If you want to find out how much cash you can get from your property, there are many factors to consider. The selling price of a home is just one factor to take into consideration when determining how much your property is worth. A review of the market and a close look at your outstanding mortgage and tax obligations will give you a good idea of how much cash you can expect to pocket from the sale of your property.
Consult a real estate professional or home appraiser to get an accurate figure for how much your home would sell on the market. You can also get an estimate of how much your home is worth using a free online tool like Zillow, Home Gain or Zip Realty or by comparing how much at least three other comparable homes in your neighborhood have sold for recently.
Look at a recent mortgage statement to determine how much is outstanding on your mortgage.
Deduct your mortgage from how much your house is worth on the market. For example, if your mortgage is $160,000 and the house should sell for $200,000, then the equity in your home is $200,000 minus $160,000 equals $40,000.
Deduct real estate fees from your equity, if you are planning to use a real estate agent to sell your home. Fees vary from agency to agency but you can generally expect to pay 4 to 6 percent of the selling price. In this example, 4 percent of $200,000 is $8,000, so $40,000 minus $8,000 is $32,000.
Tips
Check your property tax records to ensure your taxes are up to date. If they aren't, you will also have to pay current taxes from the cash value of your home. You can find comparable home sales by visiting your local assessors' office and asking for a sales history for your neighborhood, or by looking at local newspapers for quarterly sales reports in the business section.
References
Tips
- Check your property tax records to ensure your taxes are up to date. If they aren't, you will also have to pay current taxes from the cash value of your home.
- You can find comparable home sales by visiting your local assessors' office and asking for a sales history for your neighborhood, or by looking at local newspapers for quarterly sales reports in the business section.
Writer Bio
Stephanie Ellen teaches mathematics and statistics at the university and college level. She coauthored a statistics textbook published by Houghton-Mifflin. She has been writing professionally since 2008. Ellen holds a Bachelor of Science in health science from State University New York, a master's degree in math education from Jacksonville University and a Master of Arts in creative writing from National University.