changed that. Since the practice changes took effect on August 17, 2024, offers of compensation to buyer brokers may no longer be communicated on the MLS, buyers must sign a written agreement with their agent before touring a home, and agents must disclose that commissions are not set by law and are fully negotiable¹.

For a seller this means three decisions instead of one number:

1. What you pay your own listing broker. A percentage, a flat fee or a tiered rate, negotiated before you sign the listing agreement. There is no national rate; any figure you read online is a survey or a marketing claim, not a rule.
2. Whether you offer anything toward the buyer's agent. You may still offer compensation to the buyer's broker, but not on the MLS, and your agent must disclose the amount or rate to you in writing before you agree; buyer concessions such as a closing-cost credit can still be offered on the MLS³. Or you decline and let buyers cover their own agent. Offering compensation can widen the pool of buyers; declining lowers your cost and may change what buyers can bid.
3. How concessions are handled. A credit toward the buyer's closing costs or agent fee is a cost to you like a commission and belongs on the net sheet at its full amount³.

Get all three in writing before the sign goes up, and read what the listing agreement says if you find the buyer yourself. Whether to list with an agent at all is the subject of the selling with or without an agent guide.

Closing costs line by line: title, escrow, transfer tax, attorney, prorations, HOA

"Closing costs" is a bundle of separate charges, split between buyer and seller by state custom and the purchase agreement. The table shows the usual allocation; everything on it is negotiable.

Transfer taxes vary most: a few states levy none, others stack state, county and city taxes on the same deed. Los Angeles County has two: the county's documentary transfer tax under the California Revenue and Taxation Code is $0.55 for each $500 of value (0.11 percent), collected by the Registrar-Recorder when the deed is recorded⁴. Inside the City of Los Angeles the city adds a base rate of $2.25 per $500 (0.45 percent), and under Measure ULA, for transactions closing after June 30, 2026, sales above $5,400,000 pay an additional 4 percent and sales of $10,900,000 or more pay 5.5 percent of the entire price, with the thresholds adjusted each year⁴⁵. Check your county recorder's and city finance office's current rates before you build the net sheet.

Pre-sale costs: repairs, staging, inspections, concessions

The costs before the listing are the ones sellers control most and forecast worst.

Repairs. Fix what an inspector will flag and a buyer will price twice, once for the cost and once for the doubt: roof leaks, active plumbing or electrical faults, broken windows, pest damage.

Pre-listing inspection. Your own inspection before listing tells you what the buyer's inspector will find and lets you fix or disclose it on your terms; it costs a few hundred dollars and removes the largest source of post-acceptance renegotiation.

Staging, cleaning and photography. Cleaning, decluttering and professional photographs are almost always worth their cost; full staging depends on price range and tempo.

Concessions. Where the buyer has choices, concessions replace price cuts: a credit toward the buyer's closing costs, a repair credit after inspection, a home warranty, or a contribution toward the buyer's agent³. Each is real money on your net sheet: a $950,000 sale with $15,000 of concessions nets the same as a $935,000 sale without them, and the higher headline price may cost more in percentage-based compensation. Pricing to limit concessions in the first place is covered in the pricing strategy guide.

Taxes: Section 121 exclusion, depreciation recapture, state withholding

Most owner-occupiers pay no federal income tax on a home sale because of one section of the tax code.

The Section 121 exclusion. If you owned the home and used it as your principal residence for periods totaling at least two years within the five years ending on the date of sale, you can exclude up to $250,000 of gain from income, $500,000 if you are married filing jointly and both spouses meet the use test, and you can use the exclusion no more than once every two years². Publication 523 and Topic 701 walk through the tests and the partial exclusion for certain job, health or unforeseen-circumstances moves⁶⁷.

How gain is computed. Gain is the amount realized (sale price minus selling expenses such as commissions, transfer taxes and title fees) minus your adjusted basis, broadly the purchase price plus capital improvements⁶. A higher basis means less gain, so the file of improvement invoices is worth money. If you receive Form 1099-S from the closing agent, or any part of the gain is taxable, you report the sale even when the exclusion covers it⁶.

Depreciation recapture. If the home was ever a rental or a home office and you claimed depreciation, the exclusion does not cover the gain that corresponds to depreciation claimed after May 6, 1997; that part is taxed⁶ under the recapture rules in Publication 544⁸.

State withholding. Some states collect an advance on the seller's state income tax at closing. California requires withholding on sales above $100,000 unless the seller certifies an exemption on Form 593 before closing; what is withheld is a prepayment of income tax, not an additional tax⁹. Other states have their own rules, especially for out-of-state sellers; ask escrow early.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice.

Mortgage payoff and the net-proceeds formula

The payoff is not the balance on your last statement. Request a payoff statement from your servicer for the expected closing date: principal, interest to the payoff date (charged per day), any escrow shortfall, reconveyance fees and any prepayment penalty your note allows.

