The Pool at Garfield - Part 1

After a month of meeting with pool companies and working through designs and costs we finally selected Coast to Coast Pools of Sarasota to build our pool at Garfield Dr. in Sarasota.  The deciding factor was the experience of Jeremy West, the pool sales contact and designer and the track record of Coast to Coast in building pools locally.  Jeremy has over 10 years in the local pool business and has a very hands on approach with his customers.  He was always available, flexible and patient as we worked through the design.  Along the way he provided some very cool 3D clip to help use visualize the pool design.   He also has a lot of local contacts and communicated well with the city in order to avoid surprises. 

I never thought we'd build a pool in the front yard of any home but we are at Garfield.   The lot is on a corner and is 60' x 120' with the house right in the middle.  There is no backyard and we are only about 8 ft from the back property line.  All the  room is on the ends of the house and front yard.

I know this sounds funny but one of the key things we wanted was to duplicate the size and depth of our current pool - for pool volleyball!  (Jeremy laughed about this requirement),  Two other critical needs were a spa and a sun-shelf.  For those of you that don't know a sun-shelf is a 6" deep area of water that you can place your chair in.  We added on that's 8 ft deep and 12 ft wide at the shallow end of the pool along with a hole from an umbrella.  This will be a great spot to chill with some cocktails in the future.

The spa should be big enough for 6 people and with the propane heater we might be able to par boil people if we decide to.  The wireless Easy Touch wireless controller will make it easy for Jan to turn the spa on automatically from her lounge chair.  It also controls the pool lights.  1200 sq ft or so of travertine pavers and landscaping will create some serious outdoor space for those parties we love to have.

We are excited about the pool design and looking forward to the house warming pool party in April and yes Jeremy is invited.  He may come up with a Volleyball pool package in the future!  Stay tuned for Part 2 - I'm told the hole is dug in 3 hours.
 

Cable to Nowhere

There's always a few surprises when you buy a house "as is" even if you have it inspected.  Today we found a surprise with the cable in the master bedroom.

Both Jan and I like to watch TV in bed at night (probably like most of the population) however the Garfield house did not have an extra TV. So we purchased a 39" HDTV and wall mount during black friday and had it shipped.  In the meantime she picked up a DTA converter box from the cable company in the event we needed it.

The TV showed up last Friday and I proceeded to hook it up after dinner.  There was a cable outlet and power plug behind the dresser so I it was fairly easy to hook up.  Problem was there was no signal so I called Comcast to work through the issue.  30 minutes later I hung up in fruistration and decided to test the TV out on the cable in the living room.  It worked great!

That's when I realized the cable guy mentioned that he disconnected a splitter when he hooked up the TVin the living room.  Saturday after finsihing up some trim work I decided to hunt down the splitter and reconnect it. After trying three different wires running to who knows where on the side of the hosue I decided to check the cable outlets.  That's where I found the problem.


The previous owner pulled a fast one. There was a nice cable box and even cable connected to the box but when I pulled on the cable this came right out of the box.  Same thing in the other room.   Both outlets had about a foot of cable jammed into the wall to give the appearance there was acutal cable!  The wire was just cut off and attached to nothing in the wall.

Guess I'll need to add to the list of things to do now and run some cable through the attic and to the outlet.  Works never done and at least this will be an easy fix.  (hopefully)

The Great Paver Adventure

I'm always looking for a deal.   After seeing the first round of quotes for the pool deck I decided to check out craigslist for some pavers in hopes that I'd find something cheaper than what the pool builder quoted which varied from $5 sq.ft. for brick pavers and $9 sq. ft. for travertine.  I'll be adding a post about the pool very soon (we are still picking out a pool company).



Pavers in the driveway at Tampa

As luck had it I found an ad on craigslist for 1500 sq. ft. of travertine for $2 sq. ft.  There was one catch however; the pavers were installed on a driveway in Tampa some 60 miles away and we had to remove them ourselves.  Being the skeptic I was we contacted the seller and then drove to Tampa to see this great deal.  As it turned out the house was located in south Tampa (a pretty nice area).  The pavers had been installed about 5 months earlier and because they had been installed wrong were separating and cracking.  They were a little dirty from being driven on and some were cracked; but most were in good shape and just needed to be pressured washed since they had been sealed.  We quickly met with the seller and provided a 10% deposit with the agreement that we'd pick them up the following Saturday.  The driveway however was huge!  There were actually over 1700 sq. ft. of pavers. 

