A statewide licence and a local question

Straight answers first

What I will not claim about Palmetto is local knowledge I have not earned. I can read the same public records anybody can, order the same title work, and I know how a Florida contract behaves because that part does not change by county. What does change by county is who returns calls, which inspectors are booked out for a month, how a particular association is run, and what a listing has to look like to be taken seriously. That is learned by being there, and I would rather say so than perform it.

What Florida adds to a transaction

• 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.

Practical things, in order of how often they bite

Where there is an association, the association sets part of the calendar and nobody can hurry it. Approval processes, estoppel letters and the fee that comes with them are all statutory or contractual, all predictable, and all capable of adding weeks when nobody orders them at the start. I order them at the start. It is not clever, it is just the difference between a closing that moves and one that waits.

Other cities in Florida

• West Palm Beach
• St. Cloud
• Lake Wales
• Margate
• Royal Palm Beach
• Lakeland
• Lakewood Ranch
• Avon Park
• All of Florida