Clever Real Estate: More Than Half of Home Sellers Surprised at Cost

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Clever Offers, a division of Clever Real Estate, St. Louis, Mo., found 55% of recent sellers were surprised by the cost of selling their home.

And, 48% had underestimated how much they’d need.

The average cost to sell a home is $67,245, Clever reported. In contrast, sellers expected to pay an average of $18,557. Clever surveyed sellers from 2023 to present.

Contributing to those costs include pre- and post-listing repairs, listing agents’ commission, buyers agents’ commission, closing costs, concessions to the buyer, moving costs and marketing and staging.

Forty percent of respondents said they felt financially stressed during the home-selling process, 41% didn’t budget for their home sale and 22% took on debt to cover the cost of selling their home.

Three-quarters said they would have made different choices if they knew the costs of selling a home.

Most–79%–did make money on their home sale, but 51% say their profit was less than they expected because of the total cost to sell.

As the housing market has been a bit friendlier to buyers recently, sellers are having to make some compromises, the study found. Seventy-nine percent of sellers report having compromised their priorities when selling their home, such as wanting to sell their home without repairs but having to make them anyways, or wanting to sell without concessions, but having to make them.