This is an estimate for planning. It is not a quote, an appraisal, an offer, a loan offer, or tax or legal advice, and Rudy is a real estate agent, not a lender or tax professional.
The five paths, in plain English
Open-market listing
The listing goes into the MLS and feeds out to public search sites, then gets photos, showings and open houses. Agents and buyers everywhere see it at once.
When owners often choose it: When you want the full market to weigh in on price and you have time for prep work, showings and escrow.
Tradeoffs: Expect showings more often, and the price history goes public. Prep is an up-front expense, and from the accepted offer, escrow commonly lasts 30 to 45 days. An inspection may lead the buyer to ask for repairs or credits.
Pre-market or Coming Soon
A limited group of buyers gets the first look, before the home goes public or instead of going public. It might be a Coming Soon period, delayed marketing, or an office-only listing held at a single brokerage.
When owners often choose it: For owners who rank privacy, a say over the calendar and showings, or terms like a later move-out higher than maximum reach.
Tradeoffs: With a smaller audience, you may see fewer competing offers and get a lighter test of price. CRMLS allows 21 days of Coming Soon, and SDMLS allows 30. In-person showings aren’t allowed, and a form gets signed before it starts. Zillow adds that a home advertised publicly but missing from the MLS a business day later won’t be on Zillow or Trulia for that whole listing agreement.
As-is or cash offer
The buyer pays cash and accepts the home’s present condition, often with a single walkthrough. You type in a real offer, so the math follows that buyer’s number.
When owners often choose it: When the priorities are speed, fewer contingencies, and passing on repairs and showings.
Tradeoffs: Cash buyers frequently offer below open-market value, trading price for speed and certainty, and no two offers match. Confirm which fees the buyer will pay and which land on you. Closing inside 1 to 3 weeks is a frequent result, though every buyer runs on its own schedule.
Rent it out, sell later
After you move out, a tenant leases the home, and you sell later, once the years you set have passed.
When owners often choose it: When rent could handle a large part of the monthly cost, selling some years out suits you, or a move back is possible.
Tradeoffs: Plan for a property manager’s fee or your own hours, and for repairs and vacant months. Rent and notice rules in Chula Vista apply as well. Years as a landlord can change how the federal home-sale tax exclusion works for you. That exclusion looks back over the 5 years before the sale and wants at least 2 of them spent as both owner and resident. A CPA can walk you through it.
Keep the home
You keep living in your Rancho Del Rey home and keep owning it. Since nothing is sold, there are no selling costs today.
When owners often choose it: When the house still suits you, the loan you have is worth holding, or no moving date is on the calendar.
Tradeoffs: Equity remains in the house, not in your bank account. The loan payment, tax, insurance and upkeep continue. Treat the growth rate you pick as a guess rather than a forecast, since future value rides on the market.
Pre-market and coming-soon sales: the rules
Selling before a public launch is governed by more than one rulebook. NAR sets national REALTOR® policy, your MLS has its own rules, your brokerage has a say, and search sites such as Zillow keep separate standards.
Across the country, NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy still applies. Under it, once a home is first advertised to the public, whether through a flyer, a sign out front, a public web page, a mass email or a network that several brokerages share, the listing broker then gets one business day to add it to the MLS. NAR followed with Multiple Listing Options for Sellers, effective March 25, 2025, which gives sellers two choices other than a full public listing. Choice one is a delayed-marketing listing. Agents at other brokerages can find it in the MLS, but public home-search sites must hold off for a stretch the MLS decides. Choice two is an office-only listing: it is filed with the MLS, but it is not shown to agents at other brokerages or promoted to the public. The seller signs a disclosure before either one begins.
Rancho Del Rey sits in Chula Vista, in San Diego County, where a home may be listed through the California Regional MLS (CRMLS) or the San Diego MLS (SDMLS). Their rules are not the same.
Under SDMLS rules, Coming Soon can last as long as 30 days. During that time, agents in the MLS have access to it, and you’re allowed to market it and accept an offer, but buyers can’t tour it in person or come to an open house. Public portals don’t receive these listings from SDMLS, and neither do IDX feeds, the data that puts listings on other brokers’ sites. Once the listing goes Active, Coming Soon is no longer an option for it. For NAR’s delayed-marketing choice, SDMLS sets up an Active listing that stays unpublished online. It has no end date, and in-person showings may happen.
