Selling a home in DC, Maryland and Virginia.
The listing agreement, pricing, disclosures, the launch, offers, settlement and taxes, from the first conversation to the keys.
Estimate your net proceedsSelling in the Washington region means three sets of rules. DC, Maryland and Virginia each have their own disclosure laws, transfer taxes and settlement requirements. Choose where you are selling, and every rule and figure that differs shows that jurisdiction.
Showing Washington, DC.
The listing agreement
The listing agreement is the contract under which a brokerage markets your home and represents you in its sale. In DC, Maryland and Virginia it is in writing and runs to a definite end date.
The agreement sets the brokerage’s compensation. Compensation is not set by law and is negotiable. Since August 17, 2024, an offer to pay a buyer’s broker can no longer appear on the MLS; you can still make one off the MLS, and you can offer buyer concessions, such as help with closing costs, on the MLS.
- What it must contain
- A written agreement with a definite end date, 90 days if none is stated. Before you sign, the agent tells you the type of brokerage relationship, the broker’s compensation and whether it will be shared with another broker.
- On Bright MLS
- The listing is entered within two calendar days of the signed agreement. The agreement records the most the broker will be paid; no compensation appears on the MLS.
Pricing
The asking price starts from a comparative market analysis: recent sales of similar homes nearby, the homes you would be competing with now, and those that did not sell. You decide the asking price.
Two measures show how a market is moving: the days homes spend on the market, and the ratio of sale price to list price. Automated estimates work from public records and nearby sales, and cannot see a renovation, a view or the quality of the work. For an opinion of your own home’s value, request a home valuation.
- Days on market
- Counted by Bright MLS while a listing is active. Coming Soon counts as zero, and the count pauses while the home is under contract or temporarily off the market.
- Cumulative days on market
- Carried across a withdrawal and relisting when the gap is 60 days or less. Both counts start again 61 days after a listing is cancelled or expires.
Preparation and disclosures
Gather what a buyer and their lender will ask for: the mortgage payoff details, the survey and plat, permits and warranties, utility costs, past inspections, and for a condominium or HOA, the association’s documents and fees. List what conveys with the house and what does not; the contract records each as included or excluded.
Some sellers order a pre-listing inspection, to find first what a buyer’s inspector would. If a listing photograph is virtually staged, the listing must say so.
For a home built before 1978, before the buyer is bound you give the EPA pamphlet, disclose any lead-based paint or hazards you know of, pass on any reports you have, and allow the buyer 10 days for a lead inspection unless they waive it. You keep the signed disclosure for 3 years.
- Your disclosure
- The disclosure statement on the District’s form, delivered before or when the buyer signs the contract, for a home of one to four units the buyer will live in. It covers lead water test results and the lead service line. You may mark an item unknown.
- If the disclosure is late
- The buyer may terminate within 5 calendar days of receiving it, and the deposit is returned.
- Condominium and HOA
- You deliver the condominium documents and a resale certificate by the 10th business day after the contract.
- A home with a tenant
- Within 3 calendar days of receiving or soliciting a written offer, notify the tenant in writing. A tenant who is 62 or older or disabled, with a lease signed by March 31, 2018, has a right to purchase with set timelines.
- Lead-based paint
- Homes built before 1978: the EPA pamphlet, your disclosure and any reports before the buyer is bound, 10 days for a lead inspection, and the signed form kept for 3 years.
The launch
On Bright MLS a home can come to market in stages, each at your written instruction. Under NAR’s rules, delayed or private marketing needs your signed consent to waive the benefits of immediate public marketing, and once a home is publicly marketed it goes on the MLS within one business day.
Public marketing includes yard signs, flyers, window displays, public websites, email blasts and networks shared across brokerages. To sell without a public listing, see off-market. For each stage of our own marketing, see how we market your home.
- Registered
- Filed with no marketing at all while the home is prepared, seen only by the listing agent and broker. Available on Bright since October 20, 2026, it becomes a standard or office exclusive listing when you are ready.
- Office exclusive
- At your direction, not shared through the MLS and not publicly marketed. Needs your signed consent and Bright’s seller form.
- Coming Soon
- Marketed before showings begin, for as long as you choose. No showings, tours or open houses for anyone, and no days on market. The listing becomes Active when showings start.
- Active
- On the market, open to showings, and sent to public websites unless you choose otherwise.
- Privacy
- You can keep the listing off consumer websites, or hide individual photographs, the price history and specific features from them. A Coming Soon or office exclusive listing needs no exterior photograph.
Offers and ratification
An offer sets out the price, the earnest money deposit, the financing, the settlement and occupancy dates, the contingencies, and what conveys. Weigh it on all of them: the highest price is not always the strongest offer.
You can accept, reject or counter. A counter offer binds no one until the buyer accepts and initials it. Once both of you have signed and the signed contract is delivered, it is ratified, its deadlines run from that date, and any later offer can only be a backup. Where several offers compete, a buyer’s escalation clause raises their price by a set amount above a competing offer, up to a maximum.
- The standard contract
- The GCAAR Sales Contract, with the DC Jurisdictional Disclosure and Addendum.
- Seller concessions
- A credit toward the buyer’s costs, written into the contract. A concession may appear on the MLS; an offer to pay the buyer’s broker may not.
- Staying after settlement
- If you need to stay on after settlement, a separate post-settlement occupancy agreement sets the terms.
Ratification to settlement
The buyer works through each contingency by its deadline: the home inspection, the appraisal, the loan, and the review of your disclosures and any association documents. Give the buyer the access the contract allows, for the inspections, the appraisal and the final walk-through, and keep the utilities on to settlement.
After the inspection the buyer may ask for repairs, a credit or a lower price. You can agree, counter or decline, within the contract’s terms. The appraisal is ordered by the buyer’s lender; if it comes in below the price, the contract’s appraisal terms decide what follows.
