This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal, financial, or tax advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.

The home selling process runs in nine stages, decide to sell, prepare the home, hire an agent, set the price, market the listing, host showings, review and negotiate offers, clear the inspection and appraisal, and close, and once you accept an offer from a financed buyer, contract to closing typically takes 30 – 45 days. A cash buyer can close in 7 – 14 days. Two of those stages decide most of your outcome, and both happen before the sign goes in the yard: pricing and preparation, because a listing draws its heaviest traffic in its first 2 – 3 weeks on market.

Everything after that is managing other people’s deadlines on a calendar you can read in advance. Learn more about the home selling process, including how long each stage takes, what happens between an accepted offer and closing, and what comes out of your proceeds at the settlement table.

Key takeaways:

• Nine stages, about 60 – 90 days: Plan on 2 – 6 weeks of preparation, a listing period that swings with price and local demand, and 30 – 45 days under contract once you accept a financed offer.
• The contract clock belongs to the buyer: After acceptance, the pace is set by the buyer’s 7 – 10 day inspection window, the appraisal, and underwriting, and federal rules give the buyer the Closing Disclosure at least three business days before signing.
• 6% – 10% of the sale price comes off at closing: Commissions, transfer taxes, title and settlement fees, and prorated property taxes all net out of your proceeds, so ask for a seller’s net sheet before you accept an offer, not after.

What are the nine steps in the home selling process?

Selling a home takes most sellers 60 – 90 days from the decision to list to the day proceeds land, moving through nine predictable stages. Each has a typical duration, which is why most “surprises” in a home sale turn out to be steps nobody warned you about.

1. Decide to sell (1 – 2 weeks): Pull your mortgage payoff statement and a realistic value estimate. Equity, not emotion, sets what’s possible.
2. Prepare the home (2 – 6 weeks): Clean, declutter, paint, and handle the repairs an inspector will find anyway.
3. Hire a listing agent (3 – 7 days): Interview two or three, and ask each for a comparative market analysis and a written marketing plan.
4. Set the list price: Price off closed comparable sales from the last 90 days, not off what you owe or hope to net.
5. Market the listing (day 1): Photos, floor plan, and MLS syndication. The first 72 hours produce a disproportionate share of your showings.
6. Host showings and open houses (1 – 6 weeks): Steady traffic with no offers after 14 days is price feedback, not bad luck.
7. Review and negotiate offers (2 – 5 days per round): Price is one of five variables; financing type, down payment, contingencies, and closing date also decide how likely an offer is to close.
8. Clear inspection and appraisal (contract days 1 – 25): The buyer inspects and asks for repairs or a credit, then their lender orders the appraisal.
9. Close and get paid (contract days 30 – 45): You sign, the deed records, your mortgage is paid off, and the balance is disbursed.

If this is your first sale, start with the complete guide to selling your house, which walks the same nine stages in detail, then read our tips for first-time home sellers for the decisions people only get wrong once. The complete home seller’s resource guide gathers the checklists for each stage in one place. Steps 2 and 4 decide your net proceeds, our pricing and preparing hub covers valuation, repairs, and staging, and this hub sits inside our broader guide to selling a home.

How long does each step take?

Two clocks run in a home sale, and only one of them is yours. Listing to accepted offer depends on your price and local demand, days in a tight market, months in a slow one. Accepted offer to closing runs 30 – 45 days with a financed buyer and 7 – 14 days with cash, and that second stretch runs entirely on deadlines written into the purchase agreement.

Contract milestone	Typical days after acceptance	Who controls it
Earnest money deposited, escrow opened	Days 1 – 3	Buyer and title company
Seller’s disclosure delivered	Days 1 – 5	You
Inspection and repair response	Days 1 – 10	Buyer
Appraisal ordered and returned	Days 7 – 21	Buyer’s lender
Contingencies removed	Days 15 – 30	Buyer
Clear to close	Days 21 – 35	Buyer’s lender
Walkthrough and signing	Days 30 – 45	Everyone

Every row there is a date in a contract, and a missed date is usually somebody’s termination right. The riskiest kind for a seller is a home sale contingency, because your closing then depends on a closing you can’t see, understanding home sale contingencies is worth doing before you accept. If it’s the first clock stalling, showings without offers, or no showings at all, the fix lives in our selling strategies hub, which covers price corrections, marketing, and negotiation.

