Calculate net proceeds by starting with the price the market will actually pay and subtracting, in order, the sale costs, the time costs, the condition costs, and the debts attached to the property. At the 600,000 dollar benchmark used throughout the Old Town Scottsdale research, that order looks like this: less commission at 5 to 6 percent, or 30,000 dollars to 36,000 dollars, less seller closing costs at 1 to 2 percent, less carrying costs of 15,000 dollars to 30,000 dollars across a typical listing campaign, less any inspection concessions, and the result lands in the low 500,000s before a mortgage payoff is even considered (Frontier Capitals, 2026) (National Association of Realtors, 2025). This page turns that sequence into a worksheet any homeowner can complete with a pencil, a loan statement, and an hour.
Key Findings
- Commission and seller closing costs together take 6 to 8 percent, equal to 36,000 dollars to 48,000 dollars on a 600,000 dollar sale (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
- Carrying a listed home for three to six months costs 15,000 dollars to 30,000 dollars at the benchmark price (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
- Repair credits and post-inspection reductions on older inventory routinely run 10,000 dollars to 25,000 dollars (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
- A 600,000 dollar list price nets the seller in the low 500,000s after a normal market cycle, before any price reduction (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
- Some 36 percent of sellers reduced price at least once, which is why the worksheet begins with a realistic price rather than an aspirational one (National Association of Realtors, 2025).
Step one: what price belongs at the top of the worksheet?
Every error in a net proceeds calculation starts at the top line, because sellers naturally write the price they want rather than the price the evidence supports. Ground the top line in recorded evidence instead: recent comparable sales in the county record, the ZIP median listing price near 639,000 dollars as a broad reference, and the honest condition of your home against both (Maricopa County Recorder, 2026) (Realtor.com, 2026). If your home is an older ranch in the tracts south of Indian School Road, there is also a second top line worth writing, the land based figure a builder would work from, since builders acquired 61.9 percent of the older homes sampled here and price from finished values rather than from listing medians (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
Then stress the top line once before going further. Nationally, 36 percent of sellers reduced their price at least once, so a worksheet that cannot survive a modest reduction is a hope rather than a plan (National Association of Realtors, 2025). Run the numbers at your expected price and again a few percent lower. The two results bracket the realistic outcome, and the bracket is what decisions should be made on. Sellers who skip this step tend to discover the lower bracket at the closing table.
Step two: how do the percentage costs come off?
The first deductions are the percentage layers, and they are the easiest lines on the sheet. Commission typically runs 5 to 6 percent of the achieved price in the regional market reporting, which is 30,000 dollars to 36,000 dollars at the benchmark (National Association of Realtors, 2025). Seller closing costs add 1 to 2 percent under federal settlement guidance, covering title, transfer, and proration items (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2025). Together the layers total 36,000 dollars to 48,000 dollars at 600,000 dollars, and because they are percentages, the same rates can be applied at any price by simple multiplication, as the scaled example at a higher price demonstrates.
Write both layers as ranges, not single numbers, and carry both ends through the whole worksheet. A net figure stated as a range, say the low 500,000s territory the research reports at the benchmark, is honest. A net figure stated to the dollar, months before a sale, is theater (Frontier Capitals, 2026). The itemized closing cost page can help a seller decide where inside the 1 to 2 percent band a particular file is likely to land.
Step three: how are time and condition costs counted?
Time costs are the carrying costs of the campaign: mortgage interest where a loan exists, insurance, taxes, utilities, and upkeep while the home is listed and then while it closes. At the benchmark the research puts three to six months of holding at 15,000 dollars to 30,000 dollars, and the timeline inputs are documented, with a ZIP median of 72 days on market for listed homes and 60 to 120 plus days for listed older homes specifically (Realtor.com, 2026) (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Arizona closing timeline statistics add the contract to closing weeks on top of the marketing period, so budget the carry to the day funds arrive, not the day an offer is accepted (Arizona Association of Realtors, 2025).
Condition costs are the concessions layer. On older inventory, repair credits and post-inspection price reductions routinely run 10,000 dollars to 25,000 dollars, and they are negotiated after the seller thought the price was settled, which makes them the most resented line on the sheet (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Add any pre-listing spending you plan to do with open eyes: the research example of a 35,000 dollar kitchen plus two months of carrying at 3,000 dollars a month totals 41,000 dollars invested before an offer exists (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Arizona disclosure requirements shape how condition is presented to the buyer, and handling them carefully is part of keeping this layer near its low end (Arizona Department of Real Estate, 2026).
