1. Price It Right. The First Time.
This is the killer. You list at the price your neighbor got in 2022, your home sits, you drop the price, sits some more, drop again. By the time you're at the right number every agent in town has already shown the place twice and dismissed it. Their buyers wonder what's wrong with it.
The right number isn't the Brevard average. It isn't the Zestimate either. It's real comps inside a few blocks of you, sold in the last 90 days, ideally with similar bed/bath/lot/age. A three bedroom in beachside Indialantic prices nothing like a three bedroom in West Melbourne.
Nail the price out of the gate. You usually end up with more money, not less. Weird but true.
2. Pick an Agent Who Actually Knows Your Block
Commission is negotiable. About half of Brevard sellers in 2026 negotiate it down a bit and the world keeps spinning.
But commission isn't the number to obsess over. The real question is how many homes this person has personally sold within a mile of your front door in the last twelve months. Not Florida. Not Brevard. One mile.
A real local agent already knows which streets fall in flood zone X versus AE. They know which HOAs are reasonable and which ones are nightmares to deal with at closing. They know which schools families are chasing this year.
3. Small Fixes. Clear Out the Clutter. That's It.
About two thirds of sellers do at least some repairs before listing. You don't need a renovation. Please do not do a renovation. You almost never recoup it on the sale.
What actually pays off:
- Fresh neutral paint in any room looking tired
- Clean grout, scrubbed if you have to
- Matching color temperature on every light bulb in the house, the photos look ten times better
- A tidy front yard
- A pressure washed driveway
- Roughly half the family photos taken down
NAR is reporting staged homes can sell for up to 5% more. On a $400K Brevard home that's $20,000 in your pocket. For a few weekends of work. Do it.
4. The Photos Are the Listing
Most of your buyers right now aren't in Florida yet. Snowbirds in Ohio. Remote workers in Pennsylvania. Families relocating from New York whose person just got a contract job at the cape. They are scrolling your listing on a phone, in bed, at 11PM, before they ever book a flight to come see it.
Seventy percent of buyers say a 3D tour helps them get a feel for a home. Over sixty percent of them wish more listings had one.
If your agent's marketing plan is ten cell phone photos and a single sentence of description, that's a problem and you can do better. You want professional photography. Drone shots that show how close you are to the beach or the river. A video walkthrough. A 3D tour. All of it pushed to the actual MLS so it syndicates out to Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, and every agent portal in the area.
5. Closing Costs. And the New Florida Disclosures.
Second biggest surprise after pricing. Between agent commission, title and escrow, doc stamps on the deed, prorated property taxes, and whatever concessions you end up giving the buyer, plan on six to eight percent of the sale price coming out of your proceeds. On a $400,000 home that's $24K to $32K. Better to know that going in than to do the math at the closing table.
Florida also has a flood disclosure requirement now. Statute 689.302, in effect since late 2024. You have to tell the buyer in writing whether the property has flooded before, whether you currently carry flood insurance, and that homeowners insurance does not cover flood. This isn't a suggestion.
Brevard has real exposure on this front. Roughly 29% of properties in the county have some flood risk. Over 300,000 sit in severe wind zones. Don't try to hide it. A buyer's lender or inspector will catch it, the deal will blow up, and you'll be back to square one with a property that now has a "back on market" stink on it.