Seller Education · August 28, 2026 · 8 min read
Last Tuesday I sat across from a couple in Bel Air who'd already interviewed two agents before me. Both had given them net sheets projecting what they'd walk away with when they sold their house. The numbers looked great on paper. About $187,000 in proceeds after paying off the mortgage.
Then I asked if either estimate included the $4,200 water and sewer lien the county places at settlement. Blank stares.
Or the $850 HOA capital assessment their community passed in March. More staring.
Or the reality that their 22-year-old HVAC system—the one that wheezed through our listing appointment—would absolutely become a negotiation point, probably a $6,000 to $9,000 credit at the table.
Their projected $187,000 was now somewhere south of $167,000. That's not a rounding error when you're trying to figure out your down payment on the next place.
Here's what I tell every seller when I hand them a preliminary net sheet: this is math based on what we know today, with a bunch of assumptions baked in. Some of those assumptions are rock-solid. The transfer tax in Harford County is predictable. The title company fees don't swing wildly. Your mortgage payoff is what it is.
But a standard net sheet—the kind most listing agents generate in about ninety seconds—leaves out the landmines.
I spent two decades teaching high school English and leading curriculum teams before I became a Maryland realtor. One thing I learned: if you don't teach someone why the formula works, they'll plug in the wrong numbers every single time. A net sheet is a formula. Let's talk about what belongs in it that usually gets skipped.
In Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Harford County, and Anne Arundel County especially, water and sewer liens are standard at settlement. The county wants to make sure the bill is current before the property changes hands. Sometimes it's a few hundred bucks. Sometimes it's four grand because there was a main-line assessment two years ago that got rolled into the lien.
Baltimore County's lien certificate process is public record, but most sellers don't know to check it until their settlement attorney orders the payoff six days before closing.
Same goes for stormwater fees in certain municipalities. If your home is in Ellicott City or parts of Prince George's County, there may be separate stormwater management charges that come due at transfer.
If you live in a community with a homeowners association—and plenty of homes for sale in Harford County, Howard County, and Montgomery County do—your resale certificate might include surprises. A special assessment approved after you stopped reading the monthly newsletters. A transfer fee the HOA started charging last year. An outstanding violation you didn't know existed because the notice got buried in spam.
I had a seller in Havre de Grace last spring who discovered at settlement that the HOA required a $500 move-out fee and a $350 document prep charge. Nobody mentioned it during our listing prep because nobody asked the HOA the right questions.
This is the big one. Your net sheet assumes the buyer accepts the house as-is or that repairs are minor. In reality, unless you've done a pre-listing inspection and handled the big stuff up front, you're going to negotiate.
The Maryland Home Inspection That Found Nothing: Red Flag? post I wrote earlier this week talks about buyer-side concerns, but the inverse is true for sellers: a thorough inspection will find things. The question is whether you fix them, credit them, or lose the buyer.
Right now, with new listings hitting a four-month high across Maryland, buyers have options. They'll ask for the credit. Budget for it.
Maryland property taxes are paid in arrears, which confuses everyone. If you sell in August, you haven't yet paid the July-to-December portion of the fiscal year. The title company prorates what you owe through closing day, and the buyer gets a credit for what they'll pay covering your time in the house.
But here's the wrinkle: if your jurisdiction reassessed values this year—and several Maryland counties did—you might owe more than last year's amount. Your net sheet probably uses last year's tax bill. The actual proration at settlement uses the current bill.
Check your local assessment. Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation posts them online, but you have to look.
When mortgage rates are sitting at 6.66%—as they are this week, per Freddie Mac's latest survey—buyers are asking sellers to help buy down the rate or cover closing costs. If your listing strategy includes offering a concession to attract offers, that comes straight off your net.
A 2% seller concession on a $450,000 sale price is nine thousand dollars. If your agent built that into the list price, fine. If it got negotiated in after you were already mentally spending your proceeds, it stings.
After enough settlement surprises, I started building a different kind of estimate for my sellers in Cecil County, Harford County, Baltimore County, and beyond. It has three columns.
Best case: Buyer loves the house, inspection is clean, no concessions, no surprise liens. This is the number that makes you smile.
Likely case: Modest repair credit ($3,000-$5,000), standard municipal liens, maybe a small buyer credit for rate buy-down if we're in a slower market. This is the number you should actually plan around.
Worst case: Major system flagged on inspection, buyer asks for top-of-range credit or you replace it, HOA has a surprise fee, your tax proration is higher than expected. This is the number that keeps you from being blindsided at the closing table.
Most sellers appreciate the honesty. A few get annoyed and go with the agent who showed them the bigger number. That's fine. I'd rather you be prepared than surprised.
When someone hands you a net sheet, here's your checklist:
If your agent can't answer those questions on the spot, they're either new or they're skipping steps.
Look, if you're thinking about selling your home in Maryland—whether that's Harford, Cecil, Baltimore County, Baltimore City, Howard, Anne Arundel, Montgomery, Charles, or Prince George's—you deserve a net sheet that won't surprise you later.
I also work with clients in Washington D.C., York and Lancaster Counties in Pennsylvania, and New Castle County, Delaware. Same philosophy applies. Teach the formula, plug in the real numbers, plan for likely friction points.
You can see current homes for sale in Harford County and beyond here, or just reach out if you want to talk through your specific situation. No pressure. I spent enough years in education to know that a good explainer is worth more than a hard sell.
Selling a house is one of the few financial transactions where you don't get a full accounting until the day you sign. Your lender gave you a Loan Estimate three days before you bought the place. But when you sell? The final settlement statement shows up the morning of closing, and by then you're pot-committed.
The National Association of REALTORS® publishes annual data on median seller proceeds and closing costs, but averages don't help you when your specific county has specific quirks.
Maryland is a mosaic of jurisdictions. What's standard in Montgomery County isn't standard in Cecil County. A Baltimore City seller has different tax implications than a Harford County seller. A good Maryland realtor knows the local variances and builds them into your estimate from day one.
The Bel Air couple from the start of this post? We ended up listing their house two weeks later at a price that reflected realistic net proceeds after all the likely costs. It sold in eleven days. Inspection found an old oil tank that needed decommissioning—$2,800—and a grading issue near the foundation that needed attention—another $1,500 credit.
At settlement, they walked away with $164,200. Almost exactly what our "likely case" column predicted.
They sent me a thank-you note saying the best part wasn't the sale—it was that they knew what to expect and had already planned their next move around the real number, not the fantasy one.
That's the whole point. A net sheet should prepare you, not just impress you.
If yours is doing the latter but not the former, ask better questions. Or find a Maryland realtor who builds the worksheet the right way from the start.
Katrina Kirton Sherrod, REALTOR® · Samson Properties · Licensed in MD, DC, PA & DE · 443-616-9770 · Katrina@kkstherealtor.com
“A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson (attributed)