| How Much Does it Cost to Sell a House

There are a number of costs involved.

There is quite a bit to consider when selling a house.  It is important that you have a clear understanding of the costs involved before you put your home on the market.

Marketing Costs
Every property is unique and requires its own approach to marketing. Setting a marketing budget is important. As a vendor you will normally pay for the cost of marketing your property.  

Some agents do deals on marketing, but somehow, the vendor usually pays for it one way or another.

Your agent will recommend a marketing campaign, and provide you with a “Marketing Schedule”.  

Be sure to discuss this in detail with your agent to ensure you completely understand what you are paying for and how much each item on the schedule costs.

Depending on your property, your location and your budget, your marketing costs can be anything between $2000 – $10,000+.

Getting Your Home Ready for Sale Costs.
This varies so wildly that only you can put a figure on that.  If you are smart about it, each dollar you spend on cleaning up and improvements will be returned to multiple times.  For example spending a few hundred dollars on lawn and plants can add thousands of dollars to the sale price, not to mention increasing the appeal and speed of sale.

Styling – Is another important factor in improving the attractiveness of your home.  Whether you do it yourself or employ a professional, it too is a great investment that can return thousands of dollars on the final sale price.

Agent Fees
These can vary substantially.  A warning – When it comes to deciding on an agent, your decision should never be based purely on cost.  As the saying goes “If you think a professional is expensive, wait till you see how much an amateur will cost you”.

Generally there are two types of real estate agent fees, 

A Flat fee – You agree on a fixed fee for the sale of your property irrelevant of sale price

A percentage of sale fee – You agree to pay the agent a percentage of the final sale price. (Commissions can range from 1% to 3%). Once again, cheaper is not always better.  You need to choose the best agent to sell your home and that is quite often not the cheapest. 

Another incentive that is often used are “bonuses”.  This involves paying an extra bonus for above asking price.  For example, you may have an asking price of 900k, and the agent gets a further 10% incentive on any amount achieved over and above the $900k asking price.

If you are selling by auction, you will also need to factor in auction costs.  These can be from $500-$2000+.

Make sure you examine the agent fee schedule carefully before signing.

Conveyancing fees
Conveyancing is required for every real estate purchase in Australia.  It involves transferring the legal ownership of a property from one person to another.

You can do this yourself, but definitely not recommended as mistakes can be extremely costly.  It is normally done by a licensed conveyancer or solicitor.

There is a substantial amount of paperwork and council/government regulations that need to be addressed, so it is recommended that you use a local solicitor, as local knowledge can be an advantage.

You should budget between $800 and $2000+ for conveyancing.

Lender fees
Another fee you may need to factor in If you have a mortgage on the current home you’re selling.  If so you will normally need to pay your lender a discharge or early exit fee. Each lender has different rules on this and it will be in your mortgage contract documents. The amount can vary substantially from $150 up to $1500+. 

It is important that you have a clear understanding of the costs involved before you put your home on the market.

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