The full formula, in the order the escrow statement lists it:

1. Sale price, minus listing compensation and any buyer-broker compensation or concession you agreed to
2. minus transfer taxes, title, escrow, recording, attorney and disclosure-report fees
3. minus property tax and HOA prorations, repair credits and other concessions
4. minus mortgage and HELOC payoff = net proceeds at closing
5. minus pre-sale costs paid before listing (repairs, staging, inspection) = what the sale produced, less any state withholding and any tax on gain above the exclusion, settled at tax time²⁹

Line 5 is what calculators omit and what decides whether selling beats the alternative; the rent it out or sell guide starts from the same net figure.

The full net sheet for a $950,000 Los Angeles sale, $470,360 after everything

Suppose a married couple sells a three-bedroom house inside the City of Los Angeles for $950,000. They bought it in 2014 for $560,000, spent $40,000 on documented improvements, owe $410,000 on the mortgage and have lived there throughout. All fees other than the transfer taxes are assumptions for illustration; the transfer taxes follow the published county and city rates⁴⁵.

Costs other than the payoff total $59,640 at closing and $68,440 with the pre-sale spending, about 7.2 percent of the price in this example, almost two-thirds of it the two compensation lines. Change the compensation terms and the percentage changes with them.

Tax in the example. Amount realized: $950,000 minus about $52,200 of selling expenses (compensation, transfer taxes, title, escrow, recording and report fees) is roughly $897,800. Adjusted basis: $560,000 plus $40,000 of improvements is $600,000. Gain: roughly $298,000. Filing jointly and meeting the two-year ownership and use tests, the couple can exclude up to $500,000²⁷, so no federal income tax is due. Certifying their exemption on Form 593 before closing, they have nothing withheld by California⁹. This is general information, not legal or tax advice.

Selling costs and net proceeds computed from the value, not the asking price

A net sheet is only as good as its first line, and that is where a CheckValue report earns its place in this process. Its value for the address rests on adjusted comparable sales and the official price index rather than on an asking price, and the selling-cost section is computed from that value, not from a figure you typed in. Three parts of the report map onto the formula above:

• The value and its range. Run the net sheet at the bottom of the range as well as at the top. The spread between the two results is your honest margin before any agent has quoted you a number.
• Estimated selling costs and net proceeds. The report deducts typical selling costs from the value and states what would be left, which is the line calculators hide behind a national percentage. Ownership costs and a rent estimate with its gross yield sit on the same page, the raw material for the keep-or-sell comparison.
• Market tempo. How long homes in the district currently take to sell puts a number of weeks on the carrying-cost line instead of a hope.

The report cannot read your payoff statement, your listing agreement or your tax returns, so its net figure is a first draft of the net sheet and not your escrow officer's final one. Take the estimated net proceeds for your address as the opening figure, then work through the numbered lines above with your own numbers. The Los Angeles sample report has the selling-cost section filled in, so you can see how it reads before ordering one for your own house.

Reducing costs: negotiating compensation, FSBO, timing

Three of the lines are yours to move.

Compensation. Since compensation is negotiable and no longer set by an MLS offer¹, interview more than one agent, ask each for a written proposal that separates the listing fee from any buyer-broker offer, and ask what a lower fee removes. Decide deliberately whether to offer buyer-broker compensation or a concession³; in a fast market you may not need to, in a slow one it may get the house shown.

For sale by owner. Selling without a listing broker removes that line and adds the work: pricing, marketing, showings, negotiation, paperwork. Most FSBO sellers still pay for a flat-fee MLS listing, an attorney or escrow, the disclosure reports and often a buyer-broker concession, so the saving is the listing fee, not the whole commission; the trade-off is laid out in the selling with or without an agent guide.

Timing. Carrying costs (mortgage interest, taxes, insurance, utilities) run for every week the house is on the market, and the market sets the weeks. Realtor.com's August 2026 data put the typical national listing at 60 days on the market, with a median asking price of $424,500 that was 1.3 percent below the previous August¹⁰; two months of carrying cost on a $950,000 house with a $410,000 mortgage easily exceeds the fee difference between two agents. The when to sell guide reads the tempo, seasonality and price-index signals.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or investment advice. Figures and rules carry the year they were published; check the cited source for the current version.

Josef Eckmair MBA

Co-founder, CheckValue · Managing director, CBDNOL GmbH · More than 20 years in real estate in Tenerife and Austria · Reviewed by Christian Eckmair

Josef Eckmair MBA is co-founder of CheckValue and managing director of CBDNOL GmbH (Ansfelden, Austria). He has more than 20 years of real estate experience in Tenerife and Austria and writes about appraisals, taxes, selling costs and valuations for professionals.

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