Find your best exit strategy
Answer 12 quick screens about what you are selling, its tax history, your debt and what you want the money to do. See the two or three paths that fit your goal, with real numbers: tax this year, value after 10 years, value at death. Including when the best move is not to sell at all.
What are you thinking of selling?
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Goal first. Then the asset, the risks and the extras.
The best way to sell is not the one with the lowest tax bill. It is the one that fits what you are trying to do. The finder follows four steps:
- Your goal picks the shortlist: income, flexibility, staying in real estate, simplicity, heirs, charity, the next purchase, or the lowest tax this year.
- Your asset crosses paths off. Only real estate can be exchanged. Traded stock cannot be sold on installments. A home gets its exclusion first.
- Your limits cross more off. If you need the money, locked-up paths go. If you want low money risk, private funds go. Arrangements the IRS has listed never appear.
- The extras decide the order: depreciation and cost segregation, debt compared with basis, losses already on your return, Medicare premiums, your state, the buyer, the closing date, and what a loan would cost today instead.
It weighs: asset type, price, basis and improvements, depreciation, cost segregation, prior exchanges, loan balance and rate, net income, filing status, other income, state and plans to move, suspended passive losses, capital loss and net operating loss carryovers, age, time horizon, cash needed and when, willingness to keep owning, deal status, buyer type, any gap between offer and price, timing, estate size, charitable intent, and your comfort with IRS risk, money risk and paperwork.
Today's borrowing rates
The sell-or-borrow comparison uses these figures. Averages and indicative ranges, not quotes; refreshed weekly (last refresh 2026-10-10).
| Rate | Level | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| 30-year fixed mortgage rate (average) | 7.40% | Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, October 8, 2026 |
| Average HELOC rate | 7.33% | Bankrate, October 7, 2026 |
| Average home equity loan rate (5-year, $30,000) | 8.56% | Bankrate, October 7, 2026 |
| Bank prime loan rate | 7.00% | Federal Reserve (H.15) via FRED, October 2, 2026 |
| Commercial real estate fixed-rate loans, indicative range | 6.64% to 9.99% | commercialrealestate.loans (indicative), September 28, 2026 |
| 10-year Treasury constant maturity yield | 5.22% | Federal Reserve (H.15) via FRED, October 8, 2026 |
About the finder
Do I have to give my email to see my answer?
No. The ranked paths, the numbers, the sell-or-borrow table and the CPA checklist all show on screen. Emailing yourself a PDF or booking a call is optional.
How does it pick the best path?
It starts with your goal, crosses off paths your asset cannot use, crosses off paths that clash with the cash you need or the risk you can carry, then ranks what is left for your goal. These are the same steps as the decision tree in our free book, Same Sale, Different Tax. A path can win with a higher tax bill if it fits the goal better.
Where do the numbers come from?
From the same tax engine as the rest of this site: 2026 federal brackets (Rev. Proc. 2025-32), the 3.8% net investment income tax, depreciation recapture, and state tax for all 50 states plus DC. Each number is the tax the sale adds on top of your other income. The 10-year and at-death values assume after-tax cash and property both grow 5% a year, shown in today's dollars.
Why does it sometimes say not to sell?
Because sometimes that is the answer. If you need only part of the value, a loan can cost less than the tax, and if you still own the asset at death your heirs get a stepped-up basis (IRC 1014). The tool prices the loan with dated rates, including the blended cost when a cash-out refinance replaces a cheaper loan. Example: a $1,000,000 loan at 4% refinanced to $1,500,000 at 7% costs $65,000 more a year for $500,000 of cash, which is 13% a year.
What is a 1031 exchange with boot paid over time?
In a 1031 exchange, value you do not reinvest is boot and is normally taxed that year. If the boot is set up before closing as an installment obligation, its gain is reported as the payments arrive (IRC 453(f)(6)). It fits owners trading down who want income from part of the value. See 1031 boot.
Which strategies will it never recommend?
Anything the IRS has listed or proposed to list as abusive: monetized installment sales, syndicated conservation easements, micro-captive shelters and similar plans. They appear only as warnings.
Is this tax advice?
No. It is an educational illustration built on the assumptions shown. Your CPA and attorney should confirm every number against your own records before you act.
Education only. Illustrative numbers from a tax model, not tax, legal or investment advice. Hans is not a CPA, attorney or registered investment adviser; the analysis models tax effects and does not recommend specific securities. Paid-over-time arrangements funded by third parties are described neutrally as one way to receive Section 453 payments; this site does not offer or recommend them.
The long version: Same Sale, Different Tax
The finder uses the engine and the decision tree from Same Sale, Different Tax, including its chapter on selling versus borrowing. Free PDF.
Same Sale, Different Tax (free book)
The same $1,000,000 gain run ten ways through one tax engine: cash, installment, structured installment, 1031, opportunity zone 2.0, charitable trust, donor-advised fund, banked losses and holding until death, for homes, rentals, farms, businesses, stocks, crypto and collectibles. California and Texas numbers, every rate dated and sourced.