Short answer: selling a typical Denver home costs somewhere between 7% and 10% of the sale price once you add up commission, closing costs, preparation, and the concessions buyers are asking for right now. On a $650,000 house, that’s $45,000 to $65,000. And no, you don’t legally need a realtor to sell. About 5% of sellers go it alone. Whether you should is a different question, and I’m going to answer it with numbers rather than a sales pitch.
I’ve been selling homes in Denver since 2003. The question I get asked more than any other, usually in a slightly apologetic voice, is some version of “what do you actually cost, and what do I get for it?” It’s a fair question. Here’s the full answer.
What are typical real estate agent commissions now?
Around 5.4% total, split roughly in half between the listing agent and the buyer’s agent. A 2025 survey of agents nationally put the average at 5.44%: 2.77% on the listing side and 2.67% on the buyer side. Colorado runs about the same.
If you’ve heard that commissions dropped after the 2024 National Association of Realtors settlement (the lawsuit that changed how agents get paid), that’s mostly not what happened. What changed in August 2024 is how the buyer’s agent gets paid. Before, the seller set the buyer’s agent fee up front and it was advertised on the MLS, the shared database agents use to list homes. Now, buyers sign an agreement with their own agent that spells out that agent’s fee, and whether the seller covers it is negotiated in the offer. In practice, most sellers in Denver still offer to pay it, because a buyer who’s already stretching to make a 7.5% mortgage work can’t easily write a check for $15,000 on top of the down payment.
So the honest version is this: every piece of commission is negotiable, it always was, and the settlement made that more visible. I negotiate on every listing I take. What I won’t do is quote a flat number in a blog post, because it depends on the home, the price point, and what the sale actually needs. Ask me on the first call and I’ll tell you.
How much does it cost to sell a house, all in?
Here’s a Denver example at $650,000, which is the year-to-date median for a detached home in the metro.
| Cost | Typical | On $650,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Commission (both sides) | 5% to 5.5% | $32,500 to $35,750 |
| Owner’s title insurance | Seller pays in Colorado | About $1,500 |
| Title and closing fees | 0.2% to 0.3% | $1,300 to $2,000 |
| Property taxes owed up to closing | Depends on closing date | $1,500 to $3,000 |
| HOA transfer fee and paperwork | If applicable | $200 to $600 |
| Prep (paint, repairs, cleaning, staging) | Varies widely | $3,000 to $12,000 |
| Buyer concessions | 64% of Denver sales had one in September | $0 to $19,500 (3%) |
| Typical total | 7% to 10% | $45,000 to $65,000 |
A few things in that table deserve a closer look.
Concessions are the line nobody budgets for. A concession is money the seller agrees to put toward the buyer’s costs. In September, nearly two out of three homes that closed in the Denver metro included one, usually toward the buyer’s closing costs or to lower their mortgage rate. A 3% concession on a $650,000 home is $19,500. If you don’t plan for it, it feels like a loss at the closing table. If you do, it’s just part of the price.
Preparation is where sellers either save or waste the most. A $4,000 paint job on a home competing against 13,500 other listings often returns many times that. A $40,000 kitchen remodel right before listing almost never does.
Capital gains deserve a mention. If you’ve lived in the home two of the last five years, the first $250,000 of gain is tax-free, or $500,000 if you’re married filing jointly. A lot of long-time Denver owners are sitting above that line without realizing it. Talk to your accountant before you list, not after.
Can you sell your house without a realtor?
Yes. Nothing in Colorado law requires you to use an agent. You’d handle pricing, photography, marketing, showings, the contract, disclosures, the inspection negotiation, the appraisal, title, and closing yourself. People do it.
Here’s what the data says about how it goes. The National Association of Realtors’ 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers found that for-sale-by-owner sales are at a record low of 5% of the market, and the median for-sale-by-owner price was $360,000 versus $425,000 for homes sold with an agent. That’s an 18% gap. Some of that is because owner-sold homes skew smaller and because many are sold to a friend or relative at a family price. But not all of it.
