Sellers usually ask this question expecting a single percentage. The honest answer is a list, because your net proceeds are the sale price minus six or seven separate line items, and only one of them is the brokerage fee. Here is the full set, in the order they appear on a Georgia closing statement.
Brokerage compensation
This is negotiated and stated in your listing agreement. Since the 2024 changes to how buyer-agent compensation is handled, what a seller offers to a buyer's brokerage is a separate, explicitly negotiated decision rather than something assumed by the MLS. It is still common for sellers to offer it, because it widens the buyer pool, but it is a choice with a number attached and it should be discussed before you sign anything.
Ask any agent to show you the total, in dollars, on your likely sale price — not as a percentage. Percentages are easy to gloss over; dollars are not.
Georgia transfer tax and recording
Georgia charges a real estate transfer tax based on the sale price, customarily paid by the seller, along with recording fees for the deed and the cancellation of your existing mortgage. These are small relative to the sale but they are not zero, and they appear on every closing statement.
Closing attorney and title costs
Georgia is an attorney-closing state. The closing attorney handles the title examination, the settlement and the disbursement. In most Georgia transactions the buyer selects and pays the closing attorney, but sellers still typically carry costs for the payoff processing, any title curative work, and the deed preparation.
If there is a title defect — an old lien, an unreleased mortgage, a boundary or easement problem, an estate issue — it is discovered here, and resolving it is a seller cost and a schedule risk. Older intown properties produce these more often than newer ones.
Prorations and payoffs
Property taxes are prorated to the closing date, so you pay for the portion of the year you owned the home. The same applies to HOA dues, and many associations charge a transfer or estoppel fee for producing closing documents.
Your mortgage payoff includes interest through the closing date and, occasionally, a payoff processing charge from your servicer.
Buyer concessions and repairs
This is the least predictable line and often the largest after commission. After the inspection, buyers frequently request repairs or a closing-cost credit. Whether you owe anything, and how much, is a negotiation shaped by how the property showed, how strong the offer pool was, and how the due diligence period was structured in the contract.
The best way to control this number is before listing, not after: pre-emptively repairing the visible, obvious defects removes the buyer's strongest leverage.
Pre-sale preparation
Paint, cleaning, decluttering, landscaping, minor repairs, staging and professional photography. These come out of pocket before closing rather than at the table, and they are the costs with the best measurable return.
Compass Concierge can front eligible pre-sale improvement costs, repaid at closing, which changes the cash-flow question but not the underlying decision about what is worth doing. Eligibility and terms are determined case by case.
The number that actually matters
Net proceeds. Before you list, ask for a written net sheet showing the estimated sale price minus every one of the items above. I give one to every seller at the first meeting, and I update it with each offer, because the highest offer and the highest net are not always the same offer.