The 15% holding tax for Canadians was applied as early as November 2016 in Florida on all properties selling for over $300K...if selling early in the calendar year, Canadians can work with a title company where the title company retains the holding tax and your accountant asks the IRS to allow 80% of the tax to be released to the seller by the title company (this usually takes 6-8 weeks and seller then has to wait till tax time to request balance).  This is preferable over sending all the holding tax to the IRS who, as the article indicated, can be intimidating to Canadians to deal with (due to major budget cuts the IRS has reduced resources and answering queries from Canadians is their last priority ...ie/ expect 4-6 hour "on hold" phone calls. Getting the holding tax back can easily take 15 months). Best advice is to employ a good US tax accountant if selling...they will also look after getting a US Tax ID etc...cost is usually $1k for the accountant but worth every penny.