Selling.House
How Much Does It Cost to Sell Your House in Houston?
Counter-intuitive as it may seem, putting your home on the market can be expensive. From prepping for sale to paying average Houston closing costs, sellers often feel like they are hemorrhaging money left and right as they attempt to get the best possible price for their homes.
But how much of this is real money paid out of pocket and how much is just seller perception? How much does it cost to sell your house in Houston and how much control do sellers have over those costs? Here are the facts.
selling house: houston
Pre-Sale Prep
Staging Costs
In theory, staging is optional. But most experienced realtors agree that staging is so expected by today’s buyers that it should be considered a standard part of the cost to sell a house in Texas.
Admittedly, the cost of staging comes in on average at around $1,000 per property. However, many factors influence the actual costs faced by any given buyer, including:
- How much staging the property needs
- How long a home needs to be staged for
- How much must be removed from the property and put in storage
- How many props, pieces of furniture, and accessories stagers need to supply
For some sellers, staging costs can balloon quickly and top out at far more than the average.
Closing Costs
Everyone knows that selling a home comes with closing costs. But what do Texas closing costs entail and just how much should a seller expect to spend on them?
The term “closing costs” is generally used to refer to a variety of expenses incurred during the processing of sale paperwork including:
- Performing a title search
- Securing title insurance
- Having a home inspected, surveyed, and appraised
- The pulling of credit reports
- The pulling of credit reports
- Paying off the seller's mortgage
- Recording the sale in local courts
- Handling escrow
- Paying prorated property taxes
- Miscellaneous applicable costs such as paying up utility bills and HOA fees
Realtor Costs
How Much Does It Cost to Sell Your House in Houston to a Cash Buyer?
As shown by the figures above, the average Houston home seller can expect to spend more than $23,000 on various fees and expenses when listing and selling their home on the traditional market. This is an enormous amount of money lost.
By contrast, Houston property owners who choose to sell to a cash buyer are likely to spend almost nothing. This is due to the fact that most of the costs associated with selling a home in Texas on the traditional market do not apply to cash sales.
For example, most cash buyers are willing to purchase properties “as-is.” They also do not need approval from lenders or insurers, which means there are no contractual concerns about property condition. This means that sellers do not have to do any work on their properties prior to sale or stage them in any way, regardless of their condition.
Realtor Commissions
Selling to a cash buyer allows homeowners to skip realtor commissions altogether. As with avoiding closing costs, this can save homeowners more than $10,000. It also allows them to skip extra costs that often come with working with a realtor such as advertising costs, prepping a house for showing, and the expensive photography and video services necessary to create impressive online tours and promotions.
By selling to a cash buyer, homeowners can also avoid the hefty property maintenance and tax costs they would have to pay if they worked with a realtor and took months to sell their homes.
Closing Costs
Many cash buyers are happy to pay most or all of the closing costs associated with a sale. This alone can save sellers thousands of dollars. The lack of repeated pre-sale inspections can also save time.
