By Eric Berman, REALTOR® | The Eric Berman Team at Compass
TL;DR:
Most Long Island sellers focus on the sale price, but the number that actually lands in their account is what remains after commission, transfer taxes, attorney fees, and pre-listing work come off the top. Between the two sits a series of decisions — how to read a market that behaves differently from town to town, how to price against a comp set rather than a hope, how to structure agent compensation under rules that changed in August 2024, and how to handle a disclosure form that became mandatory in March 2024. Sellers who treat those as separate problems tend to solve each one in isolation and lose money at the seams. Sellers who treat them as one connected decision usually keep more. This guide walks through the strategy behind each choice. For the order of operations — what to do in which week — the companion checklist covers the sequencing.
The Number That Actually Matters Isn't the Sale Price
Ask a seller what they want for their home and the answer comes back as a single figure. Ask what they expect to walk away with and the conversation slows down considerably. That pause is where most of the real money in a Long Island sale gets won or lost.
A home that sells for $1.35 million does not put $1.35 million anywhere. Commission comes off. New York State Transfer Tax comes off at four dollars per thousand. The attorney gets paid. Whatever was spent on paint, staging, and the roof repair that showed up on the pre-listing inspection came out of pocket months earlier and never comes back as a line item — but it came out just the same. The gap between the headline number and the net figure on Long Island commonly runs six to eight percent of the sale price, and it is entirely composed of decisions that were made before the house ever hit the market.
That reframe matters because it changes what counts as a good outcome. A seller who negotiates a listing fee down by half a point and then overprices by four percent has lost the trade badly, even though the fee negotiation felt like a win at the time. The decisions are connected. Treating them as one system, rather than a series of unrelated errands, is the whole argument of this guide.
Reading a Market That Isn't One Market
Long Island gets discussed as though it were a single market, and it is not close to one. Nassau and Suffolk operate on different price bands, different inventory rhythms, and different property tax realities. Within Nassau, the North Shore corridor running through Port Washington, Manhasset, Roslyn, and Great Neck behaves differently from Mid and South Nassau. Northeast Queens — Bayside, Fresh Meadows, Jamaica Estates, Douglaston — carries an additional layer of transfer tax that Nassau sellers never encounter.
Three variables do most of the work in explaining why comparable square footage prices differently across two towns twenty minutes apart. The first is the school district tax levy, which varies substantially across Long Island and shows up directly in a buyer's monthly carrying cost. The second is distance to a Long Island Rail Road station, which prices in reliably along the commuter corridors. The third is the practical inventory in the buyer's actual search range, which is usually far narrower than the town line — a buyer shopping at $1.1 million is comparing against maybe eleven homes, not the whole municipality.
The consequence for a seller is that a comp set built on town name alone is nearly useless. A meaningful comp set is built on price band, proximity to the same station, similar lot and tax profile, and a sale date recent enough to reflect current financing costs. Sellers who start from a current read on what their home is worth and then narrow to that kind of comp set are working with real information. Sellers working from a neighbor's asking price from last spring are working with folklore.
Pricing Is a Hypothesis, Not a Verdict
The listing price is a claim about what the market will do. The first thirty days are the test of that claim. This is the single most useful way to think about pricing, because it removes the ego from the number and replaces it with something falsifiable.
On Long Island the test runs fast. Serious buyers in a given price band see a new listing within the first two weeks, because they have saved searches and they have been looking for months. Showing volume in weeks one through three is the honest signal. If that volume is strong and no offers follow, the issue is usually condition or presentation. If the volume never materializes at all, the issue is almost always price — buyers filtered the home out before ever walking through it.
What separates a strategic adjustment from a panicked one is size and timing. A twenty thousand dollar reduction on a $1.3 million listing moves the home into no new search bracket and signals softness without buying anything. A move that clears a round-number filter threshold, paired with refreshed photography, resets the listing in front of a genuinely different pool. Sellers weighing whether pre-listing work would have prevented the problem in the first place often find the highest-return improvements before selling on Long Island are narrower and cheaper than expected. There is no trophy for holding a price, and no penalty for revising a hypothesis the data has already answered.
What Changed About Hiring a Listing Agent
The rules governing agent compensation changed on August 17, 2024, following the Sitzer/Burnett settlement, and a meaningful number of Long Island sellers still do not know it. Under the current framework, buyer-agent compensation is no longer posted on the MLS and is no longer offered automatically as a condition of listing. It is negotiated offer by offer. Separately, buyers must now sign a written agreement with their agent before touring homes.
For a seller this creates three real paths. The first is the familiar one: offer buyer-agent compensation in the range of two to two and a half percent through the listing agreement, which keeps the home accessible to the widest pool of represented buyers. The second is to offer nothing and let each buyer negotiate compensation directly with their own agent, which lowers the seller's stated cost but can narrow the buyer pool, particularly at entry and mid price points where buyers have less cash flexibility. The third is a hybrid — offering nothing upfront but treating compensation as a negotiable term when an offer arrives.
