Leaving Florida for Lafayette, LA

Before you go: the structural differences

• Licensing in this industry is granted state by state, not federally. A Florida licence carries no authority in Louisiana, and a Louisiana licence carries none in Florida — which is why an introduction, rather than representation, is the only honest offer on this page.
• 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.
• Leaving Florida means picking up a state income tax in Louisiana. 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.
• 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 generally run through a title or escrow company rather than requiring an attorney as a matter of course — structurally closer to what you are used to in Florida than not.
• Louisiana 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. Louisiana 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.

One licence, one state

After the introduction I am not in your transaction. I do not supervise the agent, I do not see your contract, and I have no authority to intervene when something goes wrong — that authority belongs to their broker and to the body that licenses agents in Louisiana. What I do keep is the telephone. If something reads badly three weeks in, tell me. I would far rather make an awkward call to another brokerage than find out at closing that the introduction was the wrong one.

From this page to a licensed agent

Where I stop, on purpose

I will not tell you that you need to move quickly. I have no basis for saying it about a market I do not work, timing is not something a licensee should be selling anybody, and urgency manufactured by the person who benefits from your decision is the oldest device in this industry. If your timeline is tight, that will be because of your circumstances, not because of my advice.

Questions I would put to them myself

• What is the local practice on possession — do I get the keys at closing, or do sellers here commonly stay on for a period afterwards, and how is that documented?
• How do you handle it when you represent both sides of a transaction, and what does Louisiana law allow there?
• Which documents will you ask me to sign at the very start, what does each one commit me to, and how long does it run? Ask for them by email so you can read them somewhere other than at a kitchen table.
• How is your compensation structured, and what is negotiable about it? Broker compensation is not set by law in any state.

Selling here, buying there

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 Lafayette, 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

• Kenner
• Monroe
• Houma
• Slidell
• Hammond
• Baton Rouge
• Lake Charles
• Bossier City
• All of Louisiana