If you choose to sell your home in Florida’s 2023 housing market, you have to grapple with longer selling times, even with fewer homes available. According to Florida Realtors, the median time to sell a single-family home in 2022 was eight days in Florida, while it is now 31 days in 2023. 

And with mortgage prices currently increasing, buyers do have the proverbial spinach to strengthen their buying arm and eventually lower prices. 

To save the funds you can, you might turn to an FSBO (for sale by owner) sale, meaning you choose to sell your house in Florida without a realtor. 

Without a realtor in the picture, you don’t have to pay their commission. That’s potentially tens of thousands of dollars in savings, even with all the added costs of selling a home by owner. 

What Is FSBO in Florida?

FSBO stands for “for sale by owner” and refers to optionally selling a home without the assistance of a professional real estate agent. 

You might choose to sell by owner in Florida for these two key benefits:

  • Saving money: You save up to about six percent of your sale price without paying a realtor commission. For example, on a $350,000 house, that’s up to $21,000 in savings. 
  • Having control: When you sell your house without a realtor, you have full control of pricing, staging, showings, negotiating, and marketing.

What Are the Risks and Challenges of FSBO?

Although selling your home by owner in Florida has the major benefit of savings, it comes with some risks and challenges. 

Because you will be selling your home alone, the burdens of marketing, pricing, negotiating, closing, and holding your buyer accountable are all on you. But, if you have the determination, it’s perfectly possible. In fact, 10% of US homes were sold as FSBO in 2021.

The following are the biggest risks when selling your house without a realtor, both stemming from incorrect pricing: 

  • Selling your home for less than it’s worth: Maybe the heftiest risk of selling your home as FSBO is pricing it too low. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) estimates that the median for FSBO home sales is $225,000, while the median for realtor-assisted sales is $345,000. You don’t want to get stuck underpricing your property and closing for less than your home is worth. 
  • Keeping your home on the market for too long: If you price your home too high, you could risk keeping it on the market longer than it needs to, which means you may not be able to move into your new home as soon as you’d like. 

The following are the greatest challenges you may face when selling your home as FSBO: 

  • Sifting through large amounts of paperwork
  • Negotiating offers
  • Closing by the agreed-upon deadline 
  • Competing with listings from realtor-assisted sales

Facts to Know About FSBO in Florida

You can sell your house by owner anywhere in the country, but if you’re planning to sell in Florida, the following are some things to consider (statistics from Florida Realtors):

  • The average sale price for a single-family home in Florida is about $576,000 as of April 2023.
  • The average time a house stays on the market in Florida is 31 days as of April 2023. 
  • Florida does not require you to have a real estate attorney or title company to sell your home. 
  • The buyer and seller do not need to meet in person to sign the closing documents in Florida.
  • Florida requires sellers to disclose to the buyer any issues of the house the seller is reasonably aware of.
  • You can put up your own “for sale” yard signs outside your home in Florida. 

What Are the Steps to Sell a House in Florida by Owner?

1. Price Your Home Accurately and Competitively

As we warned, you risk underselling your home or not pulling in enough potential buyers by pricing your home too low or high. You can take the following actions to get an accurate understanding of your Florida home’s value: 

  • Use an online home estimator: To start, you can get a good idea of how much your home is worth with a free online home estimator like realtor.com or Zillow. These sites will give you an approximate value you can reference as you get closer to the true value. 
  • Conduct your own comparative analysis: Compare the value of your home with the value of “comps,” or homes in your area with similar characteristics that buyers recently purchased. You can also look online to see comparable listings from other Florida sellers.

    Subtract or add dollar values to your reference price based on what factors you have or don’t. The closer to your neighborhood, the more accurate the estimate will be. 
  • Get a pre-listing appraisal: If you’d rather have a professional determine the value of your home, you can hire an appraiser to visit your property, conduct a comparative analysis, and give you a more accurate assessment. 

Keep in mind that your listing price is different from the selling price. After negotiations, your selling price could be greater or lesser than your original listing price, which is what you originally ask buyers for when listing your home for sale. 

So, try to price your home competitively and accurately to attract potential buyers. If your listing price is too high, buyers may not jump to schedule a showing. 

How Florida Factors Into Your Home’s Value 

It can be easy to underprice your home when selling by owner in Florida because certain factors (such as having a waterfront property or being near a beach) can add value to your home when you compare it to a home of similar size and features.

