A $400,000 sale, line by line
A house sale calculator is subtraction, and the only hard part is remembering everything that gets subtracted. Take a home that sells for $400,000 with $250,000 left on the mortgage. The owner has $150,000 of equity by the usual definition, and that is the figure they have been carrying around. Here is what happens to it.
Agent commission, $20,000. At 5% of the price, covering both sides of the deal out of the seller's column at closing. It is the largest single line and it is the one that is genuinely negotiated: the rate is a term of the listing agreement, and what the buyer's agent is paid is its own negotiation now rather than an assumption. Set it to zero in the calculator to see the ceiling on what selling without an agent could save, then take back off it whatever you end up offering a buyer's agent.
Seller closing costs, $6,000. 1.5% of the price standing in for the owner's title policy where custom puts it on the seller, the seller's half of the escrow fee, the real property transfer tax, recording, a courier or two, and a wire fee. These are the lines people mean by closing costs and they are charged as fees rather than as a percentage, so at a low price they are a bigger share and at a high price a smaller one.
Seller concessions, zero here. Money credited to the buyer at closing, usually toward their loan costs or as a repair credit after the inspection. It is a discount that arrives as a line item instead of as a lower price, and in a slower market it is the first thing a buyer asks for. Every dollar of concession comes out of the same column the commission does.
Repairs and prep, $3,000. Paint, carpet, a deep clean, the hose bib the inspector flagged. Much of this is spent before the listing goes up and never appears on the settlement statement at all, which is exactly why it goes missing from most people's arithmetic. It is still money the sale cost you.
Prorated property tax, $900. Taxes are billed for a period, and the seller owes the share of the period they owned the house. Escrow works it out to the day. If the bill was already paid ahead, the proration runs the other way and shows up as a credit instead.
HOA transfer and dues, $400. Where there is an association, the resale package has a charge, the transfer has a charge, and dues are prorated to closing. The management company sets those fees and they are not negotiable in the way commission is. The HOA guide is the long version of what that package contains.
Mortgage payoff, $250,000. Not last month's balance. The payoff is the balance plus interest to the day escrow funds, plus recording and reconveyance fees and any prepayment charge the note allows. Escrow orders a payoff demand with a good-through date, and if closing slips past that date the figure goes up by another few days of interest.
Equity is not the cheque
Add the costs up and the sale costs $30,300, which is 7.6% of the price. The equity was $150,000. The wire is $119,700. That gap is the whole reason a home sale proceeds calculator exists, and it is why sellers who worked backwards from a Zestimate and a loan balance end up short on the down payment for the next house.
Two things move that gap more than anything else. The commission, because it is a percentage of the largest number on the page. And the payoff, because a seller who bought recently or refinanced recently has a balance close to the price and very little between the two. Run your own figures above rather than trusting any of these: the tool is the point of the page and the example only exists so the lines have names.
Who pays what in Nevada
Nevada charges a real property transfer tax on the deed, under NRS chapter 375. NRS 375.020 sets the base rate at $1.25 for each $500 of value in a county with a population of 700,000 or more and 65 cents for each $500 elsewhere, and NRS 375.023 adds $1.30 for each $500 statewide. So in the state's one large county that is $2.55 per $500 of declared value, which on a $400,000 sale is $2,040. Smaller counties may add up to another 5 cents per $500 under NRS 375.026. The county recorder computes it and collects it before the deed is recorded.
The statute does not say the seller pays it. NRS 375.030 makes buyer and seller jointly and severally liable for the tax, which means the state can look to either of them; who actually writes the cheque is settled in the purchase contract, and Nevada custom has long put it on the seller. The same is true of title and escrow: who pays for the owner's policy and how the escrow fee splits are customs that vary by county and are negotiable in every deal. Read the contract rather than assuming the custom held, and if you are the seller, the Nevada Seller's Real Property Disclosure is the other document that is entirely yours to get right.
The capital gains rule, described and not computed
The toggle in the calculator shows how the federal exclusion on a main home is measured, and it stops at the gain. The mechanism: gain is the amount realized (the price less the cost of selling) minus your basis (what you paid, plus capital improvements). Section 121 then excludes up to $250,000 of that gain for a single filer and up to $500,000 for a married couple filing jointly, if you owned the home and used it as your main home for at least 2 of the 5 years ending on the sale date, and have not taken the exclusion on another sale in the last 2 years. The two years of use do not have to be continuous.
Notice what the mechanism does to the arithmetic above: because commission and closing costs come off the amount realized, the cost of selling reduces the gain as well as the cheque. Notice also that a loss on a home you lived in is not deductible, which surprises people the other direction. Nothing here computes tax. What is owed on a gain that runs past the exclusion depends on the whole return, on depreciation if the house was ever a rental, and on rules this page is not going to pretend to apply. Take it to a preparer.
Where to go from here
Sanity check the price before you trust the top line: what nearby homes actually closed at is on the recent sales pages, and the homes currently for sale are what a buyer will compare yours against. If the next move is a purchase, the payment calculator turns a net proceeds figure into a down payment and a monthly number, and who pays closing costs and how much closing costs run when buying are the buy-side halves of this same page. Every calculator on the site is listed on the tools page.
Questions people ask
How do I calculate my net proceeds from a home sale?
Start at the sale price. Take off the agent commission, the closing costs the seller pays, any concessions credited to the buyer, what you spent on repairs and prep, and the property tax and HOA dues prorated to the closing date. Then take off the mortgage payoff and any second lien. What is left is the net proceeds, and it is the figure escrow wires you.
How much do you lose when you sell a house?
The cost of selling commonly lands somewhere between 7% and 10% of the price once commission, seller-paid closing costs, concessions and prep are counted, and none of it appears on a mortgage statement. On a $400,000 sale that is usually tens of thousands of dollars, which is why equity and net proceeds are two different numbers.
Is the mortgage payoff the same as my loan balance?
No, it is higher. The payoff is the balance plus interest to the day escrow actually funds, plus any recording or reconveyance fee and any prepayment charge the note allows. Escrow orders a payoff demand from the servicer with a good-through date, and that document is the only figure that is exact.
Who pays closing costs when selling a house?
It splits by local custom and then by negotiation on top of the custom. Sellers commonly carry the commission, their half of escrow, the transfer tax where custom puts it there, the HOA resale package, and any concession they agreed to. Buyers carry the loan costs, their own title policy where one is required, and prepaid taxes and insurance.
Do I pay taxes on the profit from selling my house?
There is a federal exclusion of gain on a main home under Section 121: up to $250,000 for a single filer and $500,000 for a married couple filing jointly, if you owned and lived in the home for at least two of the five years ending on the sale date and have not used the exclusion in the last two years. This page describes that mechanism and does not compute anyone's tax.
What if I owe more than the house is worth?
Then the arithmetic runs negative and the seller has to bring money to closing to clear the liens, or ask the lender to approve a sale for less than the balance, which is what a short sale is. Enter the real payoff rather than a hopeful one: a calculator that stops at zero hides exactly the answer that matters.
Arithmetic on the numbers you type, not advice. It is not tax advice: the Section 121 material is a description of how a rule is measured, not a computation of anyone's tax, and no tax rate is applied anywhere on this page. Commission, concessions and who pays which closing cost are negotiated, and local custom differs by state and by county. Your escrow officer's estimated settlement statement and your lender's payoff demand are the figures that govern. Nothing entered here is stored or sent anywhere.