What you keep from a home sale is the sale price minus your mortgage payoff, the commission, and your seller closing costs. For most Lowell sellers, the mortgage payoff is by far the biggest deduction, which means your equity, not your sale price, is the number that decides what lands in your account. Here is how the math actually works.
Start With the Sale Price, Then Subtract
Picture a home in the Highlands that sells for an agreed price. From that price, the closing statement subtracts, in rough order: the payoff of your first mortgage, the payoff of any home equity loan or line, the brokerage commission from your listing agreement, the Massachusetts deed excise tax of $4.56 per $1,000 of price, your attorney's fee, and the smaller items like the smoke and CO certificate, a 6D certificate if it is a condo, and final water and sewer adjustments. What remains after those lines is your proceeds, delivered by check or wire at closing.
Your Mortgage Payoff Is More Than Your Balance
Sellers are often surprised that the payoff figure is higher than the balance on their last statement. The payoff includes interest that accrues daily through the day the loan is paid, and if your closing slips a few days, the payoff grows a little with it. If taxes and insurance are escrowed, you will typically get a separate refund of your escrow balance from the lender a few weeks after closing, which feels like a second smaller payout that people forget is coming.
Credits and Adjustments Move the Number Both Ways
If you agreed to an inspection credit or a repair credit, it comes out of your proceeds. On the other side, prepaid items can add back: unused heating oil in the tank is usually measured and credited to you, and at a rental property in the Acre or Centralville, tenants' security deposits and prepaid rent transfer to the buyer as credits against your proceeds, because that money was never really yours to keep.
Two Sellers, Same Price, Very Different Checks
This is the part price alone never tells you. Two Lowell houses can sell for identical prices and produce wildly different proceeds. A seller in Belvidere who bought decades ago and paid the mortgage down keeps most of the price. A seller who bought recently with a small down payment and refinanced along the way keeps far less. That is why the only honest way to answer this question is with your actual payoff figures and your actual costs, not a guess from the sale price.
Get a Net Sheet Before You List
A seller's net sheet is a one page estimate of your proceeds at a given price, built from your real mortgage payoff, your commission agreement, and the standard Massachusetts seller costs. I prepare one for every client, and I usually run it at two or three prices so you can see what an extra $10,000 in price is actually worth to you after costs, which is often less than people expect and sometimes the deciding factor in an offer negotiation.
If you want your real number, call me. With a free, no obligation home valuation and your mortgage payoff figure, I will prepare a net sheet estimate that shows what you would keep at a realistic sale price. Call Doherty Properties at (978) 746-0124.
Chris Doherty is the #1 selling agent in Lowell, ranked #1 in the city again and again, including in 2024 and 2025, and he is one of Greater Lowell's top-producing agents. He personally sells 100+ homes a year, with 3,000+ career transactions, and Doherty Properties, the company he leads, has handled over $1 billion in real estate transactions.
Doherty Properties LLC, 14 Jackson Street, Lowell, MA 01852 | 160 Main Street, Unit 7, Haverhill, MA 01830 | 4 Courthouse Lane, Suite 2, Chelmsford, MA 01824 | (978) 746-0124 | [email protected]
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