Fairbanks is outside my licence — here is the useful part

Why you are reading this

A referral fee is not a finder’s fee and it is not something you pay. It is a share of the commission the Alaska brokerage earns on a transaction it closes, paid across to The Keyes Company under an agreement signed between the two firms before you are ever introduced. Nothing is added to your closing statement, and nothing arises at all unless a transaction completes. I set this out early because the word “referral” has been used to describe several quite different arrangements, and you are entitled to know which one you are being offered.

Where I stop, on purpose

I will not read your Alaska contract and tell you it looks fine. I do not know that state’s standard form, its local addenda, or what its courts have made of the wording, and a Florida licensee’s reassurance about a contract in another state is worth precisely nothing. Put it to the agent, and where the sums are significant, put it to an attorney licensed where the property is.

How the introduction gets made

Things that surprise people moving out of Florida

• Real estate licensing is state by state. An agent licensed in Florida cannot represent you in Alaska, and a Alaska licensee cannot represent you in Florida.
• Alaska is a non-disclosure state: sale prices are not public record. Researching value works differently there than in Florida, where documentary stamps on the deed make the price effectively public. Your Alaska agent will explain what that changes.
• Alaska joins Florida in having no broad-based tax on wage income, so that particular line in the relocation spreadsheet does not move. Most of the other lines will.
• Closings in Alaska are generally handled through a title or escrow company rather than by an attorney as a matter of course, which is closer to the Florida pattern than not.
• Florida’s homestead exemption and its Save Our Homes assessment cap do not follow you. Alaska has its own property tax treatment, its own exemptions, and its own rules on how fast an assessment may rise. Confirm the specifics with the local taxing authority.

The questions that tell you who you are dealing with

• Can I sign remotely — electronically, or by post — or does something have to happen in person? If I am still in Florida on the day, what does that change?
• If my timeline slips by six weeks, what happens to the agreement I am about to sign with you, and what happens to any money already committed?
• What is the local practice on possession — do I get the keys at closing, or do sellers here commonly stay on for a period afterwards, and how is that documented?
• Have you worked with buyers who were selling in another state at the same time? Ask for the mechanics of how they handled it rather than for a reassurance that they have.

The Florida side of a two-state move

Sometimes the Florida property is not the one you live in. A second home, an inherited house, a unit that has been let for years — each of those sells differently and each carries paperwork that has to be in order before it can go on the market at all. If one of them is attached to your move to Fairbanks, that part sits squarely inside my licence, and it is worth starting early, because the documents take longer than the marketing does.

Other cities in Alaska

• Kenai
• Palmer
• Bethel
• Unalaska
• Anchorage
• Juneau
• Wasilla
• Sitka
• All of Alaska