Register your agent before you visit a Miami sales gallery

By Sam Razavi · NEO Remarketing LLC · Published November 1, 2026

Short answer: if you want your own agent on a Miami new-development purchase, bring that agent in before your first visit, call or online inquiry with the sales gallery. Developers set their own terms for working with buyers’ brokers, and those terms often turn on who registered you first. The team in the gallery works for the developer. Registering early is how you make sure someone in the process works for you.

Who the sales gallery works for

A sales gallery is staffed by the developer’s own team or by a brokerage the developer hires. Florida law reflects that. When an owner sells new residential units it built, and the sales office, signage or badges make clear that the staff act for the owner, those staff do not have to give you the brokerage-relationship notice an agent normally provides before showing property (section 475.278(5)(b), Florida Statutes). They can be knowledgeable and helpful, but their job is to sell the developer’s inventory on the developer’s terms.

Why the order of events matters

Developers that work with buyers’ brokers do it under written terms they set themselves. Those terms commonly require the broker to register the buyer, sometimes in writing before any contact and sometimes in person at the first visit. If you have already walked in, called or filled out a project’s web form as an unrepresented buyer, a broker you bring in later may not be recognized on that project. The fix is simple: ask your agent to get the project’s terms in writing and to register you before you make any contact.

Sign a written buyer agreement first

Since August 17, 2024, agents who participate in a REALTOR®-affiliated multiple listing service must have a written agreement with you before touring a home with you, in person or by live video. The agreement must state how much the brokerage will be paid, or how that amount is determined, in terms that are objectively ascertainable rather than open-ended. The brokerage cannot receive more than that amount from any source, and the agreement must say that broker commissions are not set by law and are fully negotiable (National Association of REALTORS®).

A developer may offer compensation to cooperating brokers under its own terms; your agreement spells out how that works for you. In Florida, the agreement also sets the type of relationship: a licensee is presumed to be a transaction broker unless a single-agent relationship, or no brokerage relationship, is established in writing (section 475.278(1)(b)).

What your own agent does that the gallery won’t

• Compares projects side by side, including ones a given gallery does not sell: floor plans, line positions, views, association fees and delivery dates.
• Reads the developer’s contract with you. The developer writes it. The deposit schedule and escrow, the estimated completion date and the developer’s extension rights, assignment rules, what happens if the project changes or runs late, and each side’s remedies on default are all set there.
• Gets promises in writing. Florida requires a developer’s contract to state on its first page that oral representations cannot be relied upon (section 718.503(1)(a)). If a finish, view, parking space or date matters to you, it belongs in the contract or the offering documents.
• Tracks your cancellation window and the documents that start it.
• Brings financing in early. Deposits are committed years before a lender underwrites the loan at completion, so the financing review belongs before the first deposit, not after.

Your 15-day right to cancel

Florida gives buyers of a residential condominium unit from a developer a statutory right to cancel by written notice within 15 days after signing the contract and receiving all of the documents the developer must deliver. For larger buildings that means the prospectus with its exhibits. Otherwise it is a list that includes the declaration, bylaws, estimated operating budget, floor and plot plans and the form of contract, plus, where they apply, the milestone-inspection summary, structural integrity reserve study and turnover inspection report, or a statement that they are not yet completed or not required. A new 15-day window opens if the developer delivers an amendment that materially changes the offering in a way that is adverse to you. Any waiver of the right has no effect, and the right ends at closing (section 718.503, Florida Statutes).

Two practical points. The clock does not start until you have both signed and received every required document, so keep the signed receipt for documents with your contract. And the window is short, so read the documents with your agent and your attorney as they arrive rather than at the end.

The order to do it in

1. Choose your agent and sign a written buyer agreement.
2. Your agent gets the project’s terms for cooperating brokers in writing and registers you before any contact. Keep the confirmation.
3. Visit the gallery together, or as the project’s terms require.
4. Take the contract and documents away to review. Don’t sign a reservation agreement or contract on the first visit.
5. Calendar your 15-day window from the date you have both signed and received every required document, and have a Florida real estate attorney review the contract within that window.

Before you go, our pre-construction buyer checklist lists the questions we ask on every project, and the Miami new developments guide covers the neighborhoods and what we compare.

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General information, not legal advice. Developer terms differ by project, and a Florida real estate attorney should review any contract before you rely on it. NEO Remarketing LLC · FL #CQ1065196 · CA DRE #01933447.