Step four: what debts and tax lines come off last?
Below the cost layers sit the items that belong to the household rather than to the sale process. The mortgage payoff is the largest of them for most sellers: the loan is repaid from proceeds at closing, with the lien recorded and released through the county so the buyer title comes out clean (Maricopa County Recorder, 2026). Pull the payoff from a current statement, not from memory, and remember it is a debt being retired rather than a cost of selling, which is why two sellers at the same price can keep wildly different amounts.
The tax line comes last and most carefully. Federal guidance on selling a home provides exclusion rules that may shelter some or all of a gain, with the outcome depending on basis, ownership, and use, and the publication also addresses rental use situations (Internal Revenue Service, 2026). Most resident sellers will place an estimated figure here with professional help, or a zero where the exclusions plainly cover the gain, and the capital gains overview explains the framework. What no seller should do is leave the line blank by default.
The final figure, price minus every layer above, is the net proceeds: the amount that actually arrives to fund the next chapter. At the benchmark, after the percentage layers and a normal cycle of time and condition costs, it sits in the low 500,000s on a 600,000 dollar sale, before any mortgage payoff (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Seeing that number early, rather than at the settlement table, is the entire point of the exercise.
What does the worksheet look like filled in at the benchmark?
Take a clean example with no mortgage, so the cost layers can be seen on their own. Top line, 600,000 dollars. Commission at the middle of its range takes roughly 33,000 dollars. Seller closing costs at the middle of their range take roughly 9,000 dollars. Carrying costs across a four month campaign at the documented pace take a figure inside the 15,000 dollar to 30,000 dollar band, call it roughly 20,000 dollars for planning. An inspection concession on an older ranch lands inside its documented band as well, say roughly 15,000 dollars. Add the layers and the total cost of the route is roughly 77,000 dollars, leaving proceeds around 523,000 dollars, squarely in the low 500,000s territory the research reports for a normal market cycle at this price (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
Now change one assumption at a time and watch the result move. Sell a month faster and the carrying line shrinks. Hold firm through inspection and the concession line shrinks. Accept a price 3 percent lower and 18,000 dollars leaves through the top line instead, dragging the percentage layers down slightly with it because they are charged on the achieved price (National Association of Realtors, 2025). This sensitivity exercise teaches more than any single estimate, because it shows the seller which lines respond to effort and which simply follow the route. It also exposes the commonest planning failure, which is budgeting every line at its happiest end simultaneously, as if a fast sale, a full price, and a clean inspection were a package deal rather than three separate pieces of luck.
Which mistakes distort the calculation most often?
The first mistake is treating the mortgage payoff as a selling cost and then, in the next breath, comparing the result against a debt free neighbor outcome. The payoff belongs on the sheet, but in its own category, because it buys back equity rather than paying a fee (Maricopa County Recorder, 2026). The second mistake is forgetting that commission is charged on the achieved price, so a worksheet built on the asking price overstates both the proceeds and the fees in a way that cancels only partly. The third is leaving pre-listing spending off the sheet entirely, as if the 41,000 dollar kitchen example in the research were a gift rather than an investment that must be recovered inside the price (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
The fourth mistake is subtler: counting carrying costs only until an offer is accepted. Funds arrive at closing, weeks after contract under normal Arizona timelines, and the meter runs the whole time (Arizona Association of Realtors, 2025). The fifth is assuming the tax line is either zero or enormous, when the federal exclusion framework makes it a computed figure that depends on basis and use, often landing at zero for resident sellers and occasionally landing as a real five figure line for others (Internal Revenue Service, 2026). A worksheet that names each of these traps on its face is already better than most professional first drafts.
How does the worksheet change for a direct sale?
Run the same worksheet with the direct structure and most lines simply vanish, which is itself the clearest argument the method can make. Commission: zero deducted. Seller closing costs: zero deducted in the documented structure. Carrying costs: compressed to the short window before a closing that can occur in 7 to 21 days, or set by the seller own schedule with a leaseback (Arizona Association of Realtors, 2025). Concessions: none, because the home is taken as it stands with no inspection repricing. The mortgage payoff and any tax line remain, since those belong to the household, and that honesty is what makes the comparison trustworthy. The full ledger of selling costs can be used to check each vanished line against its listed route value.
Which worksheet lines disappear in a private Old Town sale?
