Costs of selling
What it actually costs to sell your home
The number that matters is not the sale price. It is what is left after the costs come out, and that is the part most sellers have not mapped. Here is every category, in plain English, so settlement day holds no surprises.
The number that matters
Your sale price is not what you walk away with
When people picture selling, they picture the sale price. The real figure to plan around is your net proceeds, what lands in your account after the costs of the sale come out of that price at closing. Those costs are not hidden or unusual; they are the same handful of categories on nearly every sale. The trouble is when a seller meets them for the first time on settlement day.
So let's lay them out now. Below is what comes out of the sale price, what each piece is, and the one or two you actually have some control over. No dollar figures here, because your numbers depend on your price and your situation, but you will know exactly what to ask about when we sit down with your specifics.
Structure only. Amounts depend entirely on your sale price, your loan balance, and your choices.
Each cost, explained
What each line actually means
Agent compensation
Usually the largest line, and the one people most want a number on. It is negotiable. There is no standard or required rate, and we agree on it in writing before the home goes on the market. It pays for the pricing work, the photography and marketing, the featured placement, the negotiation, and the coordination that holds the deal together. What, if anything, you offer toward a buyer's agent is also negotiable and decided with you.
Title and settlement fees
The title and escrow company clears the title, holds the funds, and runs the closing. They charge for that and for the title policy, on a schedule that scales with the sale price. In Utah these are ordinary and predictable, and the title company will give you the figures before you sign.
Prorated property taxes
You owe taxes for the part of the year you owned the home. At closing they are prorated to the day, so you cover your share and the buyer covers theirs. It is a settling-up, not an extra penalty.
Recording fees, payoff, and concessions
The county charges small fees to record the documents. If you have a loan against the home, its remaining balance is paid off from your proceeds, which is simply moving your existing debt, not a new cost. And if you agree to give the buyer a credit or cover a repair, that concession comes out here too. Concessions are negotiated, so they are partly in your control.
Preparing the home
Cleaning, a few repairs, maybe light staging. This is the most discretionary line on the list, and the one with the best potential return when it is spent in the right places. We talk through what is worth doing before you spend a dollar. See preparing your home to sell.
One you will not pay in Utah. Utah charges no state real estate transfer tax. If you have sold in a state that has one, that can be a meaningful line you simply will not see on your closing statement here.
On commission
Why I will not quote a rate on a web page
Commission is negotiable, full stop. Any site that flashes a single tidy percentage is either guessing or hoping you do not ask what it includes. The honest answer is that the right number depends on your home, your situation, and the work the sale actually needs.
So we set it together, in writing, before your home goes on the market. You will know exactly what you are paying and exactly what it buys, the pricing read, the photography and marketing, the featured placement, the negotiation, and someone steady steering the deal from contract to keys. No mystery, no moving target. You can read what a listing agreement covers before you sign one.
How it works in Utah
The lines that follow Utah custom
Several of these categories are handled a particular way here, and knowing the local custom is what keeps settlement day calm. One thing to know up front: in Utah the title and escrow company runs the closing, so there is no closing attorney to pay. Here is how the main Utah-specific lines work, and why each one lands where it does.
Owner's title insurance
In most Utah counties, including Iron and Washington where I list homes myself, custom puts the owner's title insurance policy on the seller. That policy protects the buyer's ownership against problems buried in the title's history: a missed lien, an old boundary error, a clouded chain of ownership. The buyer separately pays for the lender's policy, which protects only their lender. It is a convention, not a legal requirement, so in an unusual situation the two sides can agree to handle it differently. The owner's policy is priced on a sliding scale, the figure climbing with the sale price though the rate per thousand eases as the price rises. Your title company shows you the number before you sign.
Escrow and settlement fee
Because a title and escrow company runs the closing in Utah rather than an attorney, the company charges a settlement or closing fee for that work: holding the funds, clearing the conditions, and disbursing at the end. It is commonly split, with each side covering its own portion, so the seller side comes out of your proceeds and the buyer side out of theirs. Who pays it is negotiable and is not set by law, but each side usually pays its own. The figure is modest next to commission and title, and the title company states it plainly before closing.
Recording, payoff, and reconveyance
The county recorder charges a small fee to record the documents that move the home to the buyer, including the release of the trust deed that currently secures your loan. If you owe a balance, your payoff is figured as the remaining principal plus interest accrued through the day the sale funds, plus a small reconveyance fee to clear the lien from the public record. A second mortgage or line of credit adds one more release to record. None of this is new money out of pocket; it is your existing balance stepping off the property so the buyer receives clear title.
Prorated property taxes
Utah property taxes run on the calendar year and are billed in the fall, due at the end of November. Sell partway through the year and you have usually not paid that year's bill yet, so at closing you credit the buyer for the slice of the year you owned the home, and the buyer carries it from the closing date forward. Close near mid-year and you would cover roughly the first half. It appears as a debit on your side of the settlement statement. You are settling up the taxes you already owed for your time in the home, not paying an added charge.
