How to sell your home yourself in Austin

No. Texas levies no state real estate transfer tax, so there is no documentary stamp, conveyance tax, or deed tax on your closing statement. Most states charge 0.1 to 2 percent of the sale price, so this is a real advantage. What you will see on your settlement statement instead: the owner's title insurance policy (customarily paid by the seller in Texas, with premiums set statewide by the Texas Department of Insurance), escrow and closing fees charged by the title company (typically a few hundred dollars), and your prorated share of the year's property tax. Request a preliminary fee sheet from your title company before you accept any offer so you know your net proceeds.

A title company handles the closing. In Texas, real estate closings are not done at a lawyer's office the way they are in some East Coast states. The title company runs escrow, orders a title search, clears any liens or clouds on title, issues the owner's title insurance policy, coordinates signing of the deed and settlement statement, and records the deed with Travis County. You do not need to hire an attorney, though you may for legal review of the contract. Interview at least two title companies before you go under contract so you know their fees and turnaround times. Many Austin sellers use local independents like Independence Title or Longhorn Title alongside the national chains.

Travis County uses high appraised values, and the combined effective tax rate in Austin proper is commonly cited in the 1.6 to roughly 2.0 percent range of assessed value depending on the overlapping taxing entities (Travis County, the City of Austin, Austin ISD, Central Health, and Austin Community College). On a home in the mid $500,000s that is several thousand dollars a year, which affects what a buyer can qualify for on a monthly payment. Buyers routinely look up your property on the Travis Central Appraisal District (TCAD) website before they tour. Put the current appraised value and an estimated annual tax bill in your listing description so it does not surface as a surprise during the option period. If you have a homestead exemption, note that it does not transfer to the buyer, and the appraised value can reset after the sale.

The Seller's Disclosure Notice (SDN) is required under Section 5.008 of the Texas Property Code for most residential sales. It covers known defects, past repairs, flooding history, presence of lead paint, and dozens of other conditions. You must deliver it to the buyer on or before the contract's effective date. Delivering it late is a serious error: the buyer gets a right to terminate and receive their earnest money back within a set number of days after finally receiving it. FSBO sellers can use the free TREC form 55-1, available at trec.texas.gov. Fill it out honestly. Leaving an item blank or answering 'unknown' when you have actual knowledge is the most common source of post-sale disputes in Texas. For homes built before 1978, a separate federal lead-based paint disclosure is also required.

The option period is a negotiated number of days (typically 7 to 10 in Austin) during which the buyer can terminate the contract for any reason and get their earnest money back. In exchange, the buyer pays the seller an option fee (often $100 to $500 or more, negotiable) that the seller keeps regardless. During the option period the buyer orders their own inspection. Inspectors in Austin are licensed by TREC and typically charge $400 to $600 for a standard home. After the inspection, buyers in today's balanced market often come back with a repair request or a credit ask. You can accept, counter, or decline. If you decline and the buyer walks, they get their earnest money back as long as they terminate before the option period expires. Pre-listing your own inspection is one of the most effective ways Austin FSBO sellers reduce this negotiating leverage.

Both Zillow and Realtor.com pull Austin listings from Unlock MLS (formerly the Austin Board of REALTORS MLS). To get on those portals you need to be on Unlock MLS first. The practical path for a FSBO seller is a flat-fee MLS service: you pay a one-time fee (Austin plans commonly run from about $99 up to roughly $300 to $625 depending on the extras) to have a licensed broker enter your listing into Unlock MLS. Your home then flows to Zillow, Realtor.com, and every other portal that syncs from the MLS. You handle all showings and negotiations yourself. For an Austin FSBO, Anyone.com offers a direct-sale path at no cost to you, zero listing fee or commission, with buyer verification and offer badges to filter looky-loos, and gives you access to a national pool of relocating and tech-industry buyers that complements your Unlock MLS footprint in Central Texas.

As of August 2024, following the NAR settlement, MLS rules no longer require sellers to offer a buyer's agent commission in the listing. You are not obligated to offer one. In practice, many Austin FSBO sellers still offer 2 to 3 percent to attract buyers who are working with agents, because a buyer's agent who sees no offered compensation may steer their client elsewhere or ask the buyer to cover it out of pocket. Your decision should be pragmatic: if you expect mostly unrepresented buyers or buyers willing to negotiate compensation separately, you can omit it. If you want access to the full pool of agent-represented buyers, offering something remains a common strategy. Whatever you decide, make it clear in your listing.

Yes, and the gap matters for pricing. For April 2026, Unlock MLS data reported by KXAN put the city of Austin single-family median around $573,750, while the broader 5-county Austin metro median was about $440,000 (down roughly 1.9 percent year over year). Homes across the metro were averaging about 67 days on market. If your home is inside Austin city limits, comping against metro or county-wide numbers will misprice it; pull recent sold prices from your own neighborhood instead, and treat the headline metro figure as background, not a comp.

Longer than the boom years. With the metro averaging around 67 days on market in spring 2026 (Unlock MLS via KXAN), plan for several weeks of marketing to get a solid offer, and longer in cooler stretches or higher price bands. After you accept an offer, a negotiated option period of about 7 to 10 days lets the buyer inspect and potentially terminate, and a financed deal then usually closes in about 30 to 45 days at a title company. Cash deals can close in as little as two weeks.

There is no real estate transfer tax in Texas, which removes a cost many other states impose. The main seller-side cost is the owner's title insurance policy, which the seller customarily pays in Texas. Title premiums are promulgated statewide by the Texas Department of Insurance, so every title company charges the same basic premium for the same coverage amount; they compete on escrow and service fees, not the premium. TDI ordered a 6.2 percent reduction to the basic premium rates effective March 1, 2026. Get a written fee sheet from your chosen title company, built from the current TDI schedule, before you accept an offer so you know your net proceeds.