You are here:

Buying or Selling a Home/capital gains from selling a home

Advertisement

Expert: - 3/18/2005


Question
i purchased a home in queens, new york city in 1968, paid $40,000 dollars for it, now i would like to sell, i can get $750,000 dollars for it. i am married, what i would like to know is this, excluding the $500,000 dollars for capital gains, the $40,000 dollars i paid for the house, and approx. $60,000 dollars i used to make improvements and repairs how much would i owe for the capital gains tax.  

Answer
HI Anthony,

Thanks for your question.

You will owe a capital gains tax on the difference between what you paid 40k, plus capital improvements 60k, plus the 500k exclusion, plus any selling expenses that you have such as a real estate broker commission 5%.  

So if you sell for 750,000k
                 -500,000
                 - 40,000
                 - 60,000
                 - 37,500
                 ----------
                  112,500 will be subject to capital gains tax.

Good luck, where are you moving to?

If you need a good realtor, I would be pleased to supply a reference.

Thank you.
Hans  

Buying or Selling a Home

All Answers

Answers by Expert:

Ask Experts

Volunteer

Hans Weber, Licensed Broker Associate

Expertise

I am able to answer questions related to buying or selling residential real estate in New York. There are many questions buyers and sellers have about the process of buying or selling a home that they are afraid to ask or that might seem too simple to ask. For instance: in a house, why do some doors open in and some doors open out?

Experience

Licensed real estate agent in New York State in 1988.
Serving buyers and sellers as a full time occupation since 1988 with over 300 successful residential real estate transactions.

Organizations
National Association of Realtors.
Westchester County Board of Realtors.

Education/Credentials
Graduate of Pace University in 1988 majoring in business and minors in taxation and computer science.

Awards and Honors
Consistently one of top sales awarding winning agents for Coldwell Banker in Westchester County.

©2012 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company. All rights reserved.