The Home-Sale Costs Most DFW Sellers Forget

By Justin Croft

Justin Croft has a passion for buying and selling residential real estate that is contagious. He is a skilled negotiator and problem solver who thrives on going above and beyond for his clients.

Home sellers run the same quick calculation before they list: take the sale price, subtract what’s left on the loan, subtract the commission, and whatever’s left is the check they’ll walk away with. It’s a reasonable starting point.

It’s also usually wrong, because a handful of real costs never make it into that mental math.

The one catching sellers off guard this year is buyer concessions. A concession is money you agree to put toward the buyer’s side of the deal, and it comes straight out of your proceeds. It might be helping with their closing costs, giving a credit for repairs, or chipping in toward an interest rate buy-down to make their monthly payment work. Whatever form it takes, it’s real money off your bottom line, and more sellers are running into it than expected.

Heading into 2026, only 39% of sellers thought they’d need to offer a concession, but by May, 46.2% of sellers actually did. That’s a real gap between what sellers plan for and what the market ends up asking of them.

And concessions are just the line item people see coming. There’s a whole set of smaller costs that stack up quietly at closing: title and settlement fees, property taxes prorated up to the day you close, the payoff on your mortgage plus the interest that accrues through closing, and HOA transfer fees if your property has an association. None of these are huge on their own, but together they can move your final number more than you’d guess.

So the smarter question isn’t “what will it cost me to sell?” It’s “what will I actually walk away with?” Those are two different numbers, and the gap between them is exactly where sellers get surprised. Knowing the real one before you list means you can plan around it instead of finding out at the closing table.

If you’re thinking about selling anywhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, call or text me at 214-213-7200 or email me at justin@croftrealestategroup.com, or visit blog.croftrealestategroup.com. I’ll put together a realistic walk-away number for your home, so you know what to expect before you ever sign a listing agreement.