What sits on the buyer's side, not yours
A settlement statement lists both sides, which can make the total look larger than your share. Several lines are the buyer's, not yours: their own loan fees, the appraisal their lender orders, the lender's title policy, their inspection, and their portion of the prorated taxes from the closing date forward. Knowing which lines are not yours is half of reading the statement clearly, and it is part of why a seller's net is easier to forecast than the full-page total suggests.
Your discretionary lines
The costs you have a say over
Most of the categories above are set by custom or by your loan balance, and there is little to decide. Two lines are different, because you help set them: what you agree to give the buyer in concessions, and what you spend getting the home ready to show. These are the levers we plan together before you commit to either.
Buyer concessions
A concession is a credit you agree to give the buyer, most often toward their closing costs or to settle something raised in the inspection. It is negotiated into the contract and comes out of your proceeds at closing, so it behaves like a cost even though you never write a separate check. Sellers reach for a concession when a specific repair is on the table, or as a negotiated term when there is more inventory competing for the same buyers. Because it is negotiated, it is one of the few lines you help decide, and it is not always the right tool: sometimes a price adjustment serves you better. We weigh the two before you agree to either. Pricing your home walks through how list price and buyer search interact.
Getting the home ready
Cleaning, decluttering, small repairs, and light staging are the most discretionary spend on the whole list, and the place where targeted effort tends to matter more than a big-budget project. We map what is worth doing, and what is not, before you spend a dollar. Preparing your home to sell is the full walk-through.
Photography and marketing are part of representation
The professional photography, the written marketing, and the featured placement on the city pages buyers are already reading are part of what your listing agreement covers, not separate invoices you pay on top. That is worth saying plainly, because some sellers brace for a marketing bill that is not coming. Get featured on MovingUtah shows what that placement looks like.
Your numbers
Categories are the map. Your net is the destination
Everything above is the shape of your costs, not the size. The size depends on your sale price, your loan balance, the time of year you close, and the calls you make on concessions and prep. When you want to watch those categories add up against a specific sale price, the seller net sheet does the arithmetic line by line and lands on the number that would wire to your account. To see how that math works, read how your net proceeds are figured.
If the question underneath the math is whether to sell at all right now, the sell-now-or-wait calculator weighs today's net against waiting, and the equity-position calculator shows the equity standing behind that net. All three are estimates with their assumptions shown, never a quote, and free to use with no sign-up.
Questions, answered
What sellers ask about cost
Your selling costs come out of the proceeds at closing and fall into a handful of categories: the agent compensation you agree to, title and settlement fees, your prorated property taxes, recording fees, any concessions you offer the buyer, the payoff of any loan against the home, and what you spend preparing it. The exact amounts depend on your sale price and your situation. Utah charges no state real estate transfer tax. The point of planning ahead is that none of it surprises you on settlement day.
Real estate commission is negotiable. There is no standard or required rate, and I will not quote one on a web page, because the right number depends on your home, your situation, and the scope of work. We agree on it in writing before your home goes on the market, so you know exactly what you are paying and what it covers. What, if anything, you offer toward a buyer's agent is also negotiable and decided with you.
There are two policies on most sales. In most Utah counties, custom has the seller pay for the owner's title insurance policy, which protects the buyer's ownership, while the buyer pays for the lender's policy that protects their lender. It is convention rather than a legal requirement, so the parties can negotiate it differently, but seller-pays-the-owner's-policy is the default to plan around. The policy price runs on a sliding scale tied to the sale price, and your title company will show you the figure before you sign.
No. Utah has no state real estate transfer tax. Many states charge one, so you may be looking for that line. It is not on a Utah statement. When I go over your statement with you, I point out the lines that do show up. You will still see recording fees, which the county charges to file the papers. You will also see your share of this year's property taxes. Both are different from a transfer tax, and both are usually much smaller.
You pay for the days you owned the home, and the buyer pays from closing day on. In Utah, the property tax year is the calendar year. The county bills in the fall, and the bill is due at the end of November. Say we close before that bill is paid. At closing, you give the buyer a credit for your part of the year. The later in the year we close, the bigger that credit gets. I check that line on your net sheet and again on your closing statement. It is not an extra charge. It is the tax you already owed for your time in the home.
A net sheet is an estimate, prepared before you list or while you are still deciding, that projects what a sale would leave you after the costs come out. The settlement statement your title company produces at closing is the final, legal version with the confirmed figures. A net sheet is educational, never a quote, and how close it comes depends on the assumptions behind it. You can run your own with the free seller net sheet calculator on this site, and when we talk through your address I will build one against your specific payoff, timing, and market.
Want the line-by-line version?
The seller closing-costs guide breaks down every line you will see on a Utah settlement statement.
Read the closing-cost guideKeep exploring
Let's figure out your actual net
Costs only mean something next to a price. Send me the address and I will put an honest value behind it, then walk you through what your sale would really net. No pressure, and no obligation to list. If you are selling because of a divorce, I am also a Utah divorce real estate agent, and I can show you the net for each side.
Want to see every line before we talk? Read the full closing-cost guide.
Not in Southern Utah? I will connect you with a partner agent I trust in your area, and stay involved.