Boise, Idaho — an introduction, not a pitch

From this page to a licensed agent

Starting with what I cannot do

You have probably already found three pages promising Idaho 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.

The limits, stated outright

I will not take a payment from you, and could not lawfully do so if I wanted to. A Florida sales associate may be compensated only through his registered broker, so any fee here is paid by the receiving brokerage to The Keyes Company out of a commission earned only if a transaction closes. There is no invoice at the end of this and no version of it in which you are billed for an introduction.

Florida to Idaho: what is genuinely different

• Real estate licensing is state by state. An agent licensed in Florida cannot represent you in Idaho, and a Idaho licensee cannot represent you in Florida.
• Sale prices in Idaho are not a matter of public record — it is one of a minority of non-disclosure states. Coming from Florida, where documentary stamps on the deed make the number effectively public, expect to lean far harder on your agent for comparables than you are used to.
• Leaving Florida means picking up a state income tax in Idaho. 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.
• Title works differently for married couples in Idaho, which is a community property state. It affects how you may hold the property and what happens to cost basis on a first death. That is a conversation for an attorney in Idaho, and it is better had before closing than after.
• Closings in Idaho are generally handled through a title or escrow company rather than by an attorney as a matter of course, which is closer to the Florida pattern than not.
• Neither the homestead exemption nor the Save Our Homes cap travels with you out of Florida. Idaho 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 worth asking on that first call

• What is on the survey or title work here that a Florida buyer would not think to look for?
• If I need to back out, what actually happens to my deposit under a standard Idaho contract?
• How do you prefer to communicate, how quickly do you normally reply, and who covers your clients when you are away? Settle that in the first week and most of the friction in a long-distance transaction disappears.
• 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.

One move, two transactions

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 Boise, 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 Idaho

• Nampa
• Rexburg
• Twin Falls
• Pocatello
• Meridian
• Lewiston
• Coeur Dalene
• Idaho Falls
• All of Idaho