Kenner is outside my licence — here is the useful part

Things that surprise people moving out of Florida

• Real estate licensing is state by state. An agent licensed in Florida cannot represent you in Louisiana, and a Louisiana licensee cannot represent you in Florida.
• Louisiana is a non-disclosure state: sale prices are not public record. Researching value works differently there than in Florida, where documentary stamps on the deed make the price effectively public. Your Louisiana agent will explain what that changes.
• Louisiana levies a tax on income; Florida does not. It is a change worth modelling against the housing cost before you commit to a price range, and it is a question for your own tax adviser rather than for any real estate agent.
• Louisiana is a community property state. How a married couple may take title, and what happens to cost basis on the first death, follow different rules than in Florida. Raise it with your attorney before closing, not after.
• Closings in Louisiana 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.
• Like Florida, Louisiana has coastal exposure and a named-storm deductible regime in its property insurance market. The mechanism will feel familiar; the numbers will not necessarily.
• Florida’s homestead exemption and its Save Our Homes assessment cap do not follow you. Louisiana has its own property tax treatment, its own exemptions, and its own rules on how fast an assessment may rise. Confirm the specifics with the local taxing authority.

First, the limitation

Buying at a distance is a different job from buying at home, and the licensee who suits it is not necessarily the one with the largest sign presence. Somebody has to walk the property with a phone in their hand, describe what is behind the fence rather than what is in the photographs, and be willing to say the thing that costs them the sale. That is what I am screening for when I make these calls. I cannot do it for you in Louisiana, and I would not trust a page that told you otherwise.

How the introduction gets made

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 are deposits handled in Louisiana — who holds the money, what amount is customary, and at what point does it stop being refundable? Get that answer before you write the cheque rather than after.
• Who actually answers the phone — you, or someone on your team? Ask early; the answer changes the whole relationship.
• 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.
• Have you worked with buyers who were selling in another state at the same time? Ask for the mechanics of how they handled it rather than for a reassurance that they have.

The Florida side of a two-state move

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 Kenner, 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 Louisiana

• Baton Rouge
• Monroe
• Ruston
• Lafayette
• Houma
• New Orleans
• Bossier City
• Slidell
• All of Louisiana