Every seller I sit down with has a number in their head, and it's almost always the sale price. That's the wrong number. The one that matters is the figure on the final settlement statement, the one that hits your bank account the day escrow closes.
Here's how that math works on a home I'd price around $850,000 in Old Escondido, one of the 1920s or 1930s bungalows near Grand Avenue. These are rounded figures, but they're honest ones.
Start with commission. It's negotiable, and you set it with your agent up front. At 5% total, that's about $42,500.
Next comes escrow and title. In San Diego County the seller customarily pays for the buyer's owner's title policy, plus their share of escrow fees. Plan on roughly $4,000. The county documentary transfer tax runs $1.10 per $1,000 of price, so about $935. Escondido doesn't add a city transfer tax on top of that.
Then there's the part nobody budgets for: repairs the buyer asks for after inspections. On older homes in that neighborhood I see the same two items come up again and again. Termite work runs a few thousand, and cracked clay sewer laterals can cost $6,000 to $10,000 to replace. Call it $12,000 combined in credits on a house like this.
Add it up and you're near $59,000 before your mortgage payoff even enters the picture. That's about 7% of the sale price. If you still owe $410,000, you walk away with roughly $380,000, not $440,000.
Old Escondido is a good example of why I walk sellers through this block by block. Two streets apart, you can have a house on an updated sewer line and one still on its original pipe from 1928. Same zip code, very different net. My years in the Marine Corps and in law enforcement taught me to verify things before I report them, and I run a listing the same way. I'd rather know what's under the yard before a buyer's inspector finds it.
This is where I'll disagree with a lot of sellers. Chasing the highest offer isn't always the smart move. A $865,000 offer that comes with a $15,000 repair request nets you less than a clean $855,000 offer with no credits, and the clean one is less likely to fall apart in escrow.
Before you list, ask your agent for a net sheet built on your actual house, your actual loan balance, and the repairs that house is likely to need. If they can only give you the sale price, keep asking.