Every sale in the Dayton area carries costs beyond the commission most sellers plan for. Those costs decide what actually lands in your account.
Before listing a home, most sellers do a version of the same calculation. Take the expected sale price, subtract the mortgage balance and the commission, and whatever remains is the amount headed to the bank.
It’s a reasonable place to start, but it rarely holds up at closing. The commission isn’t the problem. It’s that the commission is usually the only cost a seller accounts for, and a settlement statement has more lines than that. Several reduce what you actually take home, and a few follow rules specific to Ohio.
A little time spent understanding that page ahead of time makes the whole process calmer, so it’s worth walking through what each part means for a seller here in the Dayton area.
Start with the national picture. In a Realtor.com survey of people planning to sell, 83% expected to get their asking price or more, yet only 39% expected to make any concessions. Redfin then measured what actually happened, and found that 46.2% of sellers who closed this May gave the buyer a concession, up from 43.1% a year earlier and the highest May share on record. Those are national numbers, not local ones, but they highlight something useful: there’s often a gap between what sellers expect and what they end up agreeing to.
Whether that gap reaches your sale is a local matter. A concession is money you put toward the buyer’s side to keep the deal moving, help with closing costs, a repair credit, or support in buying down their rate, and it comes out of your proceeds. Whether a buyer asks for one comes down to the particulars of your home: its price range, its condition, the demand in your neighborhood, and the homes you’re competing with.
A national percentage can’t answer that for you. What counts is what buyers in your price range and your part of the Dayton area are actually requesting, and that’s a conversation we’re glad to have with you.
On the other hand, the commission is the cost you already expect. It’s real, it’s the single largest line, and it’s negotiable. Whatever we agree to will appear in the listing agreement, and we’ll go over exactly what it covers before you sign. You’ve likely planned for it already. The costs that deserve a closer look are the ones sellers seldom think to itemize in advance.
“The sale price is only the starting line. Your net proceeds is the number that matters.”
In Ohio, those costs take a particular form. There’s the county conveyance fee, our version of a transfer tax, which combines a $1-per-$1,000 state base with an added county portion. That county piece varies across the Miami Valley, so the exact figure for your Montgomery County sale is something we confirm against the county auditor before you ever see a net sheet.
There’s title and settlement work, and local custom genuinely matters, since who pays for owner’s title insurance here is often handled differently than in other parts of the state and is frequently negotiated. There are prorated property taxes, and Ohio adds a wrinkle worth knowing: taxes are paid in arrears, so at closing you’ll credit the buyer for the portion of the year you owned the home but haven’t yet paid. Add recording costs, your mortgage payoff with interest through the closing date, and any repairs or concessions you agree to, and the fuller picture takes shape.
Here’s an example of how two identical sale prices differ. Picture two homes that each sell for $400,000. On paper, the sellers look identical. But one has a $150,000 payoff and made no concessions, while the other has a $310,000 payoff, credited the buyer for a repair, and closed at a point in the tax year that resulted in a larger proration. Same sale price, two very different amounts at the end. The sale price is only the starting line.
Now, before you list, you need to ask a better question. It’s not just the cost to sell, but the final price you’ll walk away with because your net proceeds are the figure you plan your next move around.
That’s the number we’ll help you build before you ever sign a listing agreement, drawn from your home, its estimated value, your mortgage balance, and the costs that realistically apply to your sale. Not a national average. Your number.
If you’re considering a sale in the Dayton area, send us your address, and we’ll help you understand what you could realistically walk away with. Call or text us at 800-722-2585, email us at vip@tami-holmes.com, or visit tami-holmes.com. It’s better to see that number now than at the closing table.
