Selling your home in Salem, MA can be a big undertaking. There’s more to it than throwing a sign in the ground and waiting for the perfect seller. Believe it or not, selling your home costs you money. Just how much depends on the circumstances. Before you list your home for sale, you should have a rough idea of the costs in order to figure out your bottom line.
Some costs to sell your home are paid at the time of service while others are paid at the closing. Check out how much it may cost you to sell your home below.
What’s the Home’s Condition?
Your first consideration should be the home’s condition. What needs to be repaired? You may not even realize the depth of what’s required until a professional walks through and lets you know. Buyers don’t need a ‘perfect’ house – every house has flaws, but major issues could cause problems with finding a buyer or getting top dollar for your home.
The cost of the repairs depend on the depth of the issues that need repairing – is it something you can fix yourself or do you need professionals? Oftentimes, fixing one problem leads to other problems – it’s a snowball effect that may cost you more than you realize at the onset.
How Does your House Look?
Beyond the repairs, your home may need staging. This involves many costs including storage, paying a professional stager, and possibly redecorating. Buyers don’t necessarily have the same taste as you. It’s best when you remove personal items, clutter, and even certain designs, making your home as neutral as possible.
How much this will cost depends on your needs. Do you need storage space? Do you need to pay a professional stager or a home decorator? Maybe you need to buy neutral trinkets and wall décor to make the home more appealing to the masses.
Will you Use a Realtor?
Realtors cost money, obviously, as they list, market, and handle the administrative portion of selling your home. Realtors show your home to potential buyers, work with other realtors, and negotiate on your behalf. The typical realtor fee is between 5% – 6% of your home’s sales price. A $200,000 home would cost $10,000 – $12,000 right off the top.
Realtors often have value-added services too. For example, if you want to pay for more marketing that the realtor’s traditional offering, it will cost you more. Marketing may also include hiring a professional photographer, or a marketing professional to really get your listing out there.
Do you Know the Closing Costs?
It’s not just buyers that pay closing costs on a home – sellers pay their part too. While this number differs, in Salem, MA, expect to pay between 1% and 3% of the home’s sales price. This covers all taxes, government fees, and interest you may owe. This is in addition to the cost of realtor fees, so you’re looking at almost 10% off the top of your sales price just to sell your home.
How Much Does it Cost to Maintain your Home?
Just because you list your home for sale doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay for it. Even if you aren’t currently living there, you still have to pay the mortgage, taxes, and insurance. If you are living there, you’ll have to cover the utilities and upkeep of the home.
Just how long will you have to pay these fees? It depends, but on average it takes a few months to sell a home and that’s in a good market. If the market is slow, you could sit on your listed property for six months or longer, which only compounds the cost of selling a home in Salem, MA.
If you want to avoid the costs of selling a home in Salem, Massachusetts, consider selling it directly to professional cash homebuyers. We don’t have to worry about financing, the home’s condition, or what it looks like. We buy homes as-is, saving you thousands of dollars on the sale of the property. We do everything directly with you and can get the entire sale done in as little as a week, depending on your situation.