Lubbock is outside my licence — here is the useful part

Why you are reading this

People sometimes ask me what they should offer in Lubbock, and I will not answer. Not because the question is difficult, but because answering it is the advisory half of brokerage, and doing that where I hold no licence is the precise thing this page says I do not do. It is also a protection for you. A number from someone who has not stood in the property and does not work the area is worth nothing, however confidently it is delivered.

What changes when you leave Florida

• 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 I stop, on purpose

I will not sit between you and your Texas 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.

Three steps, and what each one commits you to

The questions that tell you who you are dealing with

• What are the property tax mechanics — how is assessment set, when does it reset after a sale, and what exemptions exist?
• What is the insurance picture on the kind of property I am looking at, and who should I be calling for a real quote?
• 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 Texas contract?

Where I stop being a referral and start being your agent

Worth asking yourself before you call: is there a Florida house in this? If so, the referral is only half the conversation. The other half is a Florida listing, which is my actual job, and coordinating the two is materially easier when the same person is watching both calendars.

Other cities in Texas

• Corpus Christi
• Killeen
• Wichita Falls
• Port Arthur
• New Braunfels
• Dallas
• Frisco
• Waco
• All of Texas