The listing side is separately negotiable and always was. Fee-negotiated listing commissions in the one and a half to two percent range are increasingly common on Long Island and produce savings in the twenty to fifty thousand dollar range on higher-value properties. Eric Berman was named a RealTrends America's Best Real Estate Professionals honoree, ranking in the top 1.5% by verified production volume, and the conversation about what a listing fee should be is one worth having openly rather than accepting as a fixed cost. What a seller should be evaluating is not the percentage in isolation but the percentage against the marketing, pricing judgment, and negotiation the seller actually receives for it.
The Costs That Come Off the Top
New York State Transfer Tax runs four dollars per thousand of sale price, paid by the seller and filed through Form TP-584. On a $1.5 million sale that is $6,000; on a $3 million sale, $12,000. It is unavoidable and it should be in the seller's model from day one.
The Mansion Tax is one percent on residential sales above one million dollars, and it is paid by the buyer rather than the seller. Sellers still need to understand it, because it lands on the buyer's cash-to-close at exactly the moment affordability is tightest. A home priced at $1,010,000 asks a buyer for an additional $10,100 that a home priced at $999,000 does not. That cliff is real, and it shapes how homes near the threshold should be positioned. Nassau County sellers face this one-million-dollar cliff — the progressive Mansion Tax tiers enacted in 2019 apply only in cities with populations above one million, which currently means New York City alone.
Sellers in the Northeast Queens portion of the market carry an additional layer. The New York City Real Property Transfer Tax applies at 1.425 percent on residential sales above $500,000, paid by the seller, on top of the state transfer tax. For a Bayside or Fresh Meadows seller that is a materially different net calculation than a Nassau seller at the same price point. Attorney fees for a standard Long Island residential closing typically run $1,500 to $3,500, higher where an estate, an out-of-state seller, or a complex title issue is involved. Sellers who no longer live in New York should also plan for the IT-2663 estimated payment at closing — 8.82 percent of net gain, which is not an additional tax but a prepayment against actual state liability and is refundable where the real liability comes in lower.
Where the Paperwork Decisions Get Made
New York is an attorney state, and this is not a formality. A licensed real estate attorney is required in every residential transaction here, and the attorney — not the agent, not the title company — handles contract mechanics, coordinates the title search and payoff, and manages the closing. Title companies perform mechanical work under the attorney's coordination, which is the reverse of how it functions in much of the country. Sellers arriving from other states routinely get this backward and lose two weeks to it.
Engaging that attorney one to two weeks before listing rather than after an offer arrives changes the timeline materially. It allows disclosure coordination, contract preparation, and early identification of title problems while there is still time to fix them quietly.
The Property Condition Disclosure Statement is the piece most likely to catch a seller off guard. The PCDS was amended effective March 20, 2024, and the 56-question form is now mandatory. The old option of giving the buyer a five hundred dollar credit in place of completing the form was eliminated. The amendment also added seven flood-related questions, which matter considerably along the North Shore and in any AE or VE zone. For homes built before 1978, federal lead-based paint disclosure applies separately and independently. Where a home is being sold from an estate, the executor or administrator completes the form on the estate's behalf — a situation that shows up often in the downsizing and estate transitions many Long Island homeowners face.
Contract terms on Long Island also run differently from national norms. The deposit standard here is ten percent, well above the three to five percent common elsewhere, and it is held in the attorney's escrow account. Financing contingencies typically run thirty to forty-five days, inspection contingencies five to ten days, and closing lands forty-five to sixty days from contract signing. Sellers building a moving timeline around national averages tend to be off by weeks — the realistic timeline for how long a Long Island sale actually takes is worth checking against any plan that depends on a specific closing date.
A Worked Example
Consider a composite case — a Nassau County North Shore homeowner with a colonial that comps supported at roughly $1.35 million. His instinct was to list at $1,499,000 on the theory that there was no harm in trying, and to accept a standard listing fee without discussion.
Running the actual net changed the conversation. At a $1.35 million sale, transfer tax took $5,400. His attorney came to $2,800. He had spent $18,000 on pre-listing work — refinishing floors, exterior paint, and a roof repair the pre-listing inspection surfaced. He negotiated the listing side to two percent, $27,000, and offered buyer-agent compensation at two and a half percent, $33,750, structured through the listing agreement to keep the represented-buyer pool intact. Total off the top: roughly $86,950, or about 6.4 percent.
The $1,499,000 hypothesis would also have pushed his buyer's Mansion Tax obligation to nearly $15,000 while sitting well above the comp set, which in that price band meant a slower search-filter position and a likely two-round reduction cycle. He listed at $1,369,000 instead, took an offer at $1,341,000 in nineteen days, and cleared roughly $1,254,000 before mortgage payoff. The fee negotiation saved him about $6,750. The pricing decision was worth several times that.
