You may have many reasons for selling your home. As your family grows, you may be trading up or moving to a new city for a career opportunity. In fact, you may be thinking of using the money to buy a new home. Whatever the reason, selling your home can be an exciting process – and sometimes a scary one. If it’s not paid off in full, you may worry about how the paid off loan will affect your ability to sell. Good news? No need to worry.

Can you sell a house with a loan?

In short, yes, you can sell a home even if you still owe money on the mortgage. In fact, it is common for people who still have mortgage debt to sell their homes. To do this, you must pay the balance of the mortgage when you close the sale.

“Most people who sell their homes have good credit,” says Melissa Cohn, regional vice president of William Ravis Mortgage in New York City and Florida. “Having a lien does not hinder the sale of a home, as long as there is enough equity to pay it off in full at closing.”

Fairness is key in this situation. Basically, your home equity is equal to the value of your home. For example, if your home is worth $250,000 and you have a $100,000 mortgage, you have $150,000 in equity. This is the amount of cash, less seller costs, that you will receive at closing. This positive home equity is important so that you can use the proceeds from the sale to pay off the loan: As long as you sell your home for more than the balance on the mortgage, you can pay off your loan.

You can increase your home equity by paying down your loan balance or realizing your home’s value has increased through natural market shifts or by implementing improvements that increase its value.

Remember to pay closing costs when you sell, which includes realtor commissions and more. So if your equity is barely positive, it may not be enough. If you don’t have enough equity in your home to pay off the mortgage with the proceeds from the sale, you’ll have to use other funds—like savings—to make up the difference.

Steps to sell houses on mortgage

You generally have to pay off any mortgages or mortgages on the home when you sell the property. You can go through most of the process by listing the property for sale and having a balance, but you must pay off the loan as part of closing the sale. Here are four steps to follow.

1. Contact your lender to get a payment statement

If you are thinking of selling your home, the first thing you should do is contact your lender and ask for a payment statement or letter. This document tells you how much you owe the lender when you sell. Because you’re making monthly payments, the amortization rate changes every month, even on a fixed-rate loan. So be prepared to get a second statement when your closing date is decided.

A payoff statement has instructions on how to make a final payment to pay off the loan in full. You will be given a fixed amount to pay, including any accrued interest and other charges, as well as the payment due date. It may also include penalties for previous late payments.

2. Estimation of home value and net income

Once you know how much you need to pay, it’s time to start estimating the value of your home and how much you can get from the sale.

There are many ways to estimate how much your home is worth, but a good place to start is by looking for affordable homes or condos in your area. Seeing how much other similar homes in your area are selling for can help you understand how much your own home might sell for.

You can also try typing your address into an AVM or automated assessment model. These online tools can help you estimate your home’s value, although they are not guaranteed to be accurate.

However, you will get the most accurate estimate by hiring a professional appraiser. A pro appraisal will not only make you an educated salesperson, but it can be a valuable sales or negotiation tool.

As for how much you’ll make on the sale, keep in mind that if you owe $150,000 on your mortgage and sell your home for $300,000, that remaining $150,000 isn’t entirely pure profit. Selling a home costs money: You may work with a real estate agent and attorney, who must be paid (be sure to negotiate commissions and services before, not after, the listing). And there may be other closing costs to pay, so some of the revenue goes there.

Generally, expect to pay a down payment of 7 percent to 10 percent of your home’s value. Make sure your actual net income is enough to pay both the mortgage and the payments. Before closing, you should get a settlement statement detailing all of these costs.

3. Find a good agent and set the right list price

If you feel good about the value of your home and the net income can cover the remaining balance of the mortgage and payments, start looking for a real estate agent. It’s important to find a good agent that you like, because you’ll be working with them throughout the sales process.

A good agent can help you understand the local market and set a fair listing price for your home. They can advise on staging the home to help generate more interest, and they can help you analyze the offers you receive to make sure you’re getting the best possible deal.

4. Sell the house and pay off the loan

Once you receive and accept a good offer – congratulations! – It’s time to start the closing process. You may need to wait for things like the buyer’s appraisal and inspections to be completed before you are ready for closing date.

When you close the sale, you use the proceeds to pay off the mortgage lender and any outstanding fees or closing costs. The lender’s representative will be at the closing to collect the money owed to them. Whatever’s left after that is your profit – that’s the money you get to keep. For example, if you sell for $300,000 and owe $150,000 to pay off the loan, plus $20,000 in closing costs, your profit is $130,000.

What happens to your loan when you sell?

When you sell your home, you pay off your mortgage balance on the home in full. That means you will pay off that debt. Depending on the terms of the mortgage, you may be charged a prepayment penalty or early repayment fee. This fee is paid when you pay off the loan ahead of schedule.

Additionally, many mortgages include an escrow account. If any money has been withheld from your mortgage, the balance of that account will be returned to you. (Escrow funds will not be transferred at the closing table – it may take a few months.)

What happens when you sell your home for a profit?

Ideally, your home will appreciate in value while you own it and sell for more than you paid for it. Sure, it’s fine to sell for a profit, but depending on how much you make, you may have to pay capital gains tax on the proceeds.

Traditionally, in order to trigger capital gains tax in real estate, the home had to be your primary residence, and you had to make a large sum on the sale—hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you sell a primary residence, you can deduct the first $250,000 of the gain or the first $500,000 if you get married and pay taxes.

at last

It is very common to sell a house with a mortgage on it. In fact, most real estate transactions involve homes where the seller still has a mortgage. Make sure you know your home’s down payment amount and expected proceeds from the sale, after commissions and closing costs. That will give you a very clear picture of how much money you will make on the sale when all is said and done.