Leaving Florida for Houston, TX

Before you go: the structural differences

• 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.
• Texas 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 Texas generally run through a title or escrow company rather than requiring an attorney as a matter of course — structurally closer to what you are used to in Florida 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.
• Neither the homestead exemption nor the Save Our Homes cap travels with you out of Florida. Texas 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 my licence stops

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 process, in three steps

Where I stop, on purpose

I will not tell you what to offer or what to ask in Houston. Pricing is the advisory half of brokerage, it rests on evidence I have no proper access to, and giving it where I hold no licence would be the precise thing this page says I do not do. When you want that answer, take it from the licensee I introduce you to, in writing, with the comparable properties attached to it.

What I would ask if I were you

• What are the property tax mechanics — how is assessment set, when does it reset after a sale, and what exemptions exist?
• 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.
• 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.
• If my timeline slips by six weeks, what happens to the agreement I am about to sign with you, and what happens to any money already committed?

What I can do directly, without an introduction

There are two possible orders and they carry different risks. Sell first and you know your number but may need somewhere to live; buy first and you have somewhere to live but two sets of carrying costs until the Florida property closes. Which suits you is a conversation for you, your lender and me, and it is far better had before you are emotionally attached to a particular house in Houston than after.

Other cities in Texas

• Abilene
• Port Arthur
• Edinburg
• College Station
• San Angelo
• Harlingen
• Victoria
• Tyler
• All of Texas