Seven Mistakes That CostCentral Florida Sellers Money

This list has been rewritten for the market as it currently is, which is meaningfully different from the market this article was first written for.

The market you are actually selling into

Two facts set the context. Days on market in the Orlando area reached a ten-year high in early 2026. And the Orlando Regional Realtor Association reported in July 2026 that 68% of surveyed members were seeing increased seller concessions compared with a year earlier.

That does not mean homes are not selling. Orlando closed 2,335 sales in October 2025 and 1,888 in February 2026; Florida statewide single-family closed sales were up 0.9% for full-year 2025. Homes are selling. They are taking longer, and buyers have room to ask for things.

The practical consequence is that mistakes which a fast market would have covered for you now show up in the price.

1. Overpricing

This is first on every version of this list and it deserves to be, but the reason changes with the market.

In a fast market an overpriced listing gets corrected in two weeks and nobody remembers. In a slow one, the correction takes months, and the listing accumulates a visible history — days on market, price reductions — while it happens. Buyers read that history and draw conclusions about the seller, the house, or both. A home that eventually sells after two reductions frequently nets less than the same home priced correctly on day one.

Price to the comparable sales, not to what you need to net, and not to the highest opinion you were given. If three agents give you three numbers, the highest one is not a valuation, it is a pitch.

2. Ignoring the roof

This is the Florida-specific one that generic seller advice leaves out, and it is currently the single most common reason a Central Florida contract dies after the inspection.

A roof does not have to be leaking to end your sale. It has to be insurable. Florida law protects a roof under 15 years old from being refused coverage on age alone, and gives the owner of a roof 15 years or older the right to an inspection showing five or more years of useful life. But individual carriers set their own thresholds — Citizens, for example, requires documentation of full replacement for shingle roofs more than 25 years old and for tile, slate, clay, concrete or metal more than 50.

If your roof is approaching those thresholds, know that before you list. Your options — replace, offer a credit, price accordingly — are all better exercised as decisions than as concessions made under time pressure in week six.

Note too that roof age runs from the last date 100% of the surface area was replaced. A partial re-roof does not restart the clock.

3. Treating disclosure as paperwork

Florida has no statute requiring a seller's disclosure form. The duty comes from Johnson v. Davis (Fla. 1985): where a seller knows of facts materially affecting value that are not readily observable and not known to the buyer, the seller must disclose them.

Three things sellers regularly get wrong:

• An "as is" contract does not waive the duty. It changes your repair obligations, not your disclosure obligations.
• Forgetting is not a defence. Actual knowledge is required, but motive is irrelevant — the forgetful seller is as liable as the deliberate one.
• Partial disclosure triggers full disclosure. If you mention the roof repair, mention that it has leaked since.

And the newest one, which a lot of sellers have not caught up with: Florida's flood disclosure took effect 1 October 2024 and was broadened effective 1 October 2025. It now reaches flooding that damaged the property during your ownership regardless of whether you filed a claim, and assistance received to remediate flood damage from any source, not only federal. "Flooding" includes sustained standing water resulting from rainfall — which, after Ian and Milton, describes a lot of inland Central Florida property whose owners never filed anything.

We went through the whole duty in a dedicated article on Florida seller disclosure. It is worth twenty minutes before you list.

4. Bad photographs

Your listing photography is the showing. Almost every buyer decides whether to visit from a phone screen, and a home that photographs poorly simply gets fewer visits — which in a slower market means fewer chances.

Professional photography, taken in good light, after the house is cleared and cleaned. Not before. The order matters more than the camera.

5. Restricting showings

Inconvenient, and worth tolerating. Every buyer who cannot get in when they are available is a buyer who sees something else instead. In a market where inventory is higher and buyers have choice, a hard-to-show home simply gets skipped.

If you have pets, small children or work from home, plan for this before you list rather than negotiating each request.

6. Skipping the cheap repairs — and the curb

The small visible defects do not cost you their repair value. They cost you the buyer's assumption about everything they cannot see. A running toilet, a torn screen, a sticking door and a dead patch of lawn add up to an impression of deferred maintenance, and the buyer prices the impression, not the items.

Curb appeal belongs in the same category. Landscaping, pressure-washing, a painted front door and a clean driveway are the cheapest money in the transaction. In this climate, mildew on a north-facing wall reads as neglect even when it is a weekend's work.

7. Leaving permits open

An open or expired permit, or an unpermitted addition, creates three separate problems: an appraisal that does not credit the square footage, a lender who will not proceed, and an insurer who declines the file. Any one of them can end a contract late.

Two useful provisions of section 553.79 of the Florida Statutes. A current owner can close a permit pulled by someone else, and a replacement contractor is not liable for defects in the original contractor's work. And an arms-length purchaser for value cannot be penalised by the local enforcement agency solely because a permit applied for by a previous owner was not closed — the agency keeps its remedies against the prior owner and the permitted contractor.

That second one protects your buyer from municipal penalties. It does not protect the deal from an appraiser or an underwriter. Pull the permit history from the city or county before you list, and close what is open.

The one that is not on the list

The original version of this article ended with "choosing the wrong Realtor" and a pitch. That is a fair point made in a self-serving way, so here is the useful version of it: the thing to evaluate is whether the person you hire will tell you a number you do not want to hear.

Ask each agent you interview to show you the comparable sales they priced from and explain the adjustments. Ask what they would do if it has not sold in six weeks. An agent who has a clear answer to the second question before you sign is worth more than one who gave you the highest number.