What happens between an accepted offer and closing?

Once you accept, your job changes from selling the house to keeping the file moving, and four events decide whether it closes on schedule. Most failed sales die in this window, not on the market.

• Disclosures: You deliver a written statement of the property defects you know about. Understating one is the rare seller mistake that can follow you past closing, here’s what a seller’s disclosure has to cover.
• Inspection and repair negotiation: Buyers typically get a 7 – 10 day window to inspect and respond. You can repair, credit, or decline, and a credit is usually cleaner because it avoids scheduling a contractor against a closing date, our guide to handling buyer repair requests covers when each answer makes sense.
• Appraisal: The buyer’s lender lends against the lower of contract price or appraised value. Program rules matter: an FHA appraisal attaches to the property rather than the buyer, and its initial validity period runs 180 days from the report’s effective date, so a low FHA value can follow your home to the next FHA buyer.¹
• Underwriting, then the Closing Disclosure: Nothing you do speeds underwriting up, which is why a buyer’s preapproval quality matters more than their offer price. Federal rules then require the buyer to receive the Closing Disclosure at least three business days before closing, so a late loan change pushes the signing date.

Deals do collapse in here. Financing falls apart, an inspection spooks somebody, life happens. Knowing your options when a buyer backs out keeps a dead contract from becoming a dead sale, and if your sale carries a probate, a lien, or a condition problem, our selling situations hub has the playbook for each.

What does closing cost a seller, and when do you get paid?

Plan on 6% – 10% of the sale price. You rarely write a check, every line nets out of your proceeds on the settlement statement, in roughly this order:

• Real estate commissions (4% – 6%, negotiable): The largest line by a wide margin, and since the 2024 industry rule changes, buyer-agent compensation is negotiated separately rather than advertised on the MLS.
• Mortgage payoff and any second lien: Not a selling cost, it’s your money going back to your lender. Payoff statements are typically good for 10 – 30 days and carry per-diem interest, so an early quote won’t match the final wire.
• Title, settlement, and recording fees (0.5% – 1%): Owner’s title policy, closing fee, courier, and recording, split by local custom.
• Transfer taxes, prorated property taxes, and HOA dues: Split at the closing date by the method your purchase agreement names.
• Concessions and repair credits (0% – 3%): Whatever you agreed to during inspection negotiation comes off here.

The math for what you keep is simple subtraction. Sell a Waterford home for $350,000, owe $198,000, and spend $28,000 to sell, and you net roughly $124,000.² A seller’s net sheet builds that estimate line by line before you list, our breakdown of seller’s closing costs prices each fee, and the finances of selling covers the equity math underneath them.

Getting paid runs on its own short schedule: once the deed records and the title company disburses, proceeds go out by wire or check, usually the same or next business day, when a seller gets money after closing covers what can delay it. On the tax side, if you owned and used the home as your main home for at least 24 months of the five years ending on the sale date, you can generally exclude up to $250,000 of gain, $500,000 married filing jointly, under IRS Publication 523.³ Talk with a tax professional about your situation.

What do first-time sellers get wrong?

Overpricing, by a wide margin, and the cost isn’t the price cut, it’s the two weeks of peak traffic the listing burns before the correction. Three habits show up on first sales again and again.

• Pricing to the payoff: What you owe has nothing to do with what buyers will pay. Price off closed comps, then decide separately whether the net proceeds work.
• Treating the inspection report as an attack: It’s a negotiation document, not a verdict. Most repair requests settle in a credit worth a fraction of the price.
• Waiting to finance the next home: You don’t have to sell first to get preapproved on your next purchase.

That last one is where a broker earns the fee. Lenders treat a departing residence differently: some count your full existing payment against your debt-to-income ratio until the sale closes, others stop once you’re under contract. That one guideline difference decides whether some sellers can buy at all, and it varies lender to lender rather than by program, so Align Lending shops your scenario across our wholesale network and compares which lenders handle a departing residence best. Our roundup of common seller mistakes to avoid covers the rest of the expensive ones.

What Michigan sellers should know

Michigan adds two statutory requirements to the seller’s side of the table, one deadline that lands after closing, and one local custom to pin down in the contract.

