Selling Above $5 Million: What We Tell Clients Before They List

For most homeowners, selling a house is a transaction. For our clients, selling a $5 million, $15 million, or $30 million residence — whether it's in Seattle, Scottsdale, Aspen, or Palm Beach — is something closer to a corporate divestiture. It's a limited-marketplace asset that needs to reach a narrow, often international pool of qualified buyers, priced and presented with the same discipline you'd expect from any other significant transaction in your portfolio.

We're not real estate brokers, and this isn't a substitute for advice from the agent, attorney, or tax professional you ultimately choose. But because a luxury home sale touches so many of the same questions we help clients think through elsewhere — timing, structuring, cash flow, tax exposure — and because we bring plenty of commercial real estate transaction experience of our own, we're frequently asked to weigh in before a listing goes live. Here's what we generally cover, wherever in the country the property sits.

Hiring the Right Agent

The luxury tier isn't served well by the standard MLS playbook. A $5M–$30M property has a small addressable buyer pool, and reaching it usually depends on the individual agent's network as much as the brokerage's brand — and that's true in any market, from a mountain town to a major metro.

We typically encourage clients to treat the hire like any other search for a specialized advisor: build a short list of two to four candidates and interview them directly rather than defaulting to whoever sold a neighboring property. In those conversations, three things matter most:

• Track record at this price point. Selling $15M homes and selling $1M homes are different skill sets. Ask to see a few recent, comparable closings, and look at the online and hardcopy marketing materials, the pricing strategy, the timeline, and what the agent felt was key to making each one succeed.

• Reach into the target buyer population. Where the right buyer actually lives matters. For many properties in this range, that population is international or out-of-state, which changes how and where the agent needs to market. Some brokerages have genuine international scope, but most rely on a partnering agreement rather than direct exposure of their own — it's worth asking which kind you're getting.

• Willingness to commit resources. A luxury listing succeeds or fails partly on how much the agent is willing to invest — in time, in marketing, in coordination — before a single offer arrives. It's fair to ask for, and expect, a draft marketing plan before you commit.

Structuring the Engagement

Once you've chosen an agent, a few terms are worth pinning down explicitly rather than leaving to convention.

Commission. In this segment, structures often run roughly 1.0% to the listing agent and 1.5% to the selling agent, sometimes with a waterfall arrangement that adjusts the selling agent's split based on final price. These numbers move with the market and the property, but going in with a sense of range helps the negotiation.

Term. A common target is around six months. Luxury sales take longer than the broader market by design — the buyer pool is thinner — so a realistic term protects you from either an overly aggressive price correction or a rushed sale. Don't lock yourself into a longer initial term than that — you can always extend with an agent who has proven themselves once the first six months are up.

Marketing Action Plan. Define the marketing process before you sign the listing agreement, and push for specifics rather than generalities. Down to the number of emails sent each week to each target market, the open rates and website visits you should expect to see from them, the number of follow-up calls, and the timeline for each phase of the campaign.

Marketing expenses. These can be paid by the listing agent or by the seller directly. There's a real advantage to owning the marketing budget yourself: it gives you control over the vendors, the quality bar, and the pace, rather than deferring to whatever the agent's standard package includes. There's a practical trade-off, too — when you front the marketing costs yourself, you often get less pushback from the agent on commission or listing term. Think of it as a small, inexpensive insurance policy against ending up with a less committed agent.

Communication. Agree in advance on how and how often you'll hear from your agent — showing feedback, marketing performance, offer activity. This is easy to skip in the excitement of listing and is the thing clients most often wish they'd formalized earlier.

Marketing That Matches the Property

At this price point, the marketing has to be as considered as the house itself. A handful of areas tend to separate a strong campaign from an average one, regardless of what city the property is in.

Presentation. Staging should be appropriate to the specific house — not a generic showroom look — and that includes the kitchen and the garage, both of which are often overlooked but are frequently part of the buyer's first impression.

Photography and video. Professional photography is table stakes; Matterport (3D walkthrough) and drone video are now expected for anything above the entry-luxury tier, particularly for buyers evaluating a property from another city or country before they ever get on a plane.

The spec sheet. Serious buyers at this level expect real documentation, not just a listing description. A well-built spec sheet typically covers:

• Architect and builder — including any design work done in collaboration with a celebrity architect, designer, or other name-brand collaborator.

• Home automation, smart home systems, security, and lighting.

• HVAC, elevators/lifts, and power capacity including backup systems.

• Kitchen and bath specifications.

• Window specifications for insulation and sound deadening, along with ceiling heights (garage included).

Skipping this level of detail signals an unfinished campaign to buyers who are used to seeing it.

Beyond the Listing

A few other items are worth raising before the sign goes in the yard.

Federal tax exposure. Most sellers know about the federal capital gains exclusion on a primary residence — currently up to $250,000 for a single filer and $500,000 for a married couple filing jointly — but at this price point, the gain on the sale often exceeds that exclusion by a wide margin. Confirm your cost basis, including the value of improvements over the years, with your tax advisor before you accept an offer, not after. Sequencing matters here.

State and local taxes vary — ask early. Many states and counties impose their own transfer or conveyance tax on real estate sales, on top of federal capital gains. Rates, thresholds, and who's responsible for paying (buyer or seller, by custom or negotiation) differ by state and even by county, so this is worth a specific question to your agent and CPA as soon as you're considering a listing — not something to discover at the closing table.

Advisor coordination. Loop in the advisors around you — tax, legal, wealth — during the process, not just at closing. Their feedback can shape pricing strategy, deal structure, and timing in ways that are hard to unwind later. If you're weighing a move out of state as part of this decision, that coordination matters even more.

Timeline expectations. Set expectations early, with your agent and with yourself, about how long this realistically takes. A limited marketplace means patience is part of the strategy, not a sign that something has gone wrong.

A closer look for Washington sellers. For clients in Washington, two things are worth understanding clearly, because they're often mixed up:

• Washington does not apply its capital gains excise tax to real estate. Real property is explicitly exempt, so the sale of your home isn't subject to that particular state tax — a point that surprises many sellers who assume otherwise.
• Washington's Real Estate Excise Tax (REET) is the one that applies, and it's graduated. The state portion currently tops out at 3.0% on the amount of the sale price above roughly $3.03 million, on top of the rates on the lower tiers — and local jurisdictions add their own REET on top of that. On a property in this range, that's a meaningful, and often underestimated, cost of the transaction that should be built into your net-proceeds math from the start, not treated as a closing-day surprise.

Where We Fit In

We don't run your listing, but we're glad to be a sounding board while you put the pieces together — on the financial side of the transaction, on how proceeds fit into your broader plan, and on making sure the tax and timing questions get asked before they become problems, no matter which state the property is in. If you're considering a sale in the next year, it's worth a conversation before you sign with an agent, not after.

This article is provided for general informational purposes and does not constitute tax, legal, or real estate advice. Tax rates and thresholds cited are current as of publication (Washington REET tiers effective through December 31, 2026, per WA Dept. of Revenue) and are subject to change. Please consult your own advisors regarding your specific circumstances.