You know what your home might sell for, but that isn't what you keep. The number that matters is what actually lands in your account after closing.

When you decided to sell your Buffalo home, you probably did some quick math. Sale price, minus what you owe, minus the commission. That felt like your number.

It usually isn't. Not because the commission is wrong, but because the commission is only one line on a settlement statement that has several. In Western New York, a few of those lines are specific to how we do things here, and they come straight out of what you walk away with.

Almost every seller I talk to runs that same calculation, price minus payoff minus commission, and then closing arrives, the settlement statement comes out, and there are items on it nobody mentioned earlier. 

So before you list, it's worth walking through what's actually on that page, and what it means for a seller here in Buffalo.

The national picture sets up why this matters now. Realtor.com surveyed people planning to sell this year, and 83% expect to get their asking price or more, while only 39% expect to make any concessions at all. 

Then look at what actually happened: Redfin found that 46.2% of sellers who closed in May gave the buyer a concession, up from 43.1% a year earlier and the highest May share on record. The reason is straightforward. There are roughly 47% more sellers than buyers nationally right now, and when buyers have options, more of them ask for help and get a yes.

That trend is context, not your answer. Concession rates vary enormously from market to market, and Buffalo isn't the Sun Belt, where inventory has piled up and sellers are competing hard. Our market is tighter; homes still move, and the concession conversation here looks different from what a national headline suggests. 

That's exactly why a national average is the wrong number to plan around. What matters is what buyers in your price range and your neighborhood are actually asking for, and that's something I can tell you for your specific situation.

The commission is the line you already know about. It's real, it's the highest single cost, and it's negotiable. Whatever you and I agree to goes in the listing agreement, and I'll explain exactly what it covers before you sign anything. You budgeted for this one already. The costs worth your attention are the ones that tend to go unnoticed.

"Don't ask what it costs to sell. Ask what you'll actually walk away with."

In New York, those costs have a particular shape. There's the New York State transfer tax, which is 0.4% of the sale price, two dollars for every five hundred, paid by the seller, plus any applicable Erie County transfer tax. There's the mortgage payoff, including interest through your closing date, which is often a little more than your last statement shows. There are prorated property taxes, and in Western New York, where property tax rates run high, the proration can be meaningful depending on when in the year you close. 

And because New York is an attorney-closing state, you'll have a real estate attorney handling your deed and closing, which for a typical WNY sale generally runs somewhere in the range of $800 to $1,500. Add the title and recording costs, any concessions you agree to, and the picture fills in.

A simple illustration, and it's only an example, not a quote. Say you sell a Buffalo home for $225,000. The state transfer tax alone is about $900. Add an attorney in that $800 to $1,500 range, title and recording costs, and prorated taxes that depend on your closing date. Then subtract your mortgage payoff and any concession you negotiate. The point isn't the exact figure; it's that your net can land well below sale price minus payoff minus commission once every real line is accounted for.

So before you list, ask a better question. Not what it costs to sell, but what you will actually walk away with. Those are different questions, and only the second one matters. The costs are just line items. Your net proceeds are the number you plan your next move around.

That's the number I'll build for you before you ever sign a listing agreement. Every line, your payoff, your prorated taxes, a realistic concession estimate for your part of Western New York. Not a national average. Your number.

If you're thinking about selling your Buffalo or Western New York home, give me the address, and I'll walk you through what you could realistically walk away with. Call or text me at (716) 870-6226, email me at Joe@TheSacconeTeam.com, or visit thesacconeteam.com. It's better to see that number now than at the closing table.