• Transfer tax runs $8.60 per $1,000: Michigan’s state transfer tax is $3.75 for each $500 of value, and the county tax is $0.55 for each $500 in counties under 2 million people, every county in the state. That’s $4.30 per $500, or $3,010 on a $350,000 sale, and state law makes the seller liable for the state portion. An exemption applies where you claimed the home as your principal residence and its state equalized value at sale is no greater than when you acquired it, in an arm’s-length sale.
• The seller’s disclosure is statutory, not customary: Michigan’s Seller Disclosure Act requires a written disclosure statement on transfers of not less than one and not more than four residential dwelling units. Failing to deliver a signed statement lets the buyer terminate an otherwise binding purchase agreement, and “as-is” doesn’t change that.
• Rescind your principal residence exemption within 90 days: Once the home stops being your principal residence, file a Request to Rescind Principal Residence Exemption with your local city or township assessor, not with the state, within 90 days. The Michigan principal residence exemption guidance explains when the exemption comes off the roll.
• Property taxes prorate by local custom: Michigan bills summer and winter taxes separately, and closings split them by local practice, which differs county to county and is negotiable in the purchase agreement. Get the method in writing. The difference can run into four figures.

FAQ: The home selling process

Here are answers to common questions about the home selling process.

How long does it take to sell a house?

Plan on two clocks. Listing to accepted offer swings with pricing and local demand, days in a hot market, several weeks in a slow one. Accepted offer to closing runs 30 – 45 days for a financed buyer and 7 – 14 days for cash. Add 2 – 6 weeks of prep before listing if you want the strongest first two weeks on market. Our complete guide to selling your house maps both clocks stage by stage.

What do sellers pay at closing?

Expect 6% – 10% of the sale price. That typically includes commissions, state and county transfer taxes, title and settlement fees, prorated property taxes, HOA transfer fees, agreed repair credits, and the payoff of your mortgage and any other liens. Ask for a seller’s net sheet before you accept an offer, not after. Our guide to closing costs for sellers prices each line.

What happens after the buyer’s inspection?

The buyer accepts the condition, requests repairs or a credit, or terminates within the inspection window. You can agree, counter with a partial credit, or decline and accept the risk that the buyer walks. Credits are usually cleaner, because they avoid contractor scheduling before closing. After inspection comes the appraisal, the next point where a deal can require renegotiation. Here’s how to work through buyer repair requests.

Can I back out after accepting an offer?

Usually not without consequences. A signed purchase agreement binds the seller too, and walking away without a contractual reason can expose you to a claim for the buyer’s costs or a suit for specific performance. Your legitimate exits are the contingencies written into the contract. The reverse is far more common. See what to do when a buyer backs out, and talk to a Michigan real estate attorney before you try to cancel.

The bottom line on the home selling process

The home selling process runs in nine stages and takes most sellers 60 – 90 days from the decision to list to the day proceeds land, with 30 – 45 of those days under contract with a financed buyer. Pricing and preparation decide most of your outcome, because a listing draws its heaviest traffic in the first 2 – 3 weeks. After acceptance the calendar belongs to the buyer’s inspection, appraisal, and underwriting, and 6% – 10% of the sale price comes off your proceeds at closing. Read the calendar in advance and very little of it surprises you.

If you’re ready to sell one home and finance the next, talk to Align Lending, we’ll shop your scenario across our lender network and show you the numbers side by side before you list. Call 248-506-5727 or start online today.

This article is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal, financial, or tax advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation. Program terms and figures shown are illustrative, are not a rate quote or an offer of credit, and are subject to change. Align Lending works with FHA-approved lenders and is not acting on behalf of, endorsed by, or sponsored by FHA or HUD.

Footnotes

¹ Align Lending is not acting on behalf of or at the direction of FHA or HUD. Back to text

² Example figures are hypothetical and for educational purposes only; they do not constitute an advertisement of credit terms or a rate quote under federal or state lending laws. Your rate and terms will depend on your application and market conditions. Back to text

³ A general summary of federal rules, not tax advice. Capital gains treatment depends on ownership and use history, basis, prior exclusions, and depreciation, consult a qualified tax professional. Back to text