The honest framing: if you’re selling to someone you already know, at a price you’ve already agreed on, a transaction attorney and a title company can get you through it for a few thousand dollars, and you’ll save most of the commission. I’d tell you that to your face.
If you’re selling to the open market, you’re competing against 13,500 other listings with a buyer pool that’s the thinnest since 2008, and the price you get depends on pricing, presentation, and negotiation. That’s a different job. The 5% commission question becomes “will I net more or less than 5% by doing it myself,” and for most people in this market the answer is less.
What about cash offers and instant buyers?
They’re real, they’re fast, and they’re expensive in a way that doesn’t show up as a fee.
Companies like Opendoor and the “we buy houses” operators make offers below market value, charge a service fee of roughly 5% to 7%, and then deduct repairs after their inspection. The convenience is real: no showings, no financing risk, close in two weeks. The cost is typically 8% to 15% of what you’d net on the open market, sometimes more.
How do I know those companies are profitable? “Sell house for cash” is one of the most expensive search terms in real estate. Advertisers pay around $150 per click for it. Nobody pays $150 a click unless the math on the other side works very well for them.
When does a cash offer make sense? When speed is worth more to you than money: a job relocation with a hard date, an estate you need to settle, a house you can’t afford to carry while it sits. For everyone else, get the cash offer, then get a real market analysis, and compare the net. I’ll run that comparison for you for free, and if the cash offer wins, I’ll say so.
When does selling as-is make sense?
When the repairs needed cost more than the value they’d add, or when you don’t have the money or time to do them. Selling as-is doesn’t mean hiding problems. In Colorado you still have to disclose what you know. It means you’re telling buyers up front that the price reflects the condition and you won’t be negotiating repairs after inspection.
In a slow market, as-is homes take longer and sell for less, because buyers with options skip the ones that need work. But a well-priced as-is listing still sells. The mistake is listing as-is at a price that assumes it’s been updated.
How should you price your house?
To the last 60 days of closed sales within a mile, not to what your neighbor got in 2022 and not to the Zillow number. This is where most for-sale-by-owner sellers lose, and plenty of agent-listed homes too.
I wrote about this in detail in my October read on the Denver market, but the short version from September’s data: homes that had to cut their price sat for 68 days and closed 8.3% below original asking. Homes priced right from day one sold in 9 days at 1.7% below asking. On a $650,000 home, that’s roughly $54,000 versus $11,000. Overpricing costs more than any commission.
If you do use an agent, how do you choose one?
Ask questions that have numbers for answers. How many homes did you sell in the last 12 months, and how close to the asking price did they sell? What’s your average days on market? What exactly is included in your fee, and what isn’t? Who takes the call when I have a problem at 7pm on a Saturday?
Then ask the uncomfortable one: what would you list my house at, and why? A good agent will show you the recent comparable sales and may give you a number you don’t like. An agent who tells you the number you want to hear so you’ll sign is the most expensive agent you can hire.
For the record, since I’m now in Portugal part of the year, people ask how that works. My Colorado license, my company, and my team haven’t changed. Paul Stone at Hinge Real Estate is physically in Denver for showings and inspections, and every call and every contract comes directly to me, usually before Colorado wakes up.
The bottom line on selling costs
Budget 7% to 10% of your sale price. Negotiate the commission, every time. Plan for a concession. Spend on prep that photographs well and skip the renovation. Compare any cash offer against a real market analysis before you sign it. And price to today’s comparable sales, because in this market the pricing decision is worth more than every other cost on the list combined.
If you want to know what your home would actually net after all of it, not the sale price but the number that lands in your account, send me a note. I’ll work out that number with you, with every line visible, and I’ll tell you honestly if selling right now is the wrong move.
Cindy
Sources: National Association of Realtors 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers; Clever Real Estate 2025 agent commission survey; Colorado Association of Realtors and Denver Metro Association of Realtors September 2026 reports.