Leaving Florida for Frisco, TX

What actually happens next

Why you are reading this

Two closings in two states means two contracts, two sets of local custom and two lenders’ calendars, and no single person has authority over both. What can be arranged is that each side knows what the other is waiting on. If I am handling a Florida sale for you, I will tell your Texas agent what my dates look like and I will ask for theirs. Where those calendars are never introduced to each other, the result is usually a rent-back nobody planned for or interim financing nobody budgeted for.

What I will not do

I will not treat the introduction as the end of my involvement when that suits me and the beginning of it when that suits me better. What I owe you afterwards is honesty and a returned telephone call. What I cannot offer is supervision of another brokerage’s agent, because I have no authority over them at all. I would rather draw that line now than have you rely on something I am unable to deliver.

Structural differences worth knowing before you go

• Licensing in this industry is granted state by state, not federally. A Florida licence carries no authority in Texas, and a Texas licence carries none in Florida — which is why an introduction, rather than representation, is the only honest offer on this page.
• Texas 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 Texas agent will explain what that changes.
• Like Florida, Texas has no broad-based tax on wage income. That removes one of the variables people most often assume they are trading away when they leave Florida.
• Title works differently for married couples in Texas, which is a community property state. It affects how you may hold the property and what happens to cost basis on a first death. That is a conversation for an attorney in Texas, and it is better had before closing than after.
• Closings in Texas 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.
• Texas 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.
• Florida’s homestead exemption and its Save Our Homes assessment cap do not follow you. Texas 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.

What to ask before you sign anything

• 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 Texas, and what do buyers here commonly write into the contract to deal with it before it happens?

Selling here, buying there

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 Frisco 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 Texas

• Dallas
• San Antonio
• Houston
• Burleson
• Rowlett
• Mansfield
• Pflugerville
• Georgetown
• All of Texas