The market isn’t broken. 2022 pricing is.
Well-priced Central Florida homes still sell in a week or two, and sellers across every county here are still netting 97–98% of list. The homes that sit are the ones priced to a market that ended three years ago.
The quick read
- Nearly half of active listings in the Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford area carried a price reduction in the week ending 29 August 2026. Overpricing is the default failure mode right now.
- But sellers still collect 97–98% of list price across all five Central Florida counties. Priced correctly, homes still move.
- You are competing with builders — who are buying down rates and paying closing costs at several times their normal level. Most sellers don’t realize this is who they’re actually up against.
- Concessions are the new normal. 68% of local REALTORS® reported more seller concessions than a year earlier; buyers are negotiating roofs, HVAC, even water heaters.
- Roof age and insurability decide some sales entirely. A home that can’t pass a four-point inspection has a smaller buyer pool than its price suggests.
- Your submarket matters more than the metro. Longwood was at 2.6 months of supply while Davenport was at 8.3 — those are two different strategies.
Reviewed September 2026
Price is not an opinion. It’s a test you only get to run once.
A listing gets its best traffic in its first two weeks. Price it above what the market will bear and you spend that attention proving the price is wrong — then you chase the market down with reductions, arriving at the right number months later with a stale listing that buyers now read as “something must be wrong with it.”
The numbers behind that: 49% of active listings in the Orlando–Kissimmee–Sanford market carried a price reduction in late August 2026, and Orlando’s delisting rate hit 6.4% in April 2026 against 5.8% nationally — a near-record. Those are sellers who tested a price, lost, and withdrew.
The counter-fact matters just as much: sale-to-list ratios across Orange, Seminole, Osceola, Lake and Polk counties ran 97.1% to 98.0%. Sellers are not getting crushed. Sellers who price to 2022 are.
The well-priced, good-looking houses are still selling within a week or two. Ken Pozek, Orlando broker, speaking to HousingWire, September 2026
Price-reduction share: Altos data via HousingWire, week ending 29 August 2026. Sale-to-list, days on market and concessions: Orlando Regional REALTOR® Association and Redfin county data, July–August 2026.
You’re not just competing with the house down the street.
In Horizon West, Apopka, St. Cloud, Clermont and Davenport, your buyer is also being shown a brand-new home by a builder who can do things you cannot.
Builders are currently offering rate buydowns into the 5% range against an open market near 6.76%, closing-cost credits averaging around $22,500, and design-center allowances of $30,000–$50,000. Lennar reported an average incentive of $54,947 per home in Q2 2026 — 12.9% of sales price. Nationally, 63% of builders were using incentives in August 2026 and 35% cut prices outright by an average of 6%.
You can’t buy down a buyer’s rate. What you can do is understand that this is the comparison being made, and respond with the things a builder genuinely can’t offer: a mature lot, established landscaping, no construction timeline, a neighborhood that already exists, and in many older areas, no CDD assessment on the tax bill. That last one is worth real money per month and almost no seller ever mentions it.
If your home is in an established, non-CDD neighborhood, that is a marketing asset. We’ll put a number on it.
How your home gets sold
Seven steps, in order, with the reasoning attached.
1. A valuation you can argue with
Not a portal estimate and not a flattering number to win the listing. Recent comparable sales in your actual submarket, adjusted for condition, lot, orientation and updates — plus what’s currently active, because that’s your real competition. You should be able to see exactly how the number was built.
2. A net sheet before anything else
What you walk away with, not what the sign says. Commission, documentary stamp tax on the deed at $0.70 per $100, title and settlement, prorated taxes, HOA estoppel and transfer fees, payoff, and a realistic concession allowance. Decisions get much easier once this is on paper.
3. Pre-list repairs that pay, and the ones that don’t
Roof age, HVAC age and electrical panel decide insurability, and insurability decides your buyer pool. Those get addressed or disclosed and priced. Cosmetic upgrades get triaged hard — paint, light, decluttering and landscaping return far more per dollar than a kitchen you won’t cook in.
4. Prep and photography
Staging where it earns its cost, professional photography always, and video where the home tells a story stills can’t. Most buyers meet your home on a phone screen. That first frame is the whole first impression.
5. Launch with a plan for week one
MLS with complete and accurate data, syndication, social distribution, and targeted outreach. The first fourteen days are when your listing has the most attention it will ever have — and there’s a plan for what happens if week one is quiet, decided before it is.
6. Offers evaluated on net and certainty
Highest price is not always best offer. Financing type, lender quality, appraisal gap language, inspection period length, concession requests and closing timeline all change what actually reaches you and how likely it is to get there.
7. Getting it to the table
Inspection response, appraisal challenges with real comparable data when they’re warranted, title and estoppel chasing, and a walkthrough that doesn’t produce surprises. Deals rarely die loudly — they die from nobody following up.
And if the honest answer is “wait”
Sometimes it is. If your submarket is soft, your equity is thin, or six months of seasoning genuinely changes your outcome, you’ll hear that. A listing that can’t sell helps nobody.
Which market are you actually selling into?
