South Kings Town is outside my licence — here is the useful part

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 Rhode Island, and a Rhode Island 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 Rhode Island. 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 Rhode Island. 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, Rhode Island has coastal exposure and a named-storm deductible regime in its property insurance market. The mechanism will feel familiar; the numbers will not necessarily.
• Neither the homestead exemption nor the Save Our Homes cap travels with you out of Florida. Rhode Island 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.

The process, in three steps

What this page is, and what it is not

You may already have filled in a form somewhere and had four calls inside ten minutes. That is a different product from this one, and the difference is not politeness — it is how many people received your details and what they paid to receive them. Here your details go to one named brokerage, with a written referral behind them, after I have spoken to the person at the other end and asked the questions you would not think to ask a stranger. That is slower. It is meant to be.

The questions that tell you who you are dealing with

• What is on the survey or title work here that a Florida buyer would not think to look for?
• If I need to back out, what actually happens to my deposit under a standard Rhode Island contract?
• 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.
• Do you work alone or as part of a team? If it is a team, ask who writes the offer, who attends the inspection, and who I will actually be speaking to at nine o’clock on a Tuesday morning.

Boundaries worth naming

I will not sit between you and your Rhode Island agent during a negotiation. Two voices on one side of a deal is how positions get muddled and how something ends up conceded twice. Once you are in a transaction they advise and you decide. If you want a second read from me on how something is worded, ask for it — but it will be a private conversation, not a message relayed to the other side of the table.

One move, two transactions

There is a version of this where I am not a referral at all. If the property you are leaving is in Florida, I can list and sell it as your agent under The Keyes Company — that half is squarely my licence — while the South Kings Town side goes to the licensee I introduce you to. Say so early, because the two timelines have to be planned against each other.

Other cities in Rhode Island

• Newport
• Warwick
• Central Falls
• Cranston
• West Warwick
• Pawtucket
• North Kings Town
• East Providence
• All of Rhode Island