2. Proactively Fill Out Disclosure Forms

While sellers in Florida are not required to complete a seller’s property disclosure form, the document helps you know what issues to look for throughout the property before inviting potential buyers into your home. 

The form also helps you more thoroughly and transparently disclose any issues. Filling out the form early will let you determine what repairs and maintenance you want to make and will take one more thing off your plate when buyers come around. 

3. Set Your Home Up to Appeal to Buyers

Appealing to buyers means creating a home living experience that is next to perfect. Potential buyers should be excited about the idea of moving in, and the easiest way to achieve that for them is by removing all glaring defects and problems. 

Speak to homebuyers’ dreams by doing the following:

  • Take care of needed repairs and maintenance: Pay for a pre-listing inspection before buyers see the home so you can fix issues in their manageable state. 

While you’re not required to make the repairs, you will have to disclose the needed repairs to the buyer, so proactive maintenance and repairs will incentivize potential buyers. 

Neutral colors appeal to the broadest range of homebuyers, so consider painting over bold or bright colors. 

  • Deep clean: Although built-up dust and dirt are present in any home, letting your grime stay for a home showing will leave a bad impression on potential buyers. In fact, cleaning and decluttering (below) can add tremendous value to your home.

Invest in a deep cleaning service, or check out our ultimate spring cleaning checklist to do it yourself. 

  • Declutter and get organized: In line with deep cleans, don’t allow your loose mail, clothes, or personal items to steal the show when it’s time to show your home to buyers. 

Take a weekend to thoroughly organize your home and hide personal items like photographs that break your buyers’ vision of your house as their future home. 

  • Add curb appeal: The exterior of your home is just as important as the inside, giving buyers their first impression of their potential new residence.

    Liven up your home’s front yard by adding fresh plants, removing unpleasant elements like dead trees and damaged decor, and repainting exterior walls. 

4. Stage Your Home to Help the Vision

Staging your home means getting your house ready for potential buyers to view, including redecorating or renovating your house and all its rooms. 

Staging is helpful for your online listing and your in-person showings. While it can cost a few thousand dollars, staging is worth the investment to increase your home’s selling price, encourage potential buyers to make an offer, and sell your home faster. 

Whatever actions you can take to make your home more attractive to buyers will only benefit you as you sell your home. Your home will look different from when you lived in it, but staging it will give potential buyers an appealing, almost-blank canvas to work with. 

Here are some ideas to stage your home as a beautiful place for homebuyers to settle:

  • Add modern, in-style furniture. 
  • Use welcoming and joyful colors for exterior decor.
  • Use white and neutral colors for the interior.  
  • Replace carpeting with preferably hardwood flooring or at least laminate or vinyl.
  • Add fresh mulch and trimmed bushes to your front yard.
  • Remodel your kitchen to be more in style.
  • Clean and revamp your bathrooms. 

Consider Hiring a Professional Stager 

If you need help, find a professional home stager in Florida online. They are experienced with preparing homes for sale and know how to design your house to increase its appeal and value. 

Similarly, you can use virtual staging to show what your home could look like without needing to remodel or redecorate. 

5. Hire a Professional Photographer

Usually, a realtor will include photography in their services, but you’ll want to hire a photographer on your own in an FSBO sale. Despite costing a few hundred dollars, professional photography can help you gain attention on your property. 

Photography may seem like a small part of the home-selling process, especially after preparing and staging your home. But with over half of buyers looking for listings online, good photos can be the difference between a click on your listing or a scroll right past it. 

Unless you are also a professional photographer, hiring one means you won’t miss out on the proper angles, lighting, and touch-ups that will lead to stunning photos. A photographer can also capture more of each room in a single shot with the proper equipment.

Some photographers can provide other services to include in your listing, such as video walkthroughs, drone shots, and floor-plan imaging. 

6. Promote Your Home to Buyers

Once your home is in shape to join the market, you have several channels to promote your listing. 

To start, consider adding your home to a multiple listing service (MLS). These services are databases of homes for sale and act as online marketplaces that connect real estate agents.

In an FSBO sale, you can’t list your house on an MLS because only agents can access the database. However, flat fee MLS companies in Florida, like Beycome, are an intermediary to help FSBO sellers list on an MLS for a one-time fee, usually a few hundred dollars. 

You’ll want to include your professional photos and an enticing, accurate, and strong property description for your MLS listing.  

