Soliciting advice, Retiring in next 12 months.

[stpiermj]

My wife and I plan on retiring next July. We want to sell our home before then. I’m soliciting advice on how to approach this date and the sale of the home keeping in mind that I want to save as much money as I can but yet maximize capital gains from the sale and sell as close to 1 July 2018 as possible (May-June are acceptable sale dates too). I also would like someone to take into account the most recent data Rich put out for July 2017. I am willing to give a go at selling it myself. It’s a single level home, built in 2007, 2600 sqft, at end of a cul de sac in Oceanside CA. I had it appraised in Jan 2017. We replaced all old carpet and repainted entire inside walls since then and replaced all tile. It does not need much else to be sale ready.

One other thing; I actually attempted several times to list the home on zillow, but the house was never shown as “listed for sale”. Does zillow require listing to go through an agent?

Thanks in advance.

[FlyerInHi]

You have to pay something to have your house listed on the MLS.

I believe FSBO is the cheapest. Inventory is super low right now and a 1 story house is awesome. You should have no problem selling.
https://fsbo.com/mls/state/show/name/CA

Here’s an article. First, you have to understand what the MLS is and how that feeds to other search services.
http://m.wikihow.com/List-for-Sale-by-Owner-Using-MLS-Listing

[stpiermj]

Thanks for the links. Very useful.

[gzz]

If you want the 500k cap gain exemption, don’t get divorced and don’t move before you sell. There is a time period between exempt sales, so if you claimed it on another property you might want to hold to wait it out.

I think holding for a year you will likely make another 6-12%.

If you are buying another place, getting it while you are still working will simplify the mortgage process.

I think FSBO is the way to go in a hot market.

[stpiermj]

Thank you gzz.

[sdsurfer]

I’d think you can use the low inventory aspect to dictate the closing date a bit too. I’m not sure your reasoning, but sounds like it’s best for you so I’d just let everyone know from day one that ideally you’d like to close escrow on Friday/June 29th. Of course the buyer could have a scenario that prohibits it, but if you give people clear expectations from the beginning it could be perfect. Similar to scenarios where people need to close within a certain calendar year or the next for tax reasons you can have a shorter or longer escrow and let everyone involved (buyer, escrow, etc) know about it for clear expectations.

Good luck and congrats on retirement!

[moneymaker]

Just curious are you planning on leaving CA? Lots of people I talk to are saying they will when they retire.

[(former)FormerSanDiegan]

Slightly off topic, but prompted by moneymaker’s comment…

Our plan is to move to a less-expensive part of CA when we retire.
That may not be that surprising, but for us that place is San Diego (which may surprise some).

[Author]

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