Worked as an illustration from the documented Redmond rates, a seller who closes at 1,500,000 dollars in ZIP code 98052 keeps roughly 1,380,000 to 1,410,000 dollars before any mortgage payoff. The arithmetic is transparent. Commission at the documented 5 to 6 percent for this market takes 75,000 to 90,000 dollars (National Association of Realtors, 2025). Seller closing costs at the documented 1 to 2 percent take another 15,000 to 30,000 dollars. Together the two blocks take 6 to 8 percent, which is 90,000 to 120,000 dollars at this price, exactly the combined pattern the research ledger documents at 54,000 to 72,000 dollars on a 900,000 dollar sale (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Everything after that depends on the mortgage balance, the contingent costs of the route chosen, and taxes, each of which this report takes in turn.
Two cautions frame the illustration. First, it is an illustration: it scales documented percentages to a round price, and no individual settlement statement will match it line for line. Second, the price itself is an assumption. Recent market data recorded an average sale to list ratio of 98.6 percent (Redfin, 2026), so a home listed at 1,500,000 dollars may well close somewhat under that figure, and every line below shrinks or grows with the actual contract price. With those cautions stated, the illustration is still the clearest way for a Redmond seller to see the shape of the outcome before choosing a route.
Key Findings
- At the documented commission range of 5 to 6 percent, a 1,500,000 dollar sale carries 75,000 to 90,000 dollars of commission (National Association of Realtors, 2025).
- At the documented seller closing cost range of 1 to 2 percent, the same sale carries 15,000 to 30,000 dollars of closing costs, with the seller paid excise tax as the largest item inside the block (Washington Department of Revenue, 2025).
- The combined deduction of 90,000 to 120,000 dollars leaves 1,380,000 to 1,410,000 dollars before mortgage payoff, concessions, or carrying costs (Frontier Capitals, 2026).
- The Washington excise tax is graduated from 1.1 percent, so at this price the tax exceeds a simple 1.1 percent calculation of 16,500 dollars and follows the published tier rules (Washington State Department of Revenue, 2026).
- Federal tax on any gain is a separate calculation governed by the home sale exclusion of 250,000 dollars or 500,000 dollars where the ownership and use tests are met (Internal Revenue Service, 2026).
- The mortgage payoff, not the selling costs, is usually the largest single subtraction of all, and it comes out of whatever the blocks above leave behind at recording (King County Recorder, 2026).
How does the commission and closing block scale to this price?
Linearly, which is why higher priced Redmond homes produce such large dollar deductions from unremarkable percentages. The documented ledger for this submarket works on a 900,000 dollar example: commission 45,000 to 54,000 dollars, closing costs inside a combined 54,000 to 72,000 dollars for the two blocks together (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Scaling the same percentages to 1,500,000 dollars is simple multiplication, and it is labeled here as an illustration built from those documented rates rather than as a quote. Commission becomes 75,000 to 90,000 dollars. Closing costs become 15,000 to 30,000 dollars. The seller is left with 1,380,000 to 1,410,000 dollars of the headline price, a kept share of 92 to 94 percent before anything else is subtracted.
Inside the closing block, the excise tax deserves its own line of attention. Washington charges it to the seller, graduated from 1.1 percent on residential sales (Washington Department of Revenue, 2025). A flat 1.1 percent on 1,500,000 dollars would be 16,500 dollars, but the schedule is graduated, so upper price tiers are taxed at higher rates under the revenue department calculation rules (Washington State Department of Revenue, 2026). The real figure at this price sits above the flat rate estimate, inside the 15,000 to 30,000 dollar closing block, and it crowds the other items: title, escrow, recording, and prorations must fit around it. National seller closing cost guidance lists the same component categories (Freddie Mac via Bankrate, 2026), and state comparisons confirm the tax line is what makes Washington seller statements heavier than those in no transfer tax states (Bankrate, 2025).
Value tracking tools confirm that 1,500,000 dollar outcomes are ordinary in this ZIP code rather than exotic, since Zillow records values and recent sales across 98052 that include this price band (Zillow, 2026). That ordinariness is the point. The illustration is not about a mansion. It is about a typical higher end Redmond sale, and the percentages a seller meets there are the documented ones. Sellers who want the general cost structure before the price specific version can read how much it costs to sell a house in Redmond and then return to these scaled figures.
What else comes out before the seller actually keeps the money?
The mortgage payoff is the giant. Whatever balance remains on the loan is paid at closing out of the seller proceeds, through the escrow process, and the transfer then records with the lien released (King County Recorder, 2026). A seller who bought recently with a small down payment may keep only a thin slice of equity from a 1,500,000 dollar sale, while a longtime Education Hill owner with no mortgage keeps nearly the whole 1,380,000 to 1,410,000 dollars the illustration produces. The selling cost blocks are identical in both cases. The kept money is not, because equity, not price, is what a sale actually pays out.
