Before you choose an agent in Laguna Hills, read this

Three steps, and what each one commits you to

First, the limitation

Two closings in two states means two contracts, two sets of local custom and two lenders’ calendars, and no single person has authority over both. What can be arranged is that each side knows what the other is waiting on. If I am handling a Florida sale for you, I will tell your California agent what my dates look like and I will ask for theirs. Where those calendars are never introduced to each other, the result is usually a rent-back nobody planned for or interim financing nobody budgeted for.

The mechanics change at the state line

• Real estate licensing is state by state. An agent licensed in Florida cannot represent you in California, and a California licensee cannot represent you in Florida.
• Leaving Florida means picking up a state income tax in California. Model it against the housing number before you settle on a price range, and take the actual arithmetic to a tax adviser rather than to any real estate agent, including me.
• California is a community property state. How a married couple may take title, and what happens to cost basis on the first death, follow different rules than in Florida. Raise it with your attorney before closing, not after.
• Closings in California generally run through a title or escrow company rather than requiring an attorney as a matter of course — structurally closer to what you are used to in Florida than not.
• Neither the homestead exemption nor the Save Our Homes cap travels with you out of Florida. California sets its own assessment rules, its own exemptions and its own limit on how fast a bill can rise — confirm the specifics with the local taxing authority rather than assuming a Florida analogue exists.

What to ask the agent I introduce you to

• How do you handle it when you represent both sides of a transaction, and what does California law allow there?
• 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?
• What is the insurance picture on the kind of property I am looking at, and who should I be calling for a real quote?
• 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?

What this page is not offering

I will not treat the introduction as the end of my involvement when that suits me and the beginning of it when that suits me better. What I owe you afterwards is honesty and a returned telephone call. What I cannot offer is supervision of another brokerage’s agent, because I have no authority over them at all. I would rather draw that line now than have you rely on something I am unable to deliver.

One move, two transactions

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 Laguna Hills, 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 California

• Vacaville
• Davis
• Woodland
• West Sacramento
• Roseville
• Rocklin
• Lincoln
• Auburn
• All of California