Most families overestimate what they'll net from selling mom's house by $30,000 to $50,000. They forget about the agent's commission (5-6%), the repairs they'll be asked to make, the payoffs on the mortgage and any liens, capital gains tax if it doesn't qualify for the home sale exclusion, prorated property taxes, transfer taxes, and the dozen small closing costs that add up. This free net proceeds calculator runs the real math in 5 minutes. No email, no signup, no listing pitch.
About net proceeds, capital gains, and the costs most families miss until closing.
Net proceeds equal the sale price minus: agent commission (typically 5-6%), seller-paid closing costs (1-3%), repair credits to the buyer, mortgage and lien payoffs, prorated property taxes, transfer taxes, capital gains tax (if applicable), and any seller concessions. On a $400,000 sale, a family typically nets $320,000 to $360,000, not $400,000.
It depends on whether they sold it during their lifetime or you inherited it. If your parent sold while alive and lived in the home 2 of the last 5 years, they get a $250,000 exclusion ($500,000 if married). If you inherited the home, you get a stepped-up cost basis (the value at the date of death), which usually eliminates most or all capital gains. Talk to a CPA before listing.
Usually after, for two reasons. First, the home sale exclusion applies if the seller lived there 2 of the last 5 years, so selling too long after they move to assisted living can disqualify it. Second, selling after the move means you can stage the home empty and price it for the actual condition, not "lived in." Run both scenarios through this calculator with your specific timing.
It's accurate to within 2-3% for a standard residential sale. The biggest variables are repair credits (negotiated buyer-seller), the agent commission split, and any title or HOA issues that surface late. This calculator catches all the standard line items so families aren't shocked at closing.
Ryan Riggins built this tool based on 8+ years of buying and selling homes (he was a house flipper before he was a senior transition advisor) plus several years of helping families through the senior home sale process. Ryan is a licensed NC broker who walked away from the cash-buyer side after seeing how often families left $50K on the table.