Settlement
A title company or settlement attorney conducts settlement. The buyer usually chooses it, and you may use your own for your side. Send the settlement company your mortgage payoff details, your association’s contacts, and for a trust, an estate or a company, proof of authority to sign, at least five days before settlement.
You sign the deed, your mortgage is paid off from the proceeds, and the deed is recorded. Your proceeds are paid out once the funds have cleared and the deed is recorded.
If you are a foreign person for tax, the buyer withholds 15% of the price for the IRS: 10% where the buyer will live in a home of $300,000 to $1,000,000, and nothing where they will live in one of $300,000 or less. You may apply on Form 8288-B for a certificate that reduces it. A US seller signs a certification of non-foreign status instead.
- Transfer tax
- 1.1% of the price under $400,000, and 1.45% of the whole price at $400,000 or more, owed by the seller.
- Recordation tax
- The same rates. Buyer and seller are both liable by law; the contract says who pays.
Net proceeds
An estimate of what you receive at settlement, with Washington, DC’s seller taxes applied as the law divides them unless your contract says otherwise.
- Sale price
- $1,500,000
- Payoff
- −$600,000
- Brokerage compensation
- −$0
- DC transfer tax
- −$21,750
- Other costs
- −$0
- Estimated net proceeds
- $878,250
Before prorated property taxes, association dues and utilities.
Taxes after the sale
If you owned the home and lived in it as your main home for at least two of the five years before the sale, you can exclude up to $250,000 of the gain from income, or $500,000 on a joint return. The two years of ownership and of use need not be the same two, and you generally cannot have used the exclusion on another home in the two years before.
A shorter time can still qualify for part of the exclusion when the main reason for the sale was a change of workplace, health, or an unforeseeable event. Members of the uniformed services, the Foreign Service and the intelligence community may suspend the five-year period for up to 10 years. If you receive Form 1099-S, report the sale even when the gain is excluded.
- Homestead
- If the home stops being your principal residence before the sale, tell the Office of Tax and Revenue within 30 days. The deduction runs through the half tax year of the transfer.
Glossary
- Active
- The Bright MLS status of a home on the market and open to showings.
- Appraisal
- An estimate of the home’s value, ordered by the buyer’s lender.
- Backup offer
- An offer accepted after a ratified contract, which takes effect only if that contract ends.
- Bright MLS
- The multiple listing service for DC, Maryland and Northern Virginia.
- Coming Soon
- A Bright MLS status for a home marketed before showings begin. No showings are allowed and no days on market accrue.
- Comparative market analysis
- An agent’s estimate of a home’s value from recent comparable sales and the homes it would compete with.
- Contingency
- A term of the contract that lets the buyer withdraw if a condition is not met, such as financing, the appraisal or the home inspection.
- Counter offer
- Your written changes to an offer, binding only once the buyer accepts and initials them.
- Cumulative days on market
- Days on market carried across a withdrawal and relisting with a gap of 60 days or less.
- Days on market
- The days a listing has been actively marketed on Bright MLS.
- Disclaimer statement
- In Maryland, the seller’s statement that the home is sold as is, in place of a disclosure statement. Known latent defects must still be disclosed.
- Disclosure statement
- The seller’s statement on the jurisdiction’s form, given to the buyer before or with the contract.
- Earnest money deposit
- The buyer’s good-faith deposit, held in escrow and applied at settlement.
- Escalation clause
- A term that raises the buyer’s offer by a set amount above a competing offer, up to a stated maximum.
- Final walk-through
- The buyer’s visit shortly before settlement to confirm the home’s condition and any agreed repairs.
- FIRPTA
- The federal rule under which a buyer withholds part of the price from a foreign seller and pays it to the IRS.
- Form 1099-S
- The form that reports a real estate sale to the IRS.
- Grantor tax
- Virginia’s tax on the transfer, paid by the seller unless the contract says otherwise.
- Home sale exclusion
- The exclusion from income of up to $250,000 of gain, or $500,000 on a joint return, on the sale of a main home.
- Latent defect
- A defect a careful visual inspection would not reveal. In Maryland a seller discloses those they know of that threaten health or safety.
- Listing agreement
- The written contract under which a brokerage markets your home and represents you in the sale.
- Material change
- In Virginia, a change in what the seller disclosed, which must be disclosed at or before settlement.
- Net proceeds
- What the seller receives at settlement after the mortgage payoff, compensation, taxes and other costs.
- Offer of compensation
- A seller’s offer to pay a buyer’s broker, which may be made off the MLS but not on it.
- Office exclusive
- A listing, at the seller’s direction, not shared through the MLS and not publicly marketed.
- Post-settlement occupancy
- An agreement for the seller to stay in the home for a period after settlement.
- Pre-listing inspection
- An inspection the seller orders before listing, to learn what a buyer’s inspector would find.
- Ratification
- The point at which both parties have signed and the signed contract has been delivered. The contract’s deadlines run from this date.
- Recordation tax
- A tax charged when the deed, and in some cases the buyer’s deed of trust, is recorded.
- Resale certificate
- The association’s statement of fees, rules and finances for a condominium or HOA home, provided to the buyer.
- Seller concession
- A credit from the seller toward the buyer’s costs, written into the contract.
- Settlement
- The meeting at which documents are signed, funds are disbursed and the deed is recorded. Called closing in much of the country.
- Settlement company
- The title company or attorney that conducts settlement.
- Transfer tax
- A tax on the transfer of the property, charged when the deed is recorded.
- Virtual staging
- Furniture added to a listing photograph by software, which the listing must disclose.
- What conveys
- The items that stay with the house, recorded in the contract as included or excluded.