Divorce real estate agent in Florida: selling the marital home

What a divorce real estate agent does differently

The listing itself is ordinary. What changes is that there are two clients with one house, and often two lawyers with two sets of instructions. So the first job is communication discipline. Every update goes to both parties together, in writing, including the price recommendation, each showing comment and every offer.

The second job is keeping the sale on a schedule the case can live with. Divorce timelines and real estate timelines do not naturally line up, and a buyer will not wait indefinitely for a signature. We ask early who has authority to sign, whether a court order governs the sale, and which attorney wants copies of what.

Third, we stay out of the argument. An agent who takes sides loses the ability to get both signatures, which is the only thing that closes a house. Pricing comes from closed sales rather than from either person's hopes. When the two of you disagree on a number, we show the evidence instead of casting a vote.

Finally, the house will be occupied by one of you, lived in by both, or empty. Each of those needs a different showing plan, and we will tell you honestly which one tends to sell faster.

Read next: the full walkthrough of a marital home sale · how a Florida separation sale is handled step by step

Should you sell before or after the divorce is final?

There is no single right answer, and anyone who gives you one without reading your paperwork is guessing. Still, the tradeoffs are predictable enough to describe.

Selling first turns the house into a number. That is often simpler for a settlement, because cash is easy to divide and a house is not. It also ends the argument about who pays the mortgage, the insurance and the roof while the case runs.

Selling afterwards can be cleaner when the agreement already says who gets what. It also helps when one of you needs to stay in the home for a school year. The cost is time, and carrying costs continue the whole while. Insurance, taxes and maintenance do not pause for a case.

Either way, the decision usually belongs to your attorney rather than to us. What we can add is the part they do not have. A current value, a realistic time on market, and an estimate of the net on each path. Then the choice gets made against real figures.

Read next: get a current value for your home · estimate your net proceeds

Selling the marital home or buying out your spouse

A buyout means one person keeps the house and pays the other for their share of the equity. It sounds tidy and sometimes it is. The catch is financing. Whoever stays usually has to refinance in their own name alone. That depends on their income, their credit and what rates are doing, not on what the two of you agreed.

So the honest sequence is this. Get the value first, then find out whether a refinance is actually available, and only then decide whether a buyout beats a sale. Plenty of buyouts collapse at the lender rather than at the negotiating table.

A sale has advantages beyond the cash. It ends the shared liability on the mortgage, which a quitclaim deed does not do. It also removes the risk of one person missing payments on a loan that still carries both names and reaches both credit reports.

If a buyout is your plan, we are glad to give you the value for free and step aside. We would rather be useful once than talk somebody into a listing they do not need.

Read next: weigh a sale against refinancing · compare every way to sell

What the house is worth, and what you would actually keep

Two different numbers get mixed up constantly in a divorce. The first is market value, which is what a buyer will pay. The second is net proceeds, which is what remains after the mortgage payoff, any liens, prorated property taxes, the title and closing costs and the commission.

Only the second number can be divided, and it is always lower than the first. We put both in writing with the assumptions shown. A settlement built on a value rather than on a net figure tends to come apart at closing.

An appraisal and a comparative market analysis are also not the same thing. A court may order an appraisal, and an appraiser is paid to produce a defensible opinion of value on a given day. Our analysis describes what the market is doing right now and what a buyer is likely to offer. When the two disagree, the gap is usually worth understanding rather than arguing about.

If either of you wants an independent analysis as well, ask for it. Having two is reasonable in a contested sale, and we are not offended by it.

Read next: the costs that reduce a seller's net · run your closing costs

When one spouse refuses to sell

This is the most common question we get, and the real answer is a legal one. A Florida court can order the sale of a jointly owned home as part of dividing marital property. It can also set terms about price, listing and the division of proceeds. What it does in your case depends on facts a web page cannot see.

What we can describe is what such an order looks like from the agent's side. It usually names who signs, how the price is set, how reductions happen and sometimes who the listing goes to. Once we have the order we work to it rather than to either party's preference, and that is generally a relief for everybody.

Short of an order, a sale needs both owners on the listing agreement and both on the deed at closing. We will not take a listing from one owner of a jointly titled home and pretend otherwise, because the sale would simply fail at the title company.

If you are at this point, talk to your attorney before you talk to us. Then bring us in, and we will do the part that is ours.

Who chooses the agent in a divorce, and who sets the price

In most divorce sales the two parties pick an agent together, or the settlement agreement names one. Occasionally each side nominates a candidate and they agree on a third. Sometimes the court decides. All four happen.

Price is the same story with higher stakes. If one of you wants out quickly and the other wants top dollar, the listing price becomes a proxy for the whole dispute. The way out is a written pricing plan agreed up front. It sets a starting price and a review date. It also sets a reduction, agreed in advance, if the home has not had an acceptable offer by then.

That single document prevents more fights than anything else we do. Nobody has to concede in the moment, because the decision was made when everyone was calmer.

We will draft it for you. It is not a legal document and it does not replace your settlement agreement, but it gives your attorneys something concrete to attach.

Read next: how a listing price is actually set · what a listing agent is responsible for

Preparing a house nobody wants to spend money on

A divorce sale is the one category where we routinely recommend doing less. Neither party wants to fund repairs that benefit the other, and a disagreement about a quote can stall a listing for weeks.

So we start by separating work that pays for itself from work that does not. Cleaning, decluttering, landscaping and small cosmetic fixes almost always return more than they cost. A new roof, a kitchen or a pool resurfacing usually does not, at least not within the time a case allows.

Where real repairs are needed, selling as it stands is a legitimate choice. Buyers price condition. An honest as-is listing with good photography and full disclosure often beats a half-finished renovation. That is especially true when the work is funded by two people who are barely speaking.

If the home is empty we will talk about staging, or virtual staging, and whether either is worth it at your price point. If one of you still lives there, we will set a showing schedule that respects that.

Read next: repair first or sell as it stands · what an as-is sale means in Florida

Divorce sales with little equity, or none

Not every marital home has money in it. Add the mortgage balance to the cost of selling. If that total is more than the house will bring, no standard sale can close. Somebody would have to bring cash to the table.

There are routes through that. One is a short sale, where the lender agrees to accept less than the full payoff. Another is a loan modification or a repayment plan if one party is staying. A third, in some cases, is waiting. Florida values have moved a great deal in a few years, and the gap may be smaller than you fear.

We will tell you which category you are in before you commit to anything. And we will say plainly if the answer is that no sale works right now. That is better information than an optimistic listing price.

If you are also behind on payments, deal with that first. The clock there is driven by the lender rather than by the divorce, and it moves faster than most people expect.

Read next: how a lender-approved sale works for the seller · options when payments are behind

Rentals, second homes and property owned before the marriage

A marital home is often not the only property in the case. Rentals, a condo at the coast, vacant land and a home one spouse owned before the marriage all come up, and each has its own wrinkle.

A tenant-occupied rental cannot simply be emptied for showings, because the lease runs with the property and the tenant keeps rights the sale does not cancel. A second home may be treated differently for tax on sale. Property owned before the marriage may be treated differently again when assets are divided, which is squarely a question for your attorney rather than for us.

What we handle is the selling part of each one. The value, the marketing, and the tenant coordination where there is a lease. Then the sequencing with title, so everything closes in the right order.

Tell us about every property at the start rather than after the first one is under contract. The order you sell them in sometimes matters.

Read next: selling a rental with tenants in place · selling a Florida property from another state