How Much Does It Cost To Sell A House In Indiana?

This post will help you with how you can know how much does it cost to sell your house. I discuss all of the typical costs included in a standard real estate transaction. Also, here you will find tips to lower the cost of selling your home so you keep more of the money from your home sale.

Average Cost Of Selling A House In Indiana

Knowing how much will it cost to sell a house helps you know what your bottom line is when considering an offer. The average cost to sell a house in Indiana is 6.3% of the home’s sale price. The average home price in Indiana is about $204,000. Including common transaction costs, the typical Indiana home sale is likely to cost the home seller $12,875.

Indiana home sellers can lower the cost of selling a house in Indiana by thousands of dollars by working with a low commission real estate agent like the Quadwalls Real Estate Team. Our team of Indiana real estate agents offer low real estate commission fees.

What Does It Cost To Sell A House?

There are many different costs involved in selling a house that affect the bottom line when selling a home in Indiana. Let’s take a look at these and how much each costs.

Preparing Your Home

Preparing your home for the market costs money. You may want to complete a project, repaint, dress up landscaping, or even have professionals come clean your home. Costs for getting your home ready to market can range from nothing to thousands of dollars.

For example, a complete kitchen remodel can cost tens of thousands of dollars. On the other hand, some DIY yard work will likely cost you nothing. The typical home seller likely spends $1,000 to $1,500 getting their home ready to sell, though.

Real Estate Agent Commission Fees

Real estate commission fees vary. 5% to 7% is pretty commonplace in the market. Shopping around and negotiating for a lower real estate commission fee is the best way to lower your home sale transaction costs.

Did you know the Quadwalls Real Estate Team has some of the lowest real estate commission fees in Indiana? We post our fees right on our website, too! We take out the awkward negotiation by offering you the lowest possible fee. Despite our low fees we offer a full-feature home selling service. Home sellers can save a lot of money by working with us. Just take a look at our fees and included services.

Seller Concessions

A seller concessions is a closing cost credit you agree to provide to a homebuyer. Buyers will typically include this in their offer. A seller concession lowers the amount of money the buyer needs to bring to closing. However, a seller concession will lowers your bottom line.

A seller concession varies and is bargained for in each deal. The concession can be as low as a couple hundred dollars or as high as thousands of dollars. Each mortgage type places a maximum limit on the seller concessions.

 

Closing Costs

There are three typical closing costs when selling a home in Indiana.

Owner Title Insurance Policy

When selling a home in Indiana the buyer (and the buyer’s lender) is going to require the home seller to purchase an owner’s title insurance policy. This is an insurance product bought and put in place to fund any future, successful claim against the title arising after the sale. Home sellers should budget 0.25% of the home’s sale price for this.

Title Charges, Settlement Fees, And Recording Charges

I clump all these together as title charges. These are generally more flat-rate in nature, so regardless of the home’s sale price, the cost of these items doesn’t change. I would budget $500 to $800 for these costs.

Property Tax Proration

Indiana is in arrears on property taxes. This means property taxes accrued last year are not due to be paid until this year. It is atypical when selling a home in Indiana for the buyer to ask for a property tax proration at closing. This causes the seller to pay to the buyer at the closing table the amount for the accrued but not yet due property taxes. The seller is then free of paying the tax bill for last year when it comes due this year.

The annual property tax cost on your home and the month in which you close affects the property tax proration amount. To get a budgetary estimate of how much you will be crediting to the buyer, follow the following instructions:

• Get your most recent annual property tax bill
• Divide the total by 12 to get the monthly rate
• If you are closing in between January and April: multiply the monthly rate by 12 + whatever number month you are closing in (example, if you are closing in March, the third month, it would be 12 + 3 = 15).
• If you are closing between May and October: multiply the monthly rate by 6 + whatever number month you are closing in (example, if you are closing in August, the eighth month, it would be 6 + 8 = 14)
• If you are closing in November: multiply the monthly rate by 11
• If you are closing in December: multiply the monthly rate by 12

Mortgage Payoff

If you currently have a mortgage on your property it will need to be paid off at the time of closing. The title company will work with your lender to determine the payoff amount. The title company will send the payoff amount to the lender at closing. The same thing will occur in the instance you have a home equity line of credit (HELOC) with a balance.

Improvements On Credit

More rare is the instance where a major project on the home was paid for with a second mortgage attached to the property by either a contractor or a creditor. Recently, I was working for a client who had an $80,000 solar power generation system installed on her home. She paid for it using a loan which attached to the home as a second mortgage. This needed to be paid off at closing out of her proceeds from the sale.

Judgments

Unpaid judgements which have attached to the home will need to be paid at closing from your proceeds. This can be any judgment regardless of whether it had to do with the home or not. So long as it has attached to the home it will need to be paid. And yes, the title company is going to find it.

