A statewide licence and a local question

Plainly, then

You will find agents who list every city in Florida and let you assume they are in all of them. I would rather set out the actual position. Haines City is inside my licence and outside my weekly routine. Depending on what you are doing — a straightforward sale, a relocation, an investment purchase — that either matters a great deal or barely at all, and it is worth two minutes on the phone to work out which.

What tends to decide a Florida closing

• Windstorm and flood are underwritten separately from the main policy across much of Florida. Price them on the specific address before you are under contract, not after.
• For condominium buildings of three storeys or more at the relevant age, Florida requires milestone structural inspections and a structural integrity reserve study. Both change assessments and financeability. Read them before waiving anything.
• The homestead exemption reduces taxable value on a Florida primary residence, and the Save Our Homes cap limits how fast the assessed value rises afterwards. Portability may carry a benefit from a prior Florida homestead. Your county property appraiser is the authority, not your agent.
• Title in Florida is customarily handled through a title company rather than an attorney as a matter of course, which changes who you call when a question arises mid-contract.

Where Florida transactions get complicated

The survey is where the story of a property is usually kept. Encroachments, an easement nobody mentioned, a fence that has been in the wrong place for twenty years, an addition that crosses a setback — none of that appears in the listing and all of it can affect title, insurance or your ability to do what you were planning to do. Order it early enough that its findings can still be negotiated.

Other cities in Florida

• St. Petersburg
• Hialeah
• Tallahassee
• Port St Lucie
• Cape Coral
• Fort Myers
• Pembroke Pines
• Hollywood
• All of Florida