An MLS is a good way to get your listing onto buyers’ radars. Even if it seems costly upfront, it’s still less expensive than a realtor’s commission. 

Other Forms of Marketing to Sell Your House

In addition to using an MLS, you can use these other free or low-cost methods to get the word out about your home for sale:

  • Social media: Post your for-sale home on Facebook Marketplace or connect with buyers in Facebook groups. You can also connect with buyers on other social media platforms, like Instagram and Twitter. 
  • Word of mouth: Ask friends and family if they know anyone looking to buy and to ask their friends and family the same question. 
  • “For sale by owner” yard signs: Place a physical sign indicating your home is FSBO in your front yard so that it’s visible to passersby. You can buy these signs from places like Lowe’s or Amazon.
  • Post flyers: Print flyers with your home’s information and post them at your local coffee shop’s bulletin board or anywhere else in your city that permits you. 

7. Review and Negotiate Offers

As your listing gains traction, you’ll hopefully receive several offers. However, you’ll want to focus only on the offers you’re interested in, rejecting—not ignoring—the ones you don’t want. 

To help you sift through your offers, evaluate the following negotiable factors:

  • Contingencies: Most real estate contracts will include sections to protect the buyer that state the sale is contingent or dependent on certain factors. These can include the sale of the buyer’s current home, the buyer’s ability to get a loan, and the results of a home inspection or appraisal.

    A buyer may waive one or some of these contingencies if they need leverage when making the offer.
  • Closing costs: Some costs paid at closing, like title fees, escrow fees, and transfer taxes, are negotiable. Your buyer may ask you to pay some of these costs, but you may pay nothing in a seller’s market. 
  • Repairs: A home inspection contingency means a buyer can back out of a deal if the inspection results are unfavorable. However, after the results of a buyer’s home inspection, they may instead ask you to pay for repairs or reimburse them as part of the negotiation.   
  • Earnest money: Earnest money is a small deposit from the buyer that goes toward the selling price into an escrow account. It signals to you that they are serious about the purchase.

    You can negotiate the amount of earnest money they deposit, and the buyer can get a refund if a contingency allows them to back out of the deal. 
  • Closing date: The date that you and the buyer agree to finalize the transaction is the closing date. The buyer may ask for a later closing date to secure financing or have more time to move out of their current home.

    On the other hand, you or the buyer may negotiate for a sooner closing date.
  • Buyer’s agent commission: If a real estate agent is assisting your buyer, the buyer may ask you to pay some or all of the agent’s commission. 

You can incentivize buyers during negotiation with seller concessions, which are the costs you’re willing to pay to help the buyer. Types of concessions include home warranties and property taxes.

Get creative with what costs you’re willing to pay by researching typical seller concessions and going beyond the typical.

8. Close the Sale With Professional Help

Though you may choose to sell your home as FSBO, we recommend hiring a real estate attorney or title company to take care of the closing documents. 

Attorneys typically charge a few hundred dollars per hour, but they are worth avoiding the deep dive into the several documents you’ll need to review. They’ll thoroughly review your documents and resolve any obstacles to closing. 

You can also hire a title company to research your property’s title (a record of its ownership and all its liens) to prove to your buyer that you have full ownership of the property. They will also collect and disburse closing funds, gather signatures, review documents, and file them to the appropriate agencies. 

What Do You Need to Sell Your House in Florida?

Below is a list of all the paperwork you may need for selling a house without a realtor in Florida. Be aware of and have access to all of these documents before closing to ensure the transaction moves swiftly and smoothly. 

  • Deed
  • Closing disclosure
  • Settlement statement
  • Certificate of title
  • Bill of sale
  • Seller’s affidavit
  • Tax declarations

After both parties have signed all the documents, the funds in escrow are released. This makes Florida a “wet close” state because the funds are disbursed while the ink from the documents is still “wet.” 

Finally, you’ll transfer ownership of your home to the buyer. 

Selling Your House Yourself in Florida: A Rewarding Challenge

In general, a realtor will make the selling process much easier because they are experienced professionals who can properly manage the workload of selling a home and handle any unforeseen issues. 

It’s important to know that you can hire a real estate agent at any point during the selling process if the challenge is too much. 

However, if you have the time and determination to pursue an FSBO sale, use this guide to set you down the right path. Read it fully before making any crucial decisions, and always conduct more research if you need help with how to proceed. 

You can also rest assured that all of the added costs of FSBO still do not amount to an agent’s commission of up to six percent.