The following day I texted my lawn guy to see if he could help.  He's not real good with english and his daughter called me directly to figure out that I needed a crew and more importantly a truck with a fork lift.  We'd need to stack the pavers on pallets and then transport them the 60 miles to the Sarasota house.  After some negotiation and with her acting as the translator we reached an agreement that he'd help the following Saturday and more importantly had access to a truck and forklift.  Another Craigslist ad and I found some free pallets.

The week went by and  the Friday before I texted my guy to confirm that everything was ready to go for Saturday.  I immediately got a phone call from his cousin looking for clarification on my text.  Needless to say he had no truck and was not ready.  Needless to say I was not real happy.  A quick call to the seller looking for another week on my end did not go well.  They were installing the new driveway on Wednesday and needed the pavers up.   I frantically started searching the Internet for companies that rented trucks with forklifts to no avail (for a reasonable price).    We had a party to go to and I needed some time to think through the problem so we headed out passing through Elwood Park a semi-rural area with horses and lots of blue collar type dwelling.  That's when we saw the sod guys place that we had driven by a 1000 times.  He had a fairly large truck parked nearby so we stopped and I called the number on the sod-by-the-piece sign.  To make a long story short he had a buddy that had a large truck with a forklift and we worked out a deal.  $375 to pick up the pavers on Saturday and deliver to Sarasota.  Another quick call and my yard guy said he'd have 2 guys at my house at 7 AM.

We started picking the pavers up at 8:15 AM and finished at noon - 11 pallets worth.  Along the way I had to find a few more pallets at the local Home Depot.  By 3:30 PM they were delivered to Sarasota and we had a happy ending to the story.  Jan and I had a sore back the next few days - but we had found a deal - remember I like a good deal!  Next deal is to get them installed... and that's another story I'm sure.

Unexpected Problems at Garfield Delay Homeowner and Title Insurance

Problem #1 Live wires at the wall heater

As with every real estate transaction there's always a surprise or two along the way. With the Garfield house we had some electrical issues and a survey issue that had to be cleared up before the insurance company would issue a policy and before the closing attorney would issue title insurance. We had the house inspected before closing but apparently the insurance company looks for a few more things than the home inspector did. Luckily we have a good electrician that we've been working with for several years because as expected I had to had travel out of town for work that week.

The first electrical issue was in the retro bathroom where there was an original wall heater than was not working. We had to either fix the heater or ensure that the electrical connections to the heater were capped off.
Being that the house was 60+ years old we opted to remove the wires all the way to the power source ensuring that it would not be an issue. We could have just added some wire nuts but decided to just pull the wire.


Problem # 3 Exposed wire in closet

I actually like the retro bathroom - it's the original bathroom and looks like something from 1950, because it is!  So far Jan has it last on the list to rehab so it'll be safe for a while.  Gotta like that yellow tile!

Electrical issue #2 was an unterminated wire under the eave of the house on the west side.   This is another one that a couple of wire nuts could have fixed but we had the wire on this one pulled also.  I believe the previous owners were planning on putting a security light on this side but never got around to it.   It's actually a good spot for one now that decided to put a shed on this side of the house since we will not have a garage.

The last electrical issue was in the outside closet where someone had run wire from an electrical outlet in the attic down the inside wall and through a hole in the outside wall and connecting to an outside receptacle.  The receptacle was used to power the sprinkler system control box.  To fix this issue conduit was added between the attic receptacle and the outside one and the wire run inside it.  Another easy fix.

Moral of this story is that even if you have an inspection don't expect it to find all the problems that the insurance inspector would have concerns with.  I'd expect they would but this is not the first time we had a problem like this.  In a previous blog We Need Rehab: Home Inspections Lower Risk I discussed how inspections can lower risk.

The title insurance issue problem cost a bit more to fix and started at the seller closing table when the closing attorney was casually discussing the survey and questioning the improvements that the sellers had made to the property.  If you look closely at the survey you can see a wood deck on the front of the house and a fence line on the west side of the house.  The sellers removed both of them.  However, in spite of the fact the lot lines had not changed nor the footprint of the house he would not issue title insurance to us until the survey was updated!  Generally the survey is the responsibility of the buyer and we were going to need to get an updated one anyway - just don't need this problems at the closing table.

Lot Survey showing wood deck that

That's it for this post and have a great day and be thinking about my back.  I'm working on the rock pit over the next few weeks.



We have another rehab coming up - Lido Key

We finally found a house on Lido Key that we'll actually keep and live in after we rehab it.  Jan's been looking on a daily basis ever since we sold the condo at Lido Shores which she is now managing for Rick and Candy (the new owners).  The new house is a bit small but should be about the same size (1500 sq. ft) as our house now after we get done with it.  We plan to keep the Bradenton house and rent it out -we'll see if that actually happens when we get done with the Lido house.

