Selling Your Texas House for a Job Relocation

A new job or a family move comes with a start date, and the house will not follow it.

Your routes when the move date is fixed

Route	Fits when	Watch for
List before you move	The house shows well and you have a few months	Showings while you pack; a sale that runs past your start date
List after you move	You can carry two housing costs for a while	Managing a vacant house from a distance
Employer home-sale benefit	Your relocation package includes one	Deadlines, required vendors, tax reporting
Rent it out	You want to keep the house and rent covers its costs	Landlord duties from another city; tax effects later
Sell for cash	Time, repairs or distance matter more than price	A lower price than a well-run listing

Check how long it takes to sell a house in Texas before counting on a listing.

Ask HR about a home-sale benefit first

Some relocation packages include help selling the old house. Terms vary by employer, so get the written policy and ask: what costs it covers, whether you must use certain agents or vendors, whether a buyout is offered and how its price is set, and what deadlines apply.

Carrying two housing payments

Once you move, the old house still needs its mortgage, property taxes, insurance, utilities, yard care and any HOA dues. Add those up per month, multiply by a realistic number of months to sell and close, and put that next to your new rent or mortgage. That total is the cost of waiting for a higher price. If it eats most of the gap between a listed price and a cash price, speed may be worth more.

If the house will sit empty

The Texas Department of Insurance home insurance guide says most homeowners policies do not cover losses that happen once a house has been vacant for the number of days in the policy, and that most companies stop coverage when a house is vacant 60 days or more, though they usually keep liability coverage. Call your company before you move. If you list, the TREC 20-19 resale contract (paragraph 7A) requires the seller to have existing utilities turned on and kept on while the contract is in effect, so plan for power, water and gas. Our vacant house checklist and guide to selling a vacant house cover the rest.

Renting the house out instead

Renting it out makes you a landlord under Property Code chapter 92, even from another state. Key duties:

• Repairs: after a tenant who is current on rent gives notice of a condition that materially affects an ordinary tenant's health or safety, you must make a diligent effort to repair it (Section 92.052); for tenant remedies, the statute sets a rebuttable presumption that seven days is a reasonable time (Section 92.056).
• Deposits: refund the security deposit on or before the 30th day after the tenant surrenders the home, with a written, itemized list of any deductions; normal wear and tear cannot be deducted (Sections 92.103 and 92.104).
• Selling later: the new owner becomes liable for deposits from the date it takes title, and you stay liable for deposits you collected until the new owner receives or assumes them, unless a written contract says otherwise (Section 92.105).

From another city, that usually means a property manager or a reliable repair contact.

Taxes: the home-sale exclusion and a work-related move

IRS Publication 523 lets a qualifying seller exclude up to $250,000 of gain ($500,000 for married couples filing jointly). The full exclusion generally requires that you owned the home for at least 24 months and lived in it for at least 24 months of the 5 years before the sale, and that you did not take the exclusion on another home sold in the prior 2 years.

Short of 24 months? Pub 523 allows a partial exclusion when the main reason for the sale was a change in workplace location. Its work-related move test is met if, while you owned and lived in the home, you took or were transferred to a new job at a work location at least 50 miles farther from the home than your old work location, or, with no previous work location, began a new job at least 50 miles from the home. It also counts if this is true of your spouse, a co-owner or another resident of the home. The reduced limit is the shortest of your residence time, ownership time or time since your last excluded sale, divided by 24 months, times $250,000; joint filers figure it for each spouse and add the results.

If you rent the house first, Pub 523 lists rental use of the whole home as a situation that can affect your exclusion, and gain equal to depreciation you were entitled to take cannot be excluded. A CPA can apply these rules to your dates.

Closing from another state

Ask the title company early whether it can send your documents to be signed before a notary where you live. Texas also allows online notarization under Government Code chapter 406, subchapter C: a notary authorized by the secretary of state performs the act by two-way video and audio, the signer does not have to be in Texas, and identity is verified by personal knowledge or by a government photo ID plus credential analysis and identity proofing. Ask whether your title company accepts it. See when a seller gets paid after closing for how funds reach you.

When a cash sale makes sense, and when it does not

If the house is in good shape and you can leave it listed for a few months, or your employer covers selling costs, a listed sale often nets more. Talk to a listing agent first. Cash tends to fit when the start date is close, the house needs work you cannot oversee from afar, you do not want to be a landlord, or carrying costs would swallow the difference.

Selling to Cash Home Advisors before you move

Cash Home Advisors is based in Fort Worth and buys houses across Dallas–Fort Worth, including Fort Worth and Dallas. You can sell as-is without making repairs, and we can close in 7–14 days. We pay all closing costs, and you see the closing statement before you sign. Your loan payoff, liens, property taxes and HOA dues are paid from your proceeds at closing. Se habla español. See how it works or request an offer.

If the new job is outside Dallas–Fort Worth, start from the Texas hub.