Leaving Florida for Danbury, CT

Starting with what I cannot do

You have probably already found three pages promising Connecticut results from people who have never set foot there. This is not one of them. I hold one licence, it is Florida's, and everything below is built on that being true rather than on hoping you do not check.

Boundaries worth naming

I will not tell you that you need to move quickly. I have no basis for saying it about a market I do not work, timing is not something a licensee should be selling anybody, and urgency manufactured by the person who benefits from your decision is the oldest device in this industry. If your timeline is tight, that will be because of your circumstances, not because of my advice.

From this page to a licensed agent

Before you go: the structural differences

• Licensing in this industry is granted state by state, not federally. A Florida licence carries no authority in Connecticut, and a Connecticut 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 Connecticut. 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.
• Expect an attorney at the closing table in Connecticut. Florida closings typically run through a title company instead, so the cast of characters, the fee structure and the sequence of the last two weeks will all look unfamiliar.
• Connecticut shares Florida's coastal exposure and, with it, a named-storm deductible regime in its property insurance market. The mechanism will be familiar. Do not assume the premium will be.
• Neither the homestead exemption nor the Save Our Homes cap travels with you out of Florida. Connecticut 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.

Questions I would put to them myself

• If I am buying before I have seen the property in person, what will you do on my behalf and what will you refuse to do? A clear answer to the second half of that question is worth more than the first.
• How do you handle it when you represent both sides of a transaction, and what does Connecticut law allow there?
• How many transactions have you closed in Danbury in the last twelve months, and how many were on the side of the table I am on?
• When an inspection turns something up, what is the local practice — a price reduction, a credit at closing, or the seller arranging the work — and who conducts that negotiation on my behalf?

Selling here, buying there

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 Danbury, 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 Connecticut

• West Haven
• Waterbury
• Norwich
• Bristol
• Stamford
• Shelton
• Meriden
• Hartford
• All of Connecticut