My parents just bought a place in Florida, and other than having a couple of offers fall through, it was a pretty simple painless procedure for them. The first step is to find a REALLY good realtor. Research them seven days to Sunday, how long they've been in the business, how many sales, how many company changes, etc. We looked up the first realtor my 'rents were going to go with, and after some extensive searching, the guy had a pretty serious criminal record!
But, their second realtor was a saint. We went to so many houses, had all their criteria, and took hundreds of pictures of each and emailed them. He was super helpful every step of the way.
LOL my moral of the story, I guess, is yeah, get a good realtor