Contingent listed sale costs come next. On 50 year old homes the research ledger documents concessions, repair credits and post inspection reductions, routinely at 10,000 to 25,000 dollars, and carrying costs of 18,000 to 36,000 dollars across three to six months of market time (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Those figures come from the documented 900,000 dollar example and are not rescaled here, because they depend on the home and the timeline rather than on price. A listed 1,500,000 dollar seller should nevertheless expect them in the same neighborhood, and a seller who cuts price once gives up far more than either line: at the documented average sale to list ratio of 98.6 percent (Redfin, 2026), even a small percentage slip at this price is a five figure event.
Taxes on the gain form the last layer, and they are calculated after the sale rather than withheld inside the blocks above. The federal exclusion shelters 250,000 dollars of gain for a single filer or 500,000 dollars for a married couple filing jointly where the ownership and use tests are met (Internal Revenue Service, 2026). A longtime owner whose gain exceeds the sheltered amount owes tax on the excess, which reduces kept money in April rather than at the closing table. The complete step order for assembling all of these lines on a real property is set out in how Redmond homeowners can calculate their net proceeds from a sale.
It is worth pausing on why the illustration uses ranges everywhere instead of single numbers. A seller who hears that the kept amount is a range sometimes suspects evasion, but the range is the honest output of the inputs: commission is documented as a range because it is negotiated within one, closing costs are documented as a range because the excise tiers and provider fees vary, and even the price is a range until a contract exists. A single point figure would be false precision. What the illustration does pin down is the structure, and the structure is unforgiving in one specific way: at this price level there is no version of a conventional listed sale in which the seller keeps anything close to the full 1,500,000 dollars, because the first two blocks alone are guaranteed to consume 90,000 dollars at the very best end of both ranges. Planning a purchase, a move, or a retirement distribution around the headline price rather than around the kept range is the most expensive misunderstanding available to a Redmond seller.
How much more does the seller keep on a direct off market sale at this price?
The illustration makes the comparison easy, because the direct route mainly deletes lines rather than adding them. Remove the commission block and the seller keeps the 75,000 to 90,000 dollars that the listed illustration subtracts. Shrink the closing block and part of the 15,000 to 30,000 dollars stays as well, though the excise tax inside it remains, since it attaches to the transfer under the state schedule (Washington Department of Revenue, 2025). Close in 7 to 21 days instead of across a 60 to 120 plus day listed cycle and the carrying line largely evaporates. Sell as is and the concession line never appears.
Add those deletions and a direct sale at a somewhat lower gross price can keep pace with, or pass, the listed outcome. A direct price of 1,440,000 dollars, for instance, with no commission and a reduced closing block, can leave the seller near the top of the 1,380,000 to 1,410,000 dollar kept range that the listed illustration produces at 1,500,000 dollars. That is an illustration too, built from the same documented percentages, and it shows why gross price comparisons mislead at this level: at 1,500,000 dollars, each percentage point is 15,000 dollars, and the listed route spends six to eight of those points before the contingent lines begin. Sellers at this price point who want a direct figure on their own home can request one through the contact page.
What do sellers keep when a Redmond sale stays off market?
Privacy heads the list at this price level. Zero showings and zero open houses means a 1,500,000 dollar class sale can be negotiated and closed without the street, or the internet, following along. For owners in the Overlake area or on Education Hill whose move has professional or family sensitivities attached, that quiet handling is a real part of what they keep.
Timing is the second kept item. A direct cash sale closes in 7 to 21 days when speed serves the seller, or on a date months out with a leaseback when it does not. The listed cycle of 60 to 120 plus days, at this price, means months of carrying a high value asset through showings and contingencies, with the price risk sitting on the seller the whole way.
The third item is the commission block, worth 45,000 to 54,000 dollars on the documented 900,000 dollar example and proportionally more at higher prices. A direct sale without a listing agent keeps that block entire, and at a 1,500,000 dollar price the illustration above values it at 75,000 to 90,000 dollars.
The fourth is the closing cost block. Seller closing costs of 1 to 2 percent are commonly reduced in a direct structure, and since commissions plus closing costs commonly take 54,000 to 72,000 dollars on a 900,000 dollar sale, the combined kept amount grows steeply as price rises. The excise tax remains payable, as it does in every structure, but the negotiable items around it shrink.
The fifth is protection from the repair and inspection economy. An as is sale has no 10,000 to 30,000 dollar repair credits and no post inspection price reductions, which at this price level is as much about certainty as about dollars: the number agreed is the number that funds.
