How much does it cost to sell your house?

Home For Sale Sign in Front of New House.

Clark Howard Staff | April 19th, 2019

Team Clark is adamant that we will never write content influenced by or paid for by an advertiser. To support our work, we do make money from some links to companies and deals on our site. Learn more about our guarantee here.

Spring is upon us and that means home selling season is here! But before you list your home on the market, do you know what kind of home selling costs you’re likely to encounter when you’re ready to hit the market?

Get ready for these home selling costs

New stats from Zillow show the home selling costs when you’ve decided to move could be anywhere from $20,000 to $30,000.

Their numbers are based on a home that you bought for $200,000, lived in for five years and are selling for $220,000.

Baked into that $20K to $30K figure are a variety of line items:

Cleaning and staging
Miscellaneous home improvements
Marketing fees
Inspections
Agent commissions
Attorney fees
Temporary housing costs
and many more

Here’s a closer look at how Zillow found the costs breaks down:

Description	Estimated cost
Home preparations	$5,000
Commissions (assuming 6%)	$13,200
Transfer tax	Varies by location
Prorated property tax	Varies by location
Utilities for 1.5 months (based on national average)	$258
Escrow (seller’s half)	$1,000
Title insurance	$1,000-$4,000
Buyer concessions (average is 1% of sale price)	$2,200
Optional pre-inspection	$250-$700
HOA fees for 1.5 months, plus transfer fee	$200-$400
Attorney fees	$500-$1,500
Temporary housing for 1.5 months (based on national average)	$2,000

All told, your expenses to sell a home can tally up to anywhere from $20,458 to $30,258 on a sale like this!

Meanwhile, if you’re on the fence about selling, Zillow has a quiz to help you determine whether you should sell or renovate your house.

Clark’s advice

If you decide you are ready to list your house, there are a couple of ways you can go.

Thanks to technology, you can now sell your home without all the hassle of getting it cleaned up for showings, having to leave the house on short notice when a real estate agent wants to bring clients by, etc. We take a look at several of the new options here.

Or, you can go the traditional home-selling route with the staging, the open houses and all the rest.

If it’s the latter route you pick, money expert Clark Howard has some advice for you.

“When you list your home, be sure you also have access to a safe deposit box off the premises where you can stash away jewelry or other valuables,” the consumer champ says. “Any important financial papers can be stored in a locking cabinet at your home.”

You could also try posting a sign out front that states, “All valuables have been removed from this property.” That should hopefully make any criminal opportunists think twice before swooping in to your open house for what might look like an easy job.

“Of course, most people who go to an open house will be honest potential buyers,” Clark says. “But you still have to protect yourself from the small number of people who aren’t.”