It is two questions wearing one coat. The first is arithmetic — what leaves at closing, whether the gain is taxable, what the alternatives actually cost — and all of it is knowable today, most of it this afternoon. The second is a forecast, and nobody can make it. This book settles the first half completely, starting with the §121 exclusion that decides whether selling produces a tax bill of tens of thousands of dollars or a tax bill of nothing at all.
Internal Revenue Service, Publication 523, Selling Your Home, irs.gov.
Everyone who will happily tell you what your house will be worth next year earns money when you transact. So this book prints no house price forecast, no ‘stay five years to break even’ rule, no average commission rate and no average closing costs — none of those has a primary source anyone can check. What is here instead is the arithmetic, and every figure in it comes from the IRS, the CFPB, HUD, the VA or the FTC.
On the ‘you need to stay five years to break even’ rule: it circulates constantly and no primary source states it. The real break-even depends on your closing costs, your rate, your market and your tax position — so Chapter 10 computes it from your own numbers instead of asserting it, and Chapter 12 does the same for the other six omissions.
Up to $250,000 of gain excluded from income — $500,000 for a married couple filing jointly — if you owned the home for at least 24 months out of the last 5 years and used it as your residence for at least 24 months of the previous 5. IRS Publication 523.
That five-year window keeps sliding. Rent the house out for long enough and you eventually fail the use test, at which point the exclusion you would have had is simply gone. ‘We will decide in a few years’ is itself a decision.
Publication 523 is explicit: you can't exclude the portion of gain equal to depreciation adjustments allowed or allowable after 6 May 1997. Allowable means you were entitled to claim it — whether or not you ever did.
The CFPB says it directly. The payoff includes interest through the date you intend to pay off, any unpaid fees and any prepayment penalty; and for a loan secured by a dwelling the servicer must give you an accurate statement of the total required to pay it off as of a specified date. That is a right, not a favour.
Almost every regretted sale and almost every regretted hold has the same shape: the arithmetic was never actually done, so the forecast did all the work. The book is built to stop that happening, in order.
Chapter 4 is the most consequential paragraph in the book. Two tests, a two-year look-back, and about twenty minutes to find out which side of $250,000 or $500,000 you are on.
The gain is not sale price minus what you paid. Add every documented capital improvement — bank statements, contractor invoices, and county permit records, which are usually public and survive when your own paperwork does not. Letter 7 requests them.
The payoff statement calculated to your intended closing date, with the per-diem, any prepayment penalty and the escrow balance. Then settle where the escrow refund gets sent, because it arrives weeks after you have moved out.
One page, two phone calls, twelve lines — ending at ‘what you actually keep’, which is the only number that should drive a decision. It replaces every estimate anyone has given you.
Cash now, monthly, tax, work and risk, side by side. Including what changes the day the house becomes a rental, and the clock that starts running against the exclusion the moment it does.
Instant download. PDF and DOCX, so the letters can be edited rather than retyped.
Fifteen chapters in five parts — what selling actually costs, the tax rule almost nobody is told, the alternatives, making the decision, and the paperwork and prompts.
The $250,000 and $500,000 exclusion, the ownership and use tests, the two-year look-back, and how to work the gain out from your adjusted basis rather than from what you paid.
For selling before two years are up: a work-related move at least 50 miles farther, a health-related move, and the unforeseeable events Publication 523 lists. A proportion, not a cliff.
Written seller's net sheet; payoff statement; escrow refund and where to send it; listing agreement terms in writing; assumption enquiry including release of liability; itemised cash offer; and county permit records to reconstruct basis.
The servicer about payoff; the servicer about assumption; an agent about compensation; a cash-offer company about the net figure; and the one that books the right conversation with a tax professional.
Twelve lines from estimated sale price down to what you actually keep, each with where the number comes from. Then sell, rent and stay compared on cash, monthly, tax, work and risk.
What changes on day one: the depreciation basis, the 27.5-year recovery period, the $25,000 special allowance phasing out between $100,000 and $150,000 of modified AGI, the 14-day or 10% personal-use limit, insurance and fair housing law.
All FHA-insured mortgages are assumable, and only the lender can execute the release of liability. Plus VA Form 26-6381, and why most conventional loans carry a due-on-sale clause instead.
Four prompts that genuinely help, against a blunt table of what never to ask — starting with anything that asks it to apply Publication 523 to your facts and give you an answer to rely on.
Eight places to look with what each is for, twelve terms in plain English, and honest answers to ten questions people actually ask.
No house price forecast, no five-year break-even rule, no average commission rate, no average closing costs, no estimated rent and no capital gains rate for you. Chapter 12 lists all seven omissions with the reason for each.
IRS Publications 523 and 527, Internal Revenue Code §121, the CFPB, HUD 4155.1, VA Form 26-6381 and the FTC. Nothing was taken from a listing portal, a brokerage, a title company's marketing material, an iBuyer or a comparison site.
