Jessica Martinsen · Austin Real Estate
Preparing an Austin home for sale: disclosure, the energy audit, and where prep money pays
The Texas seller's disclosure, Austin's ECAD energy-audit requirement, the T-47 survey affidavit, and preparation spending that actually returns.
Texas selling starts with a form that rewards honesty and punishes creativity: the seller's disclosure notice required by Property Code section 5.008. It asks what you know about the property's condition, systems, repairs, flooding history, and defects, with limited exemptions - new construction, foreclosures, and estate sales among them. The strategy question sellers agonize over, whether to get a pre-listing inspection, has a legal edge in Texas: once you know about a defect, it belongs on the disclosure. That is not a reason to stay ignorant; it is a reason to find and fix the cheap problems before listing, and to disclose the rest plainly, because disclosed defects kill deals far less often than discovered ones.
Austin adds a requirement most sellers have never heard of until their agent mentions it: ECAD, the Energy Conservation Audit and Disclosure ordinance. If the home is in Austin Energy's service territory and is at least ten years old, you generally must have an energy audit performed and provide it to prospective buyers, with limited exemptions. The audit itself is modest money, takes a couple of hours, and doubles as a punch list - duct sealing and attic insulation, its usual findings, are among the cheapest comfort upgrades in a climate where the air conditioner is the biggest appliance bill in the house.
Paperwork you can pull in week one prevents the classic week-five fire drill. Find your existing survey; if nothing material has changed, a signed T-47 affidavit lets the buyer's title company often accept it and saves the cost and delay of a new one. Order a preliminary title check early if your history contains any of the usual snags - an old home-equity lien never released, a solar-panel financing lien, a deceased co-owner, a divorce - because every one of those is fixable, and every one takes longer than the option period gives you if discovered late. Gather permits for any additions while you are at it; unpermitted work does not necessarily block a sale, but it prices better explained than excavated by the buyer's inspector.
Preparation money follows a steep curve of diminishing returns, and the high-return end is boring: paint, light, and emptiness. Deep-neutral repaint of the loud rooms, every bulb bright and matching, sun-starved rooms relamped, closets and garages half-emptied into storage, landscaping edged and mulched - this package costs a fraction of a renovation and photographs like one. The low-return end is the renovation itself: a mid-range kitchen remodel done in a hurry for an imagined buyer rarely returns its cost at closing. Fix what reads as neglect - the dripping faucet, the cracked pane, the foundation-watering-gone-wrong door rub - and let the buyer renovate to their own taste with their own money.
Price against the market, not against your tax bill or your memories. The appraisal district's number exists to levy taxes and lags the market in both directions; comparable closed sales from the last few months, adjusted for condition and location, are the only defensible anchor. Decide in advance how you will respond to the option-period repair request - every Austin buyer will make one - by reserving either a small concession budget or the patience to counter with receipts-backed repairs. And if you need the proceeds to buy your next home, a seller's temporary leaseback is a normal Texas mechanism that buys you weeks after closing without a double move.
Common questions
- Do I have to complete the seller's disclosure?
- Most sellers do - Property Code 5.008 requires it, with limited exemptions such as new construction and estate or foreclosure sales. Answer what you actually know, plainly; discovered defects derail closings far more reliably than disclosed ones.
- What is ECAD and does it apply to me?
- Austin's Energy Conservation Audit and Disclosure ordinance: homes ten years or older in Austin Energy territory generally need an energy audit provided to buyers, with limited exemptions. It is inexpensive, and its findings are usually cheap comfort fixes.
- Do I need a new survey to sell?
- Often not. If your existing survey still reflects the property, a T-47 affidavit frequently lets it be reused. Locate the survey in week one - hunting for it under contract is the avoidable delay.
- Should I renovate before listing?
- Rarely beyond paint, light, decluttering, and repairs that read as neglect. Mid-range renovations done for an imagined buyer seldom return their cost; disclosed, priced-in condition usually beats hurried remodeling.
- What if there is an old lien or title tangle in my history?
- Surface it now. Unreleased home-equity liens, solar financing, probate gaps, and divorce artifacts are all curable - on a timeline. A preliminary title check in week one turns a closing crisis into an errand.
This page is a planning guide, not a market report. Confirm current prices, taxes, insurance and property facts against authoritative sources before acting on them.