Sellers to Spend Nearly $21,000 to Sell Home This Year

Home sellers could spend $20,851 on average to sell their homes, including closing costs, but also improvements and other projects made when people are preparing their homes for sale, said a report from Zillow and Thumbtack.

The companies’ annual Hidden Cost of Selling report said the majority (79 percent) of sellers complete at least one home improvement project before putting the home on the market, which tends to pay off. Sellers who make improvements to their homes are more likely to sell for more than their asking price than those who don’t (22 percent versus 16 percent), according to the Zillow Group Consumer Housing Trends Report.

The report said sellers who hire professional help for common home prep projects tend to spend, based on a national average, $6,570 on improvements such as interior and exterior painting, staging and carpet cleaning, as well as local moving costs to their new home.

“More than half of today’s sellers are doing so for the first time, and the costs associated with the process may come as an unwelcome surprise,” the report said.

By market, costs can vary, the report said. For example, sellers in Sacramento can spend nearly $7,800 preparing their home for sale, compared to Phoenix sellers, who could spend about $4,000 for the same projects.

Closing costs, the report said, are another big expense for home sellers, including agent commissions and transfer or sales taxes. Nationally, these can add up to $14,281, on average, but because they are based on the home’s sale price, sellers in the nation’s priciest markets pay much more. In the San Jose metro, sellers pay $76,015 on average in closing costs, the highest of metros analyzed. By comparison, sellers in Cleveland spend the least–$9,046.

“Selling was hard even in the sellers’ market of recent years, and it’s going to get harder as markets soften,” said Skylar Olsen, Zillow Director of Economic Research.

“While the costs of these touch-up projects can add up, particularly in high cost of living metros, sellers should remember that by taking care of these projects, they can get a really strong return on their investment and may be more likely to sell their home for the highest possible price,” said Lucas Puente, Thumbtack economist. “As a first step, homeowners considering selling their home in the next 12 months should start doing research and budgeting appropriately to give themselves ample prep time.”