There are basically 4 categories that cover the closing cost:

• Escrow Fees
• Title Fees
• Transfer Tax
• City Transfer Tax

One interesting point to notice is that the city transfer tax does not exist everywhere, only a few cities in a few counties have them, and they can be significant. Some have a fix rate, for example, San Rafael in the Marin County will charge you $2 per $1,000 of the purchase price, some will charge you  an evolving rate depending on how high the purchase price is, like in San Francisco, and some will charge you a flat tax per $1,000, plus an evolving rate if the purchase price goes beyond a certain price, like in San Jose.

The short answer? It depends!. The longer answer? it varies per county and is based on custom only, which means that it can be negotiated when presenting an offer.

So how do you find out what you will have to pay? Your best option, beside asking to your Real Estate Agent, is to go to your favorite Search Engine, and type: “Who pays what in California”, and select a Title Company. You will find a list of all the counties and who pays what per county.

Yes, it is a good idea to ask for it, real estate agents are licensed by the state, and their licenses have to be renewed every 4 years.

Too shy to ask? No worries, in California, you can go to https://www.dre.ca.gov , select “Licensees” and choose “Verify a License” Not only will you see if the agent is licensed and with which company, but you will also find if their license is clean or if any disciplinary action has been taken against them in the past.

This is a big subject, and we will have posts in our blog sections as well as videos on that subject.
In the meantime, here is the short(er) answer:
A lot of decisions will have to be made according to the state of your property, so first, de-clutter, get a pod and move out everything you do not need in the next 3 months, ask your real estate agent to come with a handyman or a contractor to assess the property, and discuss everything. From “Does it need a fresh coat of paint” to “Do we need to remodel the kitchen”. Once you have a better understanding of your property, you can decide what you want to do.
I want to emphasize that there are no right or wrong decision. Obviously remodeling your kitchen will warrant a higher sell price, but you will need to consider the cost of the remodel, the time spent doing it. Your own situation and the market will help you decide whether a lower price as-is a better choice for you or not.

The only valid answer is it depends! It depends on your location, it depends on the state of your property, and it depends on whether you are in a sellers’ market or a buyers’ market. As an example, a couple of years ago, here in the Bay Area, we were wondering what was wrong if a property was not under contract within 5 days of putting it on the market. At the time of writing it, we consider ourselves lucky if the property is under contract within 45 days.

There are 2 parts to this question, and a few schools of thoughts …
The 1st part is for your agent to make an educated assesment of the value of the property. You can also choose to have it professionally appraised by an appraiser, if you don’t mind paying for it.
The 2nd part is to decide the price you will list it for. You would think, well, I have it appraised for so much, that is the price it should be listed for, right? Well not so fast. How fast do you need to sell, what does the market look like? Let me give you 2 examples.
If you are in a descending market, the value of properties are going down month after month, you need to price it aggressively, so you can sell it as fast as possible, every month your property does not sell, you lose equity in it, there is no worse feeling than following the reduction in price, and still be just a bit too expensive. You will end up selling at a much lower price than if you price it aggressively.
On a more positive side, when you are in a seller market, you can choose to price it at appraised value and it will sell, or you can take a little risk an price it a bit lower in the hope of starting a bidding war. It happened many times with as many as 20+ offers received in a 48h window, and the winning offer was over $100,000 above the listing price.

You do not HAVE TO, but it is strongly recommended. Why? This will help you in several ways. First, it will tell you what is right and what is wrong with your property, so you can decide whether to fix it or not, second it will help you in your disclosures. You will supply the report to all potential buyers.
Sounds Counter Intuitive? Maybe, but see it that way. You will have done everything you could to give them a proper assesment of your house, prior to them making an offer. That will reduce to almost zero their ability to come back to you during the transaction trying to renegociate the price or asking for repairs. They knew what they were buying.

An Older Video, but a Good One:

Staging Opened My Eyes