Selling a home may cost more than you think

Thinking of selling your home? If you hope to have it sold by November, you’d better be.

According to the 2017 Zillow Group Consumer Housing Trends Report, nationally, sellers spend five months on average thinking about selling, and getting a home ready to sell, before listing.

Then it takes an average of three months listed on the market before it sells. Sales stats vary, of course; here, the average days on market before a house sells is 60 to 62, according to the Oklahoma City Metro Association of Realtors.

A friend of mine is moving out of state without taking many steps, as far as I know, to sell the house he and his wife have owned in Oklahoma City for 40 years.

Granted, they’ve been thinking about selling for way more than the average of five months, and, they’ve emptied the place of most furnishings and personal belongings.

But they haven’t called a real estate agent, so I hope they’ve done the research — because it costs to sell a house even without an agent. It probably costs more without, actually, because a good agent who is a Realtor won’t let them be blindsided.

(Note: an agent has earned a license from the state; a Realtor is a member of local state, and national Realtors associations, with extra training and expertise.)

Homeowners spend $18,342 on average to sell a home, according to 2018 Hidden Costs of Selling analysis by Zillow and Thumbtack, an app and website that finds local professionals for any project, showing providers and how much they cost.

Zillow and Thumbtack said they identified several common but often overlooked seller expenses and calculated the costs across the country. Most sellers, 61 percent, have never sold a home before, so lots of this will be a surprise.

First, home sellers are responsible for agent commissions and transfer or sales taxes, two of the largest closing costs.

Nationally, sellers spend $13,357 on average, according to

the analysis.

That’s based on percentages of a home’s sale price, so “sellers in pricey markets like San Jose, California, pay much more — $74,927 on average for the medianpriced home, the highest of the metros analyzed,” Zillow and Thumbtack said. “Sellers in Indianapolis pay the least ($8,604), as home values are lower and the state has no transfer tax.”

They didn’t have a figure for Oklahoma City. But here’s how commissions work, according to an article by Julie Ryan Evans at Realtor.com.

“Most real estate agents are paid through a commission, or a Realtor fee, on the homes they sell. This commission can vary from state to state and among brokerages . ...

“If you’re buying a home, you’re probably off the hook for paying the Realtor fee. The home seller usually picks up this payment. Typically, the fee is paid by the seller at the settlement table, where the fee is subtracted from the proceeds of the home sale. The Realtor fee is typically paid by the seller to the listing broker who, in turn, shares part of it with the Realtor who brings a buyer to the table.”

The Realtor.com article goes on:

“When the sellers set a listing price for the home, they usually take the agent’s commission into account; it’s the cost of doing business . ... The Realtor fee is a percentage of the sale price. The specific amount depends on how much your home sells for, but it’s commonly 6 percent of the sale price.

“For example, if the home sells for $500,000, the Realtor fee of 6 percent would be $30,000. The fee is split between the buyer’s agent and the seller’s agent. It’s a separate contract between the brokers and not something the buyer gets to negotiate as part of the offer.”

Then there’s this: “Sellers who hire professional help spend $4,985 on average to cover many basic seller prep projects like painting, staging, carpet cleaning, lawn care and gardening and local moving costs,” Zillow and Thumbtack reported.

These costs vary by area, too: “Sellers in San Jose, California, pay $6,580 on average, whereas sellers in Dallas pay an average of $3,720 for the same projects.”

Selling a house takes time and money.

“From decluttering and staging to preinspections, agents and homeowners often spend months behind the scenes prepping a home, well before it’s listed on the market,” Jeremy Wacksman, Zillow’s chief marketing officer, said in the ZillowThumbtack report.

“If you’re planning to sell this year, try to take some time to research what costs you may be responsible for and how they could affect your profit or even budget for your next house.”

This is why I started thinking about selling my house about 10 years ago — not kidding — even though a sale does not appear to be on my horizon.

You don’t always know when, but if you keep up with costs, you can get a good estimate of how dearly you’ll pay for presale upgrades or, gulp, deferred maintenance.

Buyer’s remorse goes away. Having never sold a house, I imagine that seller’s remorse hurts a long time.