Be Aware Of These 5 Costs of Selling Your Home
If you're selling your first home or if it's been a while since you bought and sold your property, you need to figure out a few things when doing the math. If you're calculating commissions, then you've got part of the equation. Check out what you may have to account for when working with your real estate agent when figuring out how much revenue you hope to gain as you come up with a viable list price.
In thinking about your reasons to sell, whether it's to finance another property or change of lifestyle, you need to be realistic about the time it will take to sell and how much it will cost to sell it as well.
Together with your real estate professional, think about the following expenses:
Home Staging
Think this doesn't make a difference? It does. You want your home to look as close to show home condition as possible. If you have time, visit open houses in your community and take note of the home's appearance. Which homes strike your eye? Chances are they're the homes with no personal artifacts, tasteful décor and little clutter.
Successful home staging can include:
- Painting your home inside and out
- Fixing fences, eavestroughs
- Replacing mailboxes and house numbers
- Cleaning interior carpets
- Putting extraneous furniture and person belongings in storage including clothing, paperwork, excess furniture, vehicles
- Renting furniture or art if your home is empty
- Hiring a home staging professional to handle it all
Legal Fees
This depends on how complicated the transaction is, but if you budget for $500 to $1,000, chances are you'll be on the safe side. Using a real estate agent to sell your home rather than trying to do it yourself will save money in legal fees. A lawyer handling a non-agent assisted transaction may have to spend more time on paperwork, costing you more money.
What About Land Transfer Tax
Fortunately in Alberta, we don't have the same sort of land transfer tax you find in our neighbouring province of B.C. We do, however, have a much lesser land title transfer which is a two-prong approach based on property value and mortgage value. You can read more about it on the Service Alberta website.
Moving Costs
If you are well connected with lots of friends and access to a truck or two, your moving costs might not be more than a bucket of chicken and case of beer. For those of us less gifted, you may need a moving company (think pianos and reclining couches) and if you're moving overseas, some professional packers with oodles of bubble wrap. Get reliable quotes because chances are your moving costs may have to come out of the proceeds of your house sale.
Agent Commissions
This is the largest chunk of what will come out of the proceeds, with specific guidelines about what percentage your real estate agent will get and how it will be split if your listing agent isn't the one that sold your property. There's nothing that will replace professional service and expert marketing, including agents' ability to tap into huge networks of potential buyers. Plus, a real estate professional will get more money for your home, thus helping to offset their costs, and will sell your home more quickly than if you try it yourself.