Florida is my licence. Edison is a referral.

What I do once you call

First, the limitation

One thing to check before you let me introduce anyone. If your move is being paid for by an employer, or you are using a benefit programme attached to your work or your service, read that programme’s terms first. Some of them require you to register with them before you speak to any agent and will not pay out if you have already committed to someone. That is not a rule I control and it is not a reason to avoid a referral — it is a reason to make one telephone call in the right order.

Things that surprise people moving out of Florida

• Real estate licensing is state by state. An agent licensed in Florida cannot represent you in New Jersey, and a New Jersey licensee cannot represent you in Florida.
• New Jersey 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.
• Expect an attorney at the closing table in New Jersey. Florida closings typically run through a title company instead, so the cast of characters, the fee structure and the sequence of the last two weeks will all look unfamiliar.
• Like Florida, New Jersey 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. New Jersey 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.

The questions that tell you who you are dealing with

• If I am buying before I have seen the property in person, what will you do on my behalf and what will you refuse to do? A clear answer to the second half of that question is worth more than the first.
• When an inspection turns something up, what is the local practice — a price reduction, a credit at closing, or the seller arranging the work — and who conducts that negotiation on my behalf?
• 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 New Jersey, and what do buyers here commonly write into the contract to deal with it before it happens?

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.

If Florida is the other half of this 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 Edison, 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 New Jersey

• Hoboken
• Atlantic City
• Cherry Hill
• Princeton
• Newark
• Jersey City
• Paterson
• Elizabeth
• All of New Jersey