Getting your house on the market and sold can be a very costly endeavor. In a competitive market, like Atlanta, it can be very expensive to sell your house. If you’re selling your home, you obviously want to get the best value for your property. However, you also want the sale to be easy without a lot of hassle. It’s important to look at all the different costs associated with selling your home so you can make an informed decision about the best way to go about the process. In this article, we’re going to look over the various costs that you can expect and how to mitigate them a bit so you’re not having to spend as much as you might have to.
Commission Cost
One of the biggest costs that you’re going to run into when selling your home is how much you’re going to have to give your real estate agent. In Atlanta, standard commission is about 6% of the entire sale price. Even though that seems like a small amount, if you sell your house for $500,000 you’re paying $30,000 in commission fees. If you’re someone with a house that’s worth a lot of money, you’re going to be losing tens of thousands of dollars when you sell your home. Not to mention that 3% is just the standard. If you get a real estate agent with a wider reach, it might cost you even more.
While commission rates can be negotiable and you might be able to pay less than the 6%, that also may mean that your home’s not getting the attention that it should. However, there are alternative options to sell your house, like selling your home directly to a professional home buyer such as Christian Buys Houses. By doing this, you’re already avoiding losing 6% of your profit.
Paying the Closing Cost
Closing costs are another expense that come along with selling your home. When you sell your house, you’re going to be paying anywhere from 2% to 5% of the sale price. This goes to things such as title insurance, attorneys fees, transfer taxes and more. If you look at that $500,000 house from earlier, that’s another $25,000. So far, just with the fees, you’ve lost $55,000 on the sale of your home.
Now, while these are negotiable and some sellers may be able to negotiate with the buyer, that’s not very common. These fees are going to bite you one way or another, unless you sell directly to a home buying company like Christian Buys Houses. Home buying companies will cover these fees for you.
Renovations and Repairs
Before your house even goes on the market, you need to get it evaluated to see if there’s any repairs or renovations that need to be done on it. If your home is older and in disrepair, or the style of it doesn’t match today’s standards, you’re going to have to put out even more money to get that fixed. Even minor repairs can be very expensive on a house. If you end up having to pay another $15,000 just to get the house renovated and repaired, you’re up to $70,000 lost on that $500,000 house sale.
Even common repairs can add up. Things like repainting the house, fixing outdated appliances, repairing structural damage or upgrading the landscaping will add up bit by bit to cost you even more money. Once again, selling to a home buyer means you don’t have to do any of these things. Home buying companies will repair your home after they purchase it. So that bill isn’t one you have to foot if you want to sell your house in Atlanta.
Staging Your Home
If you want to get buyers to come look at your home or to showcase it, your house has to be looking pristine. It can’t look like people are living there and making messes. It has to look like a magazine. Staging your house every single time you have potential buyers, doing photography, and getting it where people want to look at your home is going to cost you even more. A professional photographer can run you hundreds or even thousands of dollars depending on the size of your home and the quality of the photography. Add another $5000 just to get your home professionally clean set and get pictures taken and you’re losing even more money.
At this stage, selling traditionally has already cost you $75,000. If you’re selling directly to a buyer, though, none of those are fees that are going to apply to you. If you want to sell your home to a direct buyer, it’s a lot easier with a lot less cost.
Advertising and Marketing Cost
You can’t sell your house if no one knows it’s for sale. Having a good advertisement and having good marketing is important for getting buyers to come look at your home. But once again, these are even more costs that are going to be piling up on you. Some websites will cost upwards of $500 to list your house, and that’s just for one website. If you want newspaper ads or anything else, that’s going to cost you even further. Tack on another $1000 in fees just for this. We’re up to $76,000 in fees, if you’re counting.
Taxes, Fees, and Registrations
Lastly, just like everything else, you’re going to be paying taxes on anything you buy or sell. You’re not getting out of selling your home without the government getting involved a little bit, and they’re going to be taking some of the fees as well. Transfer taxes, property taxes, capital gains taxes, mortgages, prepayment fees, and more. There’s so many things that can get added on in this stage of the house sale. If you still owe money on the house, you’re going to be paying for it. For a $500,000 house, if you still owe half of the balance, the transfer fees and everything else could run you another $5,000 to $10,000.
At the end of the day, that $500,000 house sale has already almost lost 20% of the value. You could either be having to pay nearly $100,000 on a $500,000 house if you go the traditional route, or you could sell your house directly to a home buyer. Selling your house directly is a way better option because you’re not paying any of these fees and you get paid in cash. We didn’t even include the mortgage payments or taxes on the home if you can’t get it sold quickly. Now that you know this, you can make a more informed decision about how to sell your home. Get in contact with us at Christian Buys Houses or give us a phone call at (770) 695-7368 and we can tell you what your house is worth in cash.