Florida is my licence. Ruston is a referral.

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.

Where my licence stops

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

Boundaries worth naming

I will not promise you an outcome. Not a price, not a timeline, not a standard of service from somebody else’s employee. What I can give you is what I asked the agent, what they said, and anything in the conversation that gave me pause. Anyone offering more certainty than that about a transaction in a state they are not licensed in is describing a wish rather than a service.

The questions that tell you who you are dealing with

• 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 a shortfall on the appraisal usually handled in Louisiana, and what do buyers here commonly write into the contract to deal with it before it happens?
• If the property is listed by your own brokerage, what happens to my representation, what does Louisiana law permit in that situation, and what exactly would you be asking me to sign?
• How do closing costs divide by local custom, which of those items are genuinely negotiable, and which are simply the way it is done here?

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 Ruston, 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

• Lafayette
• Baton Rouge
• Hammond
• Metairie
• Alexandria
• Bossier City
• Lake Charles
• Shreveport
• All of Louisiana