Florida is my licence. Ithaca is a referral.

The part most sites leave out

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.

How the introduction gets made

What a Florida owner does not expect

• Licensing in this industry is granted state by state, not federally. A Florida licence carries no authority in New York, and a New York licence carries none in Florida — which is why an introduction, rather than representation, is the only honest offer on this page.
• Leaving Florida means picking up a state income tax in New York. 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.
• Expect an attorney at the closing table in New York. 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.
• New York 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. New York 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.

Where I stop, on purpose

I will not read your New York contract and tell you it looks fine. I do not know that state’s standard form, its local addenda, or what its courts have made of the wording, and a Florida licensee’s reassurance about a contract in another state is worth precisely nothing. Put it to the agent, and where the sums are significant, put it to an attorney licensed where the property is.

What I would ask if I were you

• Who actually answers the phone — you, or someone on your team? Ask early; the answer changes the whole relationship.
• What is on the survey or title work here that a Florida buyer would not think to look for?
• 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?
• Who handles the closing here — an attorney, a title company, an escrow agent — and when do they get involved?

What I can do directly, without an introduction

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 Ithaca, 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 York

• Woodbury
• Harriman
• Central Valley
• Montgomery
• New Windsor
• Beacon
• Fishkill
• Wappingers Falls
• All of New York