In CRMLS, Coming Soon tops out at 21 days, and then the listing goes Active. No showings at all are permitted, and every ad must say Coming Soon. CRMLS normally sends these listings out over IDX and to portals, Realtor.com and Homes.com among them, although a seller form that arrived in 2026 can keep a listing off IDX. After leaving Coming Soon, a listing can’t be switched back. CRMLS does not offer delayed marketing, and its position is that a listing not in the MLS cannot be publicly marketed outside the brokerage.
California sellers record their MLS choices on the MLSA, short for Multiple Listing Service Addendum, a C.A.R. form revised in September 2025. An MLS may also require a form of its own. The NAR disclosure the seller signs acknowledges what they give up, for example quick, wide exposure to buyers through the MLS.
If a home is advertised to the public and still isn’t in the MLS after one business day, Zillow’s Listing Access Standards keep it off Zillow and Trulia for as long as that listing agreement runs. For homes that aren’t publicly marketed, Zillow asks the seller to sign a waiver describing the drawbacks.
These rules have seen several revisions since 2025, and any brokerage may layer on its own policy. Rudy checks which MLS your listing would use and which of these rules cover your dates.
Rules as of 2026-10-30. Sources: NAR: Multiple Listing Options for Sellers; NAR: MLS Clear Cooperation Policy (Policy Statement 8.0); NAR: Multiple Listing Options for Sellers FAQ (May 27, 2025); NAR: Office Exclusive Listings, Pre-Marketing Guidance; SDMLS: DMEL & DMLE: What’s the Difference? (Coming Soon Status, revised July 2026); SDMLS: The SELM Is a Discontinued Form (use the C.A.R. MLSA); CRMLS: Coming Soon Status; CRMLS: Limited Exposure for Coming Soon FAQs; CRMLS: C.A.R. Form MLSA (Multiple Listing Service Addendum) FAQs; Zillow: Listing Access Standards (PDF). Your agent will confirm what applies to your home.
About these numbers
- Estimates for planning, based only on what you entered. Not an appraisal, not an offer, not a forecast.
- Commission is always negotiable and written into your listing agreement; the selling costs on this page come from the rates you entered.
- Holding costs here are the monthly interest on your loan together with tax, insurance and HOA dues, tallied for each month before the sale closes.
- Money in hand at closing isn’t the same as money that arrives years later. Income tax, depreciation and what your cash could earn elsewhere aren’t part of the rent and keep columns.
- This page does not include tax on your gain. A CPA can explain how the home-sale exclusion would apply, especially if the home becomes a rental first.
Questions owners ask
My Rancho Del Rey home is mostly original. Can I compare fixing it up with selling it as it is?
Yes, by running the numbers twice. The repairs and preparation field covers paint, cleaning, staging and fixes before an open-market sale. Try it once with your prep budget, then again at 0 with the value you’d expect for the home in its current condition. The pre-market column has its own prep figure, since a ready buyer may need less work done first. For an as-is or cash sale, type a real offer. The tool assumes no discount, and offers differ from buyer to buyer.
We’ve owned our home a long time. Is tax on the gain in these numbers?
No, tax on your gain is left out. The federal home-sale exclusion can shield up to $250,000 of gain ($500,000 if you file jointly), as long as the home was yours, and your residence, during at least 2 of the 5 years that end on the sale date. Renting it out first can affect that. A CPA can tell you how it applies to your sale.
Can I sell my home without it being advertised?
An office-only listing is one way. The seller keeps it inside one brokerage. Under NAR policy it is still filed with the MLS, yet it is hidden from other brokerages’ agents and not advertised to the public. Once any public marketing starts, the listing has one business day to be entered in the MLS. You sign a disclosure before it starts, and Rudy goes over what you give up, like a big pool of buyers seeing the home through the MLS right away.
If my listing goes Active, can it switch back to Coming Soon?
No. In SDMLS and in CRMLS alike, a listing that leaves Coming Soon can’t return to it. That makes it worth choosing the timing up front: the Coming Soon window is up to 30 days with SDMLS and up to 21 with CRMLS, after which a CRMLS listing goes Active.
What does the keep column actually show?
Your equity at the end of the years you choose: the home’s value, grown at the yearly rate you type, minus what you would still owe then. No selling costs come out, because nothing is sold. The growth rate is your own guess, so try a few, including 0%.
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