Under roughly three months of supply, you have the leverage. Above six, the buyer does. Both existed inside metro Orlando at the same time in September 2026.
| Submarket | Months of supply | Days on market | Your position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Longwood | 2.6 | 28 | Strong. Price to the top of the range and hold. |
| Oviedo | 3.0 | 32 | Strong. Schools carry demand. |
| Apopka | 3.0 | 42 | Strong — 41% of active listings already under contract. |
| Clermont | 3.3 | 41 | Good, but new construction nearby competes directly. |
| Windermere | 3.5 | 40 | Seller-leaning at the right price. |
| Winter Garden | 3.6 | 39 | Seller-leaning; builder incentives are the real rival. |
| Mount Dora | 3.4 | 58 | Tight supply but a slower, lifestyle-driven buyer. Patience. |
| Winter Park | 4.2 | 32 | Balanced. Presentation matters. |
| St. Cloud | 4.8 | 46 | Balanced, tilting to buyers. Expect concession requests. |
| Kissimmee | 6.2 | 62 | Buyer’s market. Price sharply or wait. |
| Davenport / ChampionsGate | 8.3 | 56 | Buyer’s market. Only 11% of listings under contract. |
Compiled from licensed-MLS-fed brokerage market dashboards, dated 18 August – 10 September 2026. Single-source data, useful for direction. Ask for a current Stellar MLS pull on your specific address and property type before setting a price.
What’s your home actually worth today?
Not an automated estimate. A real valuation built from recent comparable sales in your submarket, adjusted for your home’s condition and features, alongside what’s currently competing with you — and a net sheet so you know what you’d walk away with.
- Comparable sales you can see and question
- Your actual competition, active and pending
- Net proceeds estimate, fee by fee
- Roof, HVAC and insurability assessed honestly
- Whether new construction is competing for your buyer
- A straight answer on timing, including “wait” if that’s right
No obligation, no pressure, and no listing presentation unless you ask for one.
Request a home valuation
Tell me the address or the neighborhood and I'll put the real numbers together.
Seller questions, answered straight
How long does it take to sell a house in Orlando right now?
The Orlando Regional REALTOR® Association reported a median of 64 days on market in July 2026. Redfin’s county figures ranged from 32 days in Seminole to 69 in Osceola over roughly the same period.
Be careful comparing these — “days on market” is not one metric. ORRA’s measure, Redfin’s days-to-pending, and cumulative measures that run to 120-plus days are all called the same thing. The practical answer: a correctly priced, well-presented home in a tight submarket still goes under contract in one to three weeks. An overpriced one can sit for months.
Should I sell now or wait?
It depends on your submarket and your equity, and anyone who answers without asking about both is guessing. Inventory has been rising and buyers have more leverage than they did in 2022, so waiting carries real risk if your area is already soft. But if you’re in a 2.6-month submarket with strong demand, there’s no urgency at all.
The bigger question is usually where you’re going next. If you’re buying in the same market, a softer market cuts both ways — and if you’re moving within Florida, portability of your Save Our Homes differential may matter more to your finances than a few thousand dollars of sale price.
What are seller closing costs in Florida?
The main line items are the agreed real estate commission; documentary stamp tax on the deed at $0.70 per $100 of the sale price (so $2,800 on a $400,000 sale); title and settlement fees, with who pays for the owner’s title policy varying by county custom; prorated property taxes; HOA estoppel and transfer fees; any negotiated buyer concessions or repair credits; and your mortgage payoff.
Percentages vary too much by situation to quote a single number honestly. Ask for a net sheet on your specific property — it takes ten minutes and it’s the only figure that matters.
Do I need to replace my roof before selling?
Not always — but you do need to know how insurers will treat it, because that determines your buyer pool. Many Florida insurers require a four-point inspection on older homes and will decline or heavily surcharge an aging roof. If a buyer can’t get affordable coverage, they can’t close.
The three options are replace it, price it in transparently, or offer a credit. Which is right depends on the roof’s actual condition, the cost of replacement, and how competitive your submarket is. A wind mitigation inspection is worth running regardless — it can materially lower premiums, which is a genuine selling point.
What commission will I pay, and do I have to cover the buyer’s agent?
Commission is fully negotiable and always has been — there is no standard or prescribed rate. Since August 2024, offers of buyer-broker compensation can no longer be advertised on the MLS, and you are not required to pay the buyer’s agent.
Many sellers still choose to, because it widens the buyer pool. A 2026 survey of sellers found 35% offered to cover the buyer’s agent commission even though it was no longer required. You can also offer a general buyer concession on the MLS, which a buyer may apply to their agent’s fee or to closing costs. We’ll model both.
Commission survey figures come from a consumer-facing brokerage-referral company and are national self-reported data, not Florida transaction records.
Should I sell my house or rent it out?
Run the arithmetic rather than the instinct. On the rental side: realistic market rent minus vacancy, management, maintenance reserve, insurance (which is the big Florida variable), taxes without a homestead exemption once it’s no longer your primary residence, and any HOA or CDD.
Two Florida-specific factors people miss: losing homestead means losing the Save Our Homes cap, so your assessed value resets and then grows faster; and the capital gains exclusion on a primary residence has time limits you can age out of. Both can dwarf the monthly cash-flow question.
What repairs are actually worth doing before listing?
In order: anything affecting insurability (roof, electrical panel, plumbing type, HVAC), then anything that reads as deferred maintenance in photographs (exterior paint, pressure washing, landscaping, worn flooring), then light and paint inside.
What generally doesn’t return its cost before a sale: full kitchen or bathroom remodels, premium appliances, pools, and anything reflecting personal taste. Buyers discount an unrenovated kitchen by less than the renovation costs you.
Start with the number, not the listing agreement.
A valuation and a net sheet cost you nothing and commit you to nothing. If the answer is “not yet,” you’ll hear that too.