What will you walk away with?

What a seller net sheet actually tells you

Your sale price is not your paycheck. Between the contract price and the wire that lands in your account, a Virginia closing pulls out your loan payoff, the commission you agreed to, two transfer taxes, a stack of settlement fees, and whatever you negotiated with the buyer along the way. A net sheet is the arithmetic that connects those two numbers.

Most sellers I work with have a price in their head from Zillow and a payoff figure from their lender, and they assume the difference is theirs. It usually isn't, and the gap is wider than people expect.

What Virginia charges you to sell

Two transfer taxes come off the top. Both are set by statute, not by anyone at the closing table, so there is nothing to negotiate here.

The grantor's tax runs $0.50 per $500 of sale price. On a $450,000 home that's $450.

If your home sits in one of the fourteen Hampton Roads localities, you also pay the regional transportation tax at $0.06 per $100. Same $450,000 home, another $270. Chesapeake, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Hampton, Newport News, Poquoson, Williamsburg, Franklin, James City County, York County, Isle of Wight and Southampton all levy it. Sell in Richmond and you skip it entirely.

Then recording. Every loan you pay off needs its certificate of satisfaction recorded with the Clerk of the Circuit Court, which runs about $51 per loan.

The settlement fees nobody quotes you upfront

This is where sellers get caught out, and it's the part the calculator above handles for you.

A typical Hampton Roads closing bills the seller a coordination fee around $385, a seller-side title search near $70, deed preparation between $100 and $150 (an attorney draws it), and delivery fees of roughly $40 each for your documents and your proceeds.

Every mortgage you pay off adds its own stack on top: about $100 to administer the release, $45 to track it, and $40 to wire the payoff. Two loans means two of everything.

None of these scale with your sale price. They cost the same on a $250,000 house as on a $700,000 house, which means they take a noticeably bigger bite out of a smaller sale.

Why the highest offer isn't always the best one

This is the reason I built the comparison mode into the tool.

Say two offers come in on the same house. One at $460,000, asking you to cover $12,000 in closing costs, a $650 home warranty, and $3,000 in repairs. The other at $455,000 asking for $4,000 in repairs and nothing else.

The lower offer nets you $6,783 more.

That isn't a trick example. It happens constantly, because a buyer who needs help with cash to close will bid the price up to cover the credit they're asking for. The sticker gets bigger. Your net doesn't move with it.

Price is one variable. Closing-cost credits, repair asks, home warranties, and who pays the buyer's agent are four more, and every one of them lands in the same column of the settlement statement as the price does.

If you're selling on orders

A PCS closing carries two line items most sellers never encounter. If you can't be at the table because you've already reported to your next station, you'll need a power of attorney prepared and recorded, which runs about $150 plus $34 to record. A mobile or remote notary adds roughly $200.

Check both boxes in step four and the estimate accounts for them. I've closed enough of these remotely that neither one should turn up as a surprise on your settlement statement.

Before you rely on these numbers

Everything here is an estimate. Your real figures lock in when your lender issues a payoff good through your closing date and the settlement agent balances with the buyer's lender. Settlement fees vary between providers, and you are always free to choose your own settlement agent and shop the price.

Want a version built on your actual address, tax record, and payoff quote? Send yourself the estimate using the form above, or call me at (757) 844-8215 and I'll put real numbers against your house instead of averages.