Beyond the worksheet, the direct route spares the seller the public side of the process entirely. Privacy is complete, with no showings, no open houses, and no marketing period announcing the sale to the street. Timing flexes from a 7 to 21 day closing to a date months away under a short leaseback, against the 60 to 120 plus days a listed older home commonly spends on market. And the preserved dollars at the benchmark are the two big layers themselves: 30,000 dollars to 36,000 dollars of commission and the 1 to 2 percent of closing costs, together 36,000 dollars to 48,000 dollars that never leave the seller side of the sheet (National Association of Realtors, 2025) (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
Frontier Capitals sources off-market homes to builders and is direct about that role, never presenting itself as a builder. A homeowner who wants the worksheet run for a specific address, with both routes side by side, can call 401-219-4207 or write to [email protected].
Methodology and limitations
The worksheet uses the cost ranges documented in the 85251 research set, worked at a 600,000 dollar benchmark so each layer can be seen at a typical local price (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Percentage ranges come from the cited industry and government sources and describe typical experience, not quotes for an individual file. Carrying costs and payoffs are household specific and must be taken from the seller own statements. The neighborhood sample of 21 pre-1981 homes behind the market context was assembled to study builder acquisition, so it over-represents builder demand relative to the ZIP overall. Tax outcomes are excluded from the worked totals and flagged for professional determination under the cited federal guidance (Internal Revenue Service, 2026).
Conclusion
Net proceeds are not a mystery figure revealed at closing; they are an arithmetic result a homeowner can reproduce at the kitchen table: price, minus 6 to 8 percent of documented sale costs, minus time, minus condition, minus debts, minus any tax the exclusions do not shelter. At the local benchmark that arithmetic turns a 600,000 dollar price into the low 500,000s before a payoff, which is why running it before choosing a route matters more than negotiating any single line. Have you ever written your own sale out line by line, and if not, what number have you been planning around instead?
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the single biggest deduction most sellers forget?
Carrying cost, because it leaves in monthly bills rather than on the settlement statement. At the benchmark it totals 15,000 dollars to 30,000 dollars across a typical campaign (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
Should I calculate proceeds at my asking price?
Calculate at the price the evidence supports, then stress the result a few percent lower, since 36 percent of sellers reduced price at least once (National Association of Realtors, 2025). The bracket between the two runs is the honest planning range.
Is a mortgage payoff a cost of selling?
It is a debt retired from the proceeds, recorded and released through the county at closing (Maricopa County Recorder, 2026). It reduces cash in hand without being a fee, which is why it sits below the cost layers on the worksheet.
How do I handle the tax line if I am unsure?
Place a provisional estimate using the federal exclusion framework and confirm it with a tax professional before relying on the total (Internal Revenue Service, 2026). Leaving the line blank understates nothing and overstates your proceeds.
How long does it take to complete the worksheet properly?
About an hour with the right papers in reach: a current loan statement for the payoff line, recent monthly bills for the carrying estimate, and the documented percentage ranges for the sale cost layers. The sellers who struggle are usually hunting for documents rather than doing arithmetic, so gathering the file first is the real time saver.
Can someone run this worksheet for my address?
Yes, Frontier Capitals will work the comparison between routes for a specific property at 401-219-4207, using the same documented ranges shown here.
Sources
- Frontier Capitals, 2026. 189 neighborhood builder acquisition sample: 21 homes sampled in 85251, 13 acquired by builders, average older home price 29.9 percent of new build. Market data.
- National Association of Realtors, 2025. Typical seller commission structures, Phoenix-Scottsdale market. Industry report.
- National Association of Realtors, 2025. Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers: 36% of sellers reduced price at least once. Industry report.
- U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2025. Settlement cost guidance: seller closing costs typically 1 to 2% of the sale price. Government data.
- Realtor.com, 2026. 85251 market data: median listing price near $639,000, 72 median days on market. Market data.
- Maricopa County Recorder, 2026. Recorded sale prices and parcel records. Official record.
- Maricopa County Recorder, 2026. Lien recording and release requirements. Official record.
- Arizona Department of Real Estate, 2026. Seller disclosure requirements and inspection contingency standards. Official record.
- Arizona Association of Realtors, 2025. Market statistics on closing timelines and off-market transactions. Industry report.
- Internal Revenue Service, 2026. Publication 523, Selling Your Home: exclusion rules; rental-use considerations. Government data.