The disclosure for this section: Frontier Capitals sources off-market deals to builders and works as a wholesaler in the technical sense, not as a builder, and it never claims to close with its own construction operation behind it. Any seller, at any price, should verify a direct buyer with proof of funds dated within 30 days, recorded deeds in the buyer entity name, earnest money of typically 1 percent or more, and no assignment clause in the contract.
Methodology and limitations
The 1,500,000 dollar figures in this report are an illustration, built by scaling the documented Redmond rates: commission of 5 to 6 percent, seller closing costs of 1 to 2 percent, and the graduated Washington excise tax beginning at 1.1 percent. They are not a quote, a guarantee, or a tax opinion, and the graduated excise tiers mean the actual tax line must be computed under the state rules for the real price. Concession and carrying figures are carried from the documented 900,000 dollar research example without rescaling. The research sample behind this series covers 36 older homes in 98052, 13 of them builder acquisitions, and no appraisal, inspection, or title search was performed for this report.
Conclusion
After selling a Redmond home at 1,500,000 dollars through a conventional listing, the illustration leaves the seller 1,380,000 to 1,410,000 dollars before the mortgage payoff, with 90,000 to 120,000 dollars consumed by commission and closing costs and further contingent lines still possible. The kept amount is therefore decided less by the headline price than by the route, the equity position, and the tax picture behind it. For an illustration run on a specific 98052 property rather than a round number, call 401-219-4207 or email [email protected]. When you picture selling at 1,500,000 dollars, which of the subtractions above had you not yet counted?
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the seller keep 1,500,000 dollars minus only the commission?
No. The documented structure subtracts closing costs of 1 to 2 percent as well, so the combined take is 6 to 8 percent, or 90,000 to 120,000 dollars at this price (Frontier Capitals, 2026). Then the mortgage payoff comes out, followed by any concession or carrying costs the route produced. Sellers who budget only for commission underestimate the deduction stack by tens of thousands of dollars.
How much excise tax applies at a 1,500,000 dollar price?
The tax is graduated from 1.1 percent on residential sales and is paid by the seller (Washington Department of Revenue, 2025). A flat 1.1 percent would be 16,500 dollars, but the graduated tiers apply higher rates to upper portions of the price, so the revenue department calculation rules produce a larger figure at 1,500,000 dollars (Washington State Department of Revenue, 2026). It is the largest single item inside the closing cost block.
Where does the mortgage payoff fit in the illustration?
After the selling cost blocks and before the seller keeps anything. The 1,380,000 to 1,410,000 dollar kept range in this report is before payoff, deliberately, because balances vary too widely to illustrate honestly. The payoff is disbursed at closing and the released transfer becomes part of the county record (King County Recorder, 2026). A seller with a 600,000 dollar balance keeps roughly 600,000 dollars less than a seller with no loan, on identical selling costs.
Will capital gains tax reduce the kept amount further?
It can, in the tax filing after the sale rather than at closing. The federal exclusion shelters 250,000 dollars of gain, or 500,000 dollars for qualifying married sellers, where the ownership and use tests are met (Internal Revenue Service, 2026). Gain above the shelter is taxable. Longtime Redmond owners with large appreciation should model that layer with an advisor, because at this price level it can rival the commission in size.
Why do closing cost guides sometimes show different totals than this illustration?
Because the components vary by state and by which items a guide counts. Seller closing cost guidance itemizes title, escrow, tax, and recording categories (Freddie Mac via Bankrate, 2026), while state averages move with each jurisdiction tax structure (Bankrate, 2025). This illustration uses the documented Redmond ranges, 1 to 2 percent for the seller closing block on top of the 5 to 6 percent commission range, so its totals reflect Washington practice rather than a national blend.
Sources
- Frontier Capitals, 2026. 189 neighborhood builder acquisition sample: 36 homes sampled in 98052, 13 acquired by builders, average older home price 34.7 percent of new build. Market data.
- National Association of Realtors, 2025. Typical seller commission structures, Seattle-Eastside market. Industry report.
- Washington Department of Revenue, 2025. Real estate excise tax: graduated rates from 1.1% on residential sales, seller-paid. Government data.
- Washington State Department of Revenue, 2026. Real estate excise tax rates and calculation rules. Official record.
- Freddie Mac via Bankrate, 2026. Closing costs for sellers. Industry report.
- Bankrate, 2025. Average closing costs by state. Market data.
- Internal Revenue Service, 2026. Topic 701, Sale of your home: $250,000/$500,000 exclusion, ownership and use tests. Government data.
- King County Recorder, 2026. Recorded deeds and transaction records, Redmond WA. Official record.
- Redfin, 2026. September 2026 housing market data: 25.1% of homes sold above list price, 98.6% average sale-to-list ratio. Market data.
- Zillow, 2026. Home values and recently sold, 98052. Market data.