Capital Gains Tax

Be prepared for tax consequences of selling your home, too. Any gain on a home sold after less than one year of ownership will be taxes as ordinary income. Gains on a home owned for more than one year but less than two years will be taxed at the applicable capital gains tax rate.

On the other hand, if you have owned the home for more than two years and it has been your primary residence for two of the last five years you may be able to exclude up to $250,000 of the gains from taxation. This increases to $500,000 if you are married. Consulting a tax professional can help you know if you will have a tax liability when selling the home.

Home Repairs

It is relatively common for homebuyers to ask for repairs to be completed on a home they are buying. This is another expense that can cost you when selling a home in Indiana. There is not a requirement that you complete these repairs. Instead, in Indiana this is something that is bargained for between the seller and the buyer. Therefore, the cost for home repairs can range from nothing to thousands of dollars.

Moving Costs

Do not forget to factor in the costs of moving, too. Whether you’re going to take the DIY approach or hire professional movers, there is a cost involved. Moving yourself can end up costing as little as buying your friends and family some pizza and drinks. On the other hand, professional movers can easily cost several thousand dollars, though.

4 Ways To Reduce The Cost Of Selling A House

Lower Real Estate Commission Fees

The best way to lower the costs associated with selling a house is reducing real estate agent commission fees. Home sellers should shop around for a real estate agent with a lower fee. At the least, negotiate with the real estate agents you are considering to use.

We can save you the work and awkwardness that comes along with negotiating a real estate commission fee. The Quadwalls Real Estate Team offers Indiana home sellers low real estate commission fees.  Our fees are posted right on our website which takes away what can be a difficult conversation. Take a look at how we can save you thousands of dollars in real estate commission fees.

Sell Your Home As-Is

Whether your home is in great shape or has some deferred maintenance you can lower the costs of selling your home by refusing to make any repairs. Yes, you can advertise your home as being sold “as-is.” In markets with few homes for sale many sellers can get away with this without turning off too many buyers.

Turn Down Offers With Seller Concessions

If someone is willing to pay an acceptable list price but wants several thousand dollars in closing cost concessions, there is a good chance that if you were to reject their offer another one will come your way without costly seller concessions. Wait out the market if you need to do so. Just because the buyer in front of you is tight on cash doesn’t mean that buyer is the only one who will ever be interested in your home.

Wait To Sell To Avoid Your Home Sale Being A Taxable Event

The IRS rules on a home sale being a taxable event are based on time. If you are near the one year mark of ownership of the home, only accept an offer that will close after the one year mark. This changes the gain on the sale from ordinary income to capital gains which is taxed at a lower rate. Better yet, if you are close to the two year mark and use the home as your primary residence make sure the offer you accept does not close until after your second anniversary of owning the home.

How Much Will I Make Selling My House?

The first step to determining the estimated cost to sell a house and how much you will make selling your house is to determine the home’s likely sale price. The Quadwalls E-Valuation lets you learn the value of your home simply by answering some questions. Click here to get your free, contactless E-Valuation today!

Once you know what your home is worth in the current market you can begin deducting expenses and transaction costs applicable to your home sale. Your list of expenses should include:

• The real estate commission fee charged by your real estate agent
• Title charges
• Property tax prorations
• Mortgage, HELOC, second mortgage, and judgment payoffs
• Capital gains taxes
• Seller concessions
• Home repair costs

Once you have totaled up all of the expenses, deduct this from your selling price. The remainder is your net proceeds from the home sale.

Conclusion

Knowing what does it cost to sell your house will help you better estimate your sale proceeds. The estimated cost to sell a house in Indiana is 6% to 8% of the home sale price. The best way to reduce these costs is to work with a low real estate commission fee agent.

When calculating your net proceeds start with your sale price and deduct all applicable expenses. This includes the cost of getting the home ready to sell, transaction costs like real estate commission fees, title charges, seller concessions, and property tax prorations, and other costs such as a mortgage payoff and capital gains taxes.

The Quadwalls Real Estate Team

About Quadwalls.com

Quadwalls.com is a real estate website founded in Valparaiso, IN dedicated to helping home buyers and sellers make better decisions when buying and selling real estate.

How Quadwalls Helps Homebuyers

The Quadwalls Real Estate Team has some of the best Realtors® in Northwest Indiana. We are ready to help you find and buy your new home. Each of the Quadwalls Team Northwest Indiana real estate agents is ready to provide you with attentive, personalized, warm, caring service to help you find and buy a home. Whether this is your first or fifteenth home purchase each of us has the skills and experience to represent you. Start viewing homes for sale in Northwest Indiana today!

How Quadwalls Helps Home Sellers

Receive a free, remarkably accurate market valuation of your home by completing the Quadwalls.com Interactive Home Value Experience. Also, we post the real estate commission fee we charge on our website. Our fees for our full-feature home selling services are amongst the lowest in the industry. Click here to learn more about our full-feature home selling services.

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