On 1 August 2022 the FTC announced a $62 million settlement with Opendoor Labs over exactly the comparison sellers use to judge a cash offer, finding that the vast majority of consumers who sold to it lost thousands against a traditional sale. In April 2024 it sent nearly $62 million in refunds.
The widely repeated claim that a seller's VA entitlement stays tied up when a non-veteran assumes the loan could not be confirmed from a primary VA source, so the book does not state it. It tells you to ask VA directly and get the answer in writing — not to take it from a brochure, including this one.
Chapter 4. For most owners it decides whether selling produces a tax bill of tens of thousands of dollars or a tax bill of nothing at all.
Chapters 1 to 3, then the sheet in Chapter 10. About an hour, most of it spent waiting for two phone calls.
Chapter 7. What changes the day the house becomes a rental — including the clock running against the exclusion, which is the part people find out about too late.
Chapter 9, before you reply. Then Letter 6, which asks for every fee itemised and for the net figure rather than the headline price.
Chapter 7 and Chapter 15. Work out the last date you could still show 24 months of residential use in the previous 5 years, put it in the calendar, and take it to a tax professional to confirm against your facts.
The book will not tell you. It settles the arithmetic and hands you back the half that is a judgement, because half the variables are genuinely unknowable.
No house price forecast, no estimated rent, no average closing costs. Chapter 12 explains at length why no source anyone can check publishes them.
The rules cited are US federal tax, mortgage servicing and consumer-protection law.
The book says plainly that on a transaction this size a tax professional is worth the fee. What it does is tell you whether you need one, and send you in with the right questions already written down.
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An explanation of federal tax rules, mortgage servicing rules and consumer-protection enforcement. Not tax advice, not legal advice, not investment advice and not real estate advice, and reading it creates no professional relationship.
What the house will be worth, what rates will do, whether the area is ‘peaking’ — nobody knows those, and peaks are named afterwards. The book answers the knowable half completely and says so.
Chapter 12 will not print your capital gains rate, because it depends on your income, your filing status, your state and how much of the gain is unrecaptured section 1250 gain. Part Two exists so you know whether you need one.
HUD 4155.1 is an older handbook, so the book tells you to confirm current practice with the servicer. And the VA entitlement question could not be confirmed from a primary source, so it is named as unconfirmed rather than answered.
This edition has just been released. Rather than publish testimonials from people who do not exist, these spaces are held for the first genuine reader reviews. On a product whose whole argument is that a figure you cannot check is worse than no figure at all, that seemed like the only defensible choice.
If Chapter 4 changed what you expected the tax on your sale to be, we would like to hear how — and to publish it in your own words, with your permission.
We will not publish claims about amounts saved. What a sale nets depends on things no document controls, and the tax outcome depends on facts only your own return knows.
Reserved for someone who worked out the last date their exclusion was still available before renting the house out, rather than afterwards. That is the chapter we would most like to hear worked.
Find out whether you pass the two 24-month tests in Chapter 4, and dig out your improvement receipts. Together they determine whether the gain is taxable and how large it is, and they cost nothing but an afternoon.
Up to $250,000 if you file singly, and up to $500,000 for a married couple filing jointly, on the sale of a main home — if you owned it at least 24 months out of the last 5, used it as your residence at least 24 months of the previous 5, and have not taken the exclusion on another home within the prior two years. IRS Publication 523.
The exclusion needs 24 months of residential use in the previous 5 years, and that window slides. Work out the last date on which you could still show 24 months, put it in your calendar, and take the date to a tax professional to confirm against your facts. Chapter 7.
Not necessarily. Publication 523 sets out a partial exclusion for a work-related move to a location at least 50 miles farther from the home than your old one, a health-related move, and a list of unforeseeable events. It is a proportion, not a cliff — eighteen months of a required twenty-four is not zero. Chapter 5.
Do it yourself. On 1 August 2022 the FTC announced a $62 million settlement with Opendoor Labs, finding that the vast majority of consumers who sold to it actually lost thousands compared with selling on the traditional market. Chapter 9, and Letter 6 asks for every fee itemised and for the net figure.
Possibly, if you get a release of liability in writing from the lender. HUD's handbook states that only the lender can execute it. Without one you have handed over the house and kept the debt. Chapter 8, and Letter 5.
Both. Every purchase includes the PDF and an editable DOCX, so the letters can be filled in and sent rather than retyped.
Email sales@viralbydesign.co within 7 days of purchase for a full refund. No forms, no explanation required.
Open it, read Chapter 4, and find out in about twenty minutes whether the gain on your home is taxable at all. If it is not what you expected, email sales@viralbydesign.co within 7 days of purchase and you get a full refund. No forms, no explanation required.
What leaves at closing, whether the gain is taxable, what renting it out would actually change — every part of that can be settled from documents you can request for free. Do that first, and the half nobody can know becomes a judgement you make on purpose rather than a guess buried inside a number someone handed you.
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