Selling a Home in Nashville

Price comes first

Your list price is the biggest marketing decision you'll make. It decides which buyers see your home, how many of them show up the first weekend, and how much leverage you have when an offer comes in. Price it too high and the listing goes stale. Buyers start wondering what's wrong with it, and the price cut that follows usually costs more than getting it right on day one would have.

We price off three things: what's closed nearby, what you're competing with today, and the listings that didn't sell. That last group gets ignored, and it's where the best pricing lessons are. About half of Nashville listings don't sell on the first try. We'd rather you learn from those homes than become one.

Online estimates are a fine place to start. They just can't see your new roof, the busy road behind your fence, or the three houses on your street that sat all summer.

What it costs to sell

The commission is the biggest line on a seller's closing statement. Ours is 2% of the sale price. On a $500,000 home that's $10,000, compared with $15,000 at a typical 3%. We can do that because we own our brokerage outright, so there's no broker taking a cut of every sale. You still get both of us and the full marketing plan.

Buyer-agent compensation is negotiated separately and depends on the offer. After that come title and closing fees, your mortgage payoff, prorated property taxes, and the costs that depend on the deal, like inspection repairs or a credit toward the buyer's closing costs. We put all of it on a net sheet before you list, so you know what you'll walk away with. For what's changed on commissions since 2024, see Nashville commission changes.

Getting ready to list

Most homes need less work than their owners think. Before you call a contractor, we'll walk through with you and sort the list into three piles: what buyers will notice in photos, what an inspector will flag anyway, and what isn't worth the money. Paint, brighter bulbs, a deep clean and clear kitchen counters usually do more for the sale price than a remodel.

Staging works the same way. Our listing at 5925 Woodlands Ave went to market with the seller's own furniture plus a few inexpensive accent pieces: art, pillows, a throw or two. See how it looked. For a vacant home, a standard staging package for the main living areas runs about $2,000–$3,000 in Nashville.

From listing day to offers

Once you're on the market, we set the showing schedule and control who gets in. Every week you'll hear from us with the showing count, the feedback, and what's happening with the homes you're competing against. Getting feedback from buyer's agents is harder than it should be (here's why), but we keep asking, because a pattern in the feedback is often the first sign that something needs to change. If the showings are steady and the offers aren't coming, we'll tell you so and walk you through what to adjust. You'll find the full step-by-step in our selling timeline, and how we schedule showings has the details on access and privacy.

Negotiating the offer, then the inspection

Most sales get negotiated twice. The first round is the offer: price, closing date, financing, and how much the buyer wants you to put toward their costs. The second comes after the inspection, when the buyer sends back a repair list. That second round is where deals wobble. Stephanie writes and negotiates every contract, and she'll tell you which requests are reasonable and which ones to push back on.

A lot of buyers right now would rather have a credit than a lower price, often 1–3% of the price toward closing costs or a rate buydown. A buydown can lower a buyer's monthly payment more than the same money taken off the price, which makes it a useful card to play. Here's how the options compare.

When the sale is complicated

Some sales start with a phone call nobody wanted to make. These come up often enough that we've written about each one.

• Selling an inherited house, and whether you have to wait for probate
• Selling during a divorce
• Facing foreclosure, and how a short sale works
• Selling and buying at the same time
• Moving up while the market is slower

Working with James and Stephanie

There are two of us, and that's on purpose. James handles your listing appointment and is the one you'll see at the house. Stephanie is the broker: she sets the pricing strategy, writes and negotiates the contracts, and keeps every deadline on track from her office at home. Nobody hands you off to an assistant, and you'll have both our cell numbers from the first call.

Interviewing listing agents? Here are the questions we'd ask.

Homes we've sold · What our sellers say · Why smaller is better · About us

Start with a number

If you're thinking about selling in the next year, start with two numbers: what your home will sell for, and what you'll walk away with. Tell us about the house and we'll come back with a real price range and a net sheet.

James & Stephanie Crawford

Nashville natives and the two people behind Nesting Realty. We've been helping families buy and sell here since 2003, more than 500 of them so far, and we still answer our own phones. More about us