Leaving Florida for Pueblo, CO

What a Florida owner does not expect

• Licensing in this industry is granted state by state, not federally. A Florida licence carries no authority in Colorado, and a Colorado licence carries none in Florida — which is why an introduction, rather than representation, is the only honest offer on this page.
• Leaving Florida means picking up a state income tax in Colorado. 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.
• Closings in Colorado 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. Colorado 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.

How the introduction gets made

The part most sites leave out

Most of what goes wrong in a long-distance move goes wrong at the handoff: nobody owns the introduction, so you end up cold-calling names off a search results page. I would rather own it. I cannot be your Colorado agent, but I can be the person who found them and who you can call when you want a second read.

What I would ask if I were you

• 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.
• How many transactions have you closed in Pueblo in the last twelve months, and how many were on the side of the table I am on?

Boundaries worth naming

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.

What I can do directly, without an introduction

A tenanted Florida property does not empty because you have decided to move. The lease runs with the property, the tenant holds rights until it ends, and both of those facts sit in the middle of your closing date whether or not they are convenient. That is Florida work and it is mine to do, but it wants a start measured in months rather than weeks, so raise it on the first call rather than the fourth.

Other cities in Colorado

• Broomfield
• Grand Junction
• Loveland
• Longmont
• Greeley
• Boulder
• Centennial
• Westminster
• All of Colorado