How it works, in both directions
Step 01
If you are buying
Tell us the corridor, the water you want and what the purchase is anchored to. We will tell you what is listed, and what we can document that is not. Anything we cannot document, we will say so rather than hint at it.
Step 02
If you are selling privately
A decision to keep a property off the MLS is yours, and it is made in writing after a conversation about what it costs. A smaller audience is a smaller buyer pool, and that trade should be understood before it is made rather than after.
Step 03
What the MLS rules require
Under the Clear Cooperation Policy a listing that is publicly marketed must be submitted to the MLS within one business day. Public marketing includes yard signs, social posts and public websites. The exemptions are narrow, each one is the seller's choice, and each one requires a signed disclosure recording what the seller understands they are delaying or waiving. We follow them rather than working around them.
Step 04
Where it goes next
If a property matches, the ordinary process starts: written representation, survey and title, inspection and diligence. Off-market changes how a property is found. It changes nothing about how it is bought.
What off-market actually means
Pre-market
A property being prepared for sale that has not yet gone live. Photography, survey and disclosures are often still in progress. The seller has decided to sell; the listing simply has not launched.
Seller-directed, and filed either way
A seller who does not want immediate public marketing has two routes, and both are filed with the MLS. A delayed-marketing listing is visible to other MLS participants while public syndication waits for a period the local MLS sets. An office exclusive is not shared beyond this firm at all. Both require the seller's signed acknowledgement of what is being delayed or given up.
Quietly held
An owner who would sell at the right number but has not committed to a sale. Nothing is listed, nothing is promised, and any approach is a conversation rather than a transaction.
One standard for everyone
Anyone who asks is told what is available on the same terms, whoever they are and whenever they ask. The only limit on what we can share about a particular property is what its seller has authorized us to say.
Where this applies
Along the Atlantic barrier islands and the riverfront corridors of Brevard and Indian River County, from Cocoa Beach and Merritt Island south through Melbourne Beach and Indialantic to Vero Beach and the Town of Orchid.
Above roughly a million dollars, a seller's request for privacy is routine rather than unusual, and the timeline a property reaches the market on is more often a seller's decision than a market condition.
Who this suits
Right fit if
- Buyers who have looked at what is listed and want to know what else exists
- Owners weighing a sale who want the conversation before the commitment
- Sellers with a genuine privacy requirement, who want the trade explained rather than assumed
- Anyone who has been told a property is unavailable and wants that checked
Probably not us if
- Anyone looking for a way around MLS rules, which is not something this brokerage will assist with
- Buyers expecting a guarantee that something suitable is currently available off-market. Sometimes nothing is
- Sellers who want maximum price and maximum exposure, for whom a public listing is usually the better instrument