Where to Start
The sequence that works for most Long Island sellers runs roughly like this. Build the net-proceeds model first, before falling in love with a price, so every subsequent decision has something to be measured against. Engage a real estate attorney one to two weeks before listing. Get a defensible comp set built on price band and station proximity rather than town name. Decide the pre-listing work based on return rather than on what feels overdue. Have the compensation conversation openly, both sides of it. Complete the PCDS carefully and early, with the seven flood questions given real attention. Then price as a hypothesis and let the first three weeks of showing data tell the truth.
For the week-by-week version of that order of operations, the Long Island seller's checklist walks through the sequencing in detail. This guide is about the reasoning behind each choice; that one is about when to do what. More Long Island market and process coverage lives in Local Insights.
The Honest Bottom Line
Nothing above is complicated. It is simply a set of decisions that most sellers make one at a time, months apart, without seeing how each one moves the others. The seller who negotiates hard on fees and then ignores the comp set usually nets less than the seller who pays a full fee and prices correctly. The seller who skips the attorney conversation until an offer arrives usually loses two weeks and some leverage. The seller who treats the PCDS as paperwork rather than a legal disclosure sometimes finds out later that it was the most consequential document in the file.
Selling well on Long Island is less about any single clever move and more about not leaving money at the seams between decisions. Sellers who want to work through what those numbers look like for their own situation, without any pressure attached, are welcome to start that conversation whenever the timing is right.
This guide is general information, not legal, tax, or financial advice. New York transaction requirements, tax thresholds, and federal exclusion amounts change, and several figures referenced here adjust annually for inflation. Sellers should confirm specifics with a licensed New York real estate attorney and a CPA before making decisions.
FAQs
What percentage of the sale price does a Long Island seller typically lose to costs?
Most Long Island sellers see roughly six to eight percent of the sale price come off the top, though the range widens at both ends. The components are listing commission, buyer-agent compensation where offered, New York State Transfer Tax at four dollars per thousand, attorney fees generally between $1,500 and $3,500, and any pre-listing improvement spending. Sellers in the Northeast Queens portion of the market add the New York City Real Property Transfer Tax at 1.425 percent on sales above $500,000, which pushes their total meaningfully higher than a Nassau seller at the same price. Building this model before setting a list price is what makes every later decision measurable.
Does a seller still have to offer buyer-agent compensation after the 2024 rule changes?
No. Since August 17, 2024, buyer-agent compensation is no longer posted on the MLS and is not automatically offered as a condition of listing. Sellers have three practical paths: offer compensation through the listing agreement in the two to two and a half percent range, offer nothing and let buyers negotiate directly with their own agents, or treat it as a negotiable term when offers arrive. Each has a real trade-off. Offering nothing lowers the stated cost but can narrow the represented-buyer pool, which matters more at entry and mid price points where buyers have less cash flexibility to pay their agent separately.
Can a New York seller still give a $500 credit instead of completing the disclosure form?
No. That option was eliminated when the Property Condition Disclosure Statement was amended effective March 20, 2024. The 56-question form is now mandatory for residential sales, including sales from estates, divorces, and foreclosure situations. The amendment also added seven flood-related questions, which carry particular weight along the North Shore and anywhere in an AE or VE flood zone. Sellers who encounter older online guidance describing the credit alternative are reading pre-amendment material. For homes built before 1978, federal lead-based paint disclosure requirements apply separately and are not satisfied by the PCDS.
Who pays the Mansion Tax on a Long Island sale?
The buyer pays it — one percent on residential sales above one million dollars. Sellers still need to account for it because it lands directly on the buyer's cash-to-close and affects what that buyer can afford to offer. A home priced just above the threshold asks the buyer for roughly ten thousand additional dollars that a home priced just below does not, which is why positioning near the one-million mark deserves deliberate thought. Nassau County sellers face this single cliff rather than the progressive tier structure enacted in 2019, since those tiers apply only in cities with populations above one million — currently New York City alone.
Does a Long Island seller really need a real estate attorney?
Yes. New York is an attorney state, and attorney involvement is required in every residential transaction here. The attorney handles contract mechanics, coordinates the title search and payoff, and manages the closing itself, with the title company performing mechanical work under that coordination rather than running the process. Sellers who have transacted in states where a title company drives the closing frequently have this backward. Engaging an attorney one to two weeks before listing, rather than waiting for an offer, allows disclosure coordination and early identification of title issues while there is still time to resolve them without pressure.
By Eric Berman, REALTOR® | The Eric Berman Team at Compass
Eric Berman | Long Island & Queens Associate Broker | Compass
1468 Northern Blvd, Manhasset, NY 11030
(917) 225-8596 | eric@ericbermanre.com | theericbermanteam.com
