Newark is outside my licence — here is the useful part

Starting with what I cannot do

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 Delaware 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.

From this page to a licensed agent

Things that surprise people moving out of Florida

• Licensing in this industry is granted state by state, not federally. A Florida licence carries no authority in Delaware, and a Delaware 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 Delaware. 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 Delaware. 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.
• Delaware 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. Delaware 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.

The limits, stated outright

I will not send your details to several agents at once to see which one bites. One introduction, to one named brokerage, after a conversation with the person at the other end. If it turns out to be the wrong fit I would rather go back and make a second introduction than have set four strangers racing each other with your telephone number.

The questions that tell you who you are dealing with

• How do you handle it when you represent both sides of a transaction, and what does Delaware law allow there?
• What is on the survey or title work here that a Florida buyer would not think to look for?
• Do you work alone or as part of a team? If it is a team, ask who writes the offer, who attends the inspection, and who I will actually be speaking to at nine o’clock on a Tuesday morning.
• 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.

Where I stop being a referral and start being your agent

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 Delaware

• Elkton
• Glasgow
• Middletown
• Wilmington
• Seaford
• Hockessin
• Bear
• Dover
• All of Delaware