One thing before the numbers: everything here is negotiable. Your contract may run 15+ pages, but none of it is fill-in-the-blank — every cost below is something you can negotiate, not just accept.
Set by Florida statute at seven mills — $0.70 per $100 of sale price. The amount isn't negotiable, but who pays it is. I see sellers pay the Florida Transfer Tax (Documentary Stamps on the Deed) the large majority of the time, mostly because it's pre-printed into the standard contract.
The real estate commission/brokerage fee is the one cost you actually control. You set your listing agreement, and separately decide how much — if anything — to offer a buyer's agent. That's always been negotiable; the 2024 NAR settlement just made it explicit rather than an MLS default.
4–6% covers most scenarios in my experience; 5.5% is the Florida average. Those figures assume two agents get paid — since the settlement, there's often more flexibility than that.
Nearly every condo closing here runs through a title company rather than an attorney. Four fees get lumped together: owner's title insurance, the closing fee, a lien search, and a title search. The rate is state-set and actually improves as price climbs.
It's usually a seller cost in Bay County, though more negotiable than the transfer tax. Owned the unit under three years? Ask about a reissue rate — it can cut this cost significantly. We had a seller recently try to negotiate it away entirely, then discover they qualified for the discount anyway and just paid it.
Not really a cost — just settling up. Florida collects property taxes in arrears, so sellers typically owe the buyer a prorated amount at closing. HOA dues run the other way depending on the billing cycle: prepaid past your closing date usually means money back.
A fee your association charges to certify what you owe them, capped by Florida statute. It doesn't scale with price — same fee on a $500K unit or a $5M one. Ask your title company for the current cap, since it's due for an adjustment soon.
The biggest wildcard in condo sales today. If an assessment has even been discussed at the board level in the past year, expect it to come up in negotiation — before anything is official. A small one ($3,000 over a few months) barely registers; a full window, door, balcony, or sewer project can run $40,000–$80,000 per unit, and we've seen PCB buildings hit that range.
What matters: is it just being talked about, voted on, already levied, and paid in a lump sum or installments? Post-SIRS and milestone inspections, buyers scrutinize this closely — have your documentation ready.
Won't apply to every seller, but worth checking:
- Mortgage payoff — paid off at closing if you have a loan.
- Repairs — sometimes negotiated around a buyer's inspection.
- Staging — realistically $0–$10,000 depending on the unit.
- Buyer concessions/credits — less common in condos than FHA/VA residential deals, but it happens.
- Home warranty — a buyer may ask you to cover a one-year policy.
- Attorney fees — rare; expect $1,000–$2,500 if you want one involved.
- FIRPTA withholding — 15% held back if you're not a U.S. citizen.
- Wire and recording fees — minor, but on every closing statement.
- Mobile notary — around $300–$400 if you're signing from out of town.
Bringing It All Together
Between commission, transfer tax, title and closing fees, and the estoppel fee, sellers typically net 90–94% of the sale price in a clean scenario — right around 93% on both a $500,000 and a $1,000,000 sale. Put another way, total seller costs usually run 6–10% of sale price, landing near 6.9% in both examples above.
What pushes that higher is specific to you: an existing mortgage, and especially a pending or discussed special assessment.
Want the actual numbers for your situation? Call or text me at 850-290-0417 — happy to run your net at a few different sale prices.
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