Most sellers we sit down with have a number in their head for what their home is worth, and almost no number at all for what it costs to sell it. That gap is where the stress comes from. So here is the plain version, for Florida and for Alabama, at the price points we actually work in every week.
Start with the net, not the price
The number that matters is not what your home sells for. It is what lands in your account on closing day. A seller net sheet works backward from the sale price through every deduction, and any agent should hand you one before you sign a listing agreement. If nobody has offered you one, ask. It costs nothing and it changes how you think about every offer you get.
Across both states, sellers generally plan on somewhere between 7% and 10% of the sale price going out the door. Most of that is commission. The rest is title, taxes, prorations, and whatever the inspection turns up.
Commission
Commission is negotiable, it has always been negotiable, and since the 2024 rule changes it has to be spelled out in writing before you list. What is worth understanding is that the listing fee and any amount offered to the buyer’s agent are now two separate conversations. A seller can offer buyer-agent compensation, or decline to, or offer a flat amount, and a buyer can ask for it as a concession in their offer instead.
None of that is theoretical at closing. On a $300,000 sale, a single percentage point is $3,000. Ask your agent what they charge, what they do for it, and what happens to that number if the home sells in the first week.
Florida: doc stamps and the title question
Florida charges a documentary stamp tax on the deed of $0.70 per $100 of the sale price statewide, with Miami-Dade on its own schedule at $0.60 plus a surtax on anything that is not a single-family residence. On a $425,000 sale — right at the July 2026 statewide median for single-family homes — that is roughly $2,975. It is usually the seller’s line item.
Then there is title insurance, and this is the part that surprises people who have moved from another state: in Florida, who pays for the owner’s title policy is customary, not statutory, and it varies by county. In much of the state the seller pays and picks the closing agent. In Broward, Miami-Dade, Sarasota, and a handful of others, it commonly falls to the buyer. It is negotiable everywhere. On a mid-range home the policy runs into the four figures, so it is worth knowing which side of that line your county sits on before you price anything.
Alabama: cheaper on paper, different at the table
Alabama’s deed recordation tax is $0.50 per $500 of value — a tenth of Florida’s rate. On the $287,750 July 2026 statewide median that is about $288. Mortgage recordation runs $0.15 per $100 of the loan, but that is the buyer’s side.
The bigger structural difference is that Alabama is an attorney-closing state. A licensed attorney handles the closing rather than a title company alone, and their fee is part of the settlement. It is not expensive relative to Florida’s stamp tax, but it is a name on the sheet that Florida sellers will not recognize.
The costs nobody puts on the brochure
- Property tax prorations. You pay for the days you owned the home this year. Florida bills in arrears, so at a summer closing you are typically handing the buyer a credit for months already used.
- HOA and condo estoppel fees. If there is an association, someone has to produce an estoppel letter, and Florida caps what they can charge for it. Condo sellers should also expect questions about reserves and any special assessment on the horizon — buyers and their lenders are asking now in a way they were not three years ago.
- Repairs from the inspection. Roof age and water heaters are where deals actually wobble in both states. Knowing your roof’s age before you list is worth more than any staging decision you will make.
- Seller concessions. With 30-year rates sitting around 6.65%, a lot of buyers would rather have $6,000 toward a rate buydown than $6,000 off the price. Budget for the possibility.
- Payoff, not balance. Your mortgage payoff includes interest through the closing date and any recording fee for the release. It is always a little more than the number on your statement.
A worked example
Say a $300,000 home in the Florida Panhandle, owned free of any HOA, selling with a 5.5% total commission and the seller covering the owner’s title policy and doc stamps.
Commission runs $16,500. Doc stamps come in near $2,100. Title, settlement fee, and recording land somewhere around $2,300. Add a $1,500 tax proration and $2,000 in inspection repairs and you are at roughly $24,400 — about 8.1% of the price. Net before mortgage payoff, call it $275,600.
Every one of those numbers moves with your county, your negotiation, and your roof. That is exactly why the net sheet exists.
What to do before you list
Get the net sheet. Get the roof’s age and the water heater’s age in writing. If there is an association, request the estoppel and the reserve study early rather than during the inspection period. And ask your agent to walk you through the last three comparable sales in your immediate area, not the county — county medians are a headline, not a valuation.
Selling a home should feel as personal as a handshake, whatever the price on the sign. If you want a net sheet run on your own address in Florida or Alabama, we are glad to put one together with no obligation attached to it.