When all was said and done it came down to lifestyle at Lido. After we moved out of the condo we really missed the beach, parks, and restaurants at St. Armands which were only a short walk away.  The new house is also about a block from the kayak launch on Lido so I expect we'll eventually get a couple.   There's a boat in the future and we should be able to either trailer it on the side yard or dry store it at Marine Max on Ben Thompson park just a bike ride away.

I'll be blogging on our progress as we work through the challenges that any 60+ year old florida house brings with it.  This house has some good bones though so I expect when we are done you won't recognize it from where we are starting and it won't blow away if we have a hurricane.  First order of business is to add a master bedroom suite where the carport / porch are.  Jan also wants to open the kitchen and remove that tile in the living room. Here's a link to the zillow map and the virtual tour.

We will be naming the house when it's done so give me your thoughts on some names!

BuildBankroll - Chris and Jan's Featured Flip Real Estate Blog

BuildBankRoll

http://buildbankroll.com/

Education is the key to success in becoming a successful real estate flipper or investor. Others believe it just takes a strong stomach for risk and a lot of luck.   The internet provides an excellent learning ground for basics to complex and I find myself routinely looking for new ideas and websites.

BuildBankRoll provides a great balance between education and risk - call it "educated risk" which is something that Jan and I have ascribed to since day one.

BuildBankRoll is a very good website/blog by a guy named Steve in Southern California. He provides lots of education on his blog mixed in with the houses he is buying and has rehabed. Each house that he's flipped is listed in a side bar and chronicled to some extent so it's easy to see the types of properties he's flipped and the amount of work that he's done. I was surprised to see a number of houses that had fire damage among those rehabbed and it actually makes great sense as I'm sure the properties were picked up fairly cheap... a segment I had never really thought about.


Another nice feature is the quick link bar to specific topic areas such as Buying, Evaluating Deals, Rehab, etc..  Basically a rapid sort function of previously posted blogs for the topic area.

What I like most are the GOALS they set and track each month and the level of education provided in common sense lauguage. It's clear that they do their homework and vet each deal in order to find the gems. For those looking to get into flipping its a primer on the way to do it and the amount of diligience it takes to be successful.
 
The real key is they have a plan, execute against the plan, and measure performance. 
 
This is probably the number one reason for success - just because you don't make the plan goals it doesn't mean you give up.  This business takes a lot of learning and persistence.
 
We look at a lot of property evey week and this guy puts us to shame... then again we are part timers now looking forward to maybe doing it full time some day. Now I just need to get a contractors license...

Buyer Beware - Insurable Title vs. Marketable Title

We decided to walk away from the Fannie Mae property that I talked about in a previous blog as a result of this.  Turns out the last owner transfered the deed and the property was never foreclosed on which means that any problems with the title would need to be cleared at our expense!!

I found this on the web at www.activerain.com by Ron Webster a real estate attorney in South West Florida.  It provides a pretty good explanation of the differences and the risks.

General Rule: All marketable title is insurable, however, not all insurable title is marketable.

What is the difference?

Insurable title may come with a host of defects. However, despite these defects, a title insurance underwriter weighs the risks involved and allows the title agent to issue a title policy even though there may be blemishes and potential problems down the road. Ironically, should the value of the property increase dramatically, the buyer is only protected to the extent of the original purchase price.

In contrast, marketable title is a title that is clean, has no defects that will come up again in a future title examination when the property owner attempts to obtain financing or more importantly tries to sell the property. Accepting insurable title could result in problems which need to be addressed at a later date resulting in both time and money.

Title Insurance Companies may recognize a problem when you go to sell the property. Their first solution is to ignore the problem and reinsure over it again whereby they actually profit from their previous oversight. Unfortunately, many buyer's, if properly represented will not accept this proposal.

Why is this important?

Standard A - Title of the standard form contracts in Collier County, Florida provides "Title to the property shall be good and marketable with legal access, subject only to the following exceptions..."

On more than one occasion in the past year, I have had frustrated sellers lose their deal because the property was not marketable. Title companies often gamble that the issue will not come up again or will be overlooked. When problems do come up they are more often difficult to resolve requiring corrective documents in the chain of title.

What does this have to do with foreclosures?

Everything! The problem is that every purchaser who is looking for a good deal buying a foreclosure property is required to sign a contract that states to the effect "The buyer agrees to accept at closing "insurable title" provided buy the lender's closing title company." Talk about the fox guarding the chicken hen - WOW!

Unfortunately a great number of foreclosures are riddled with title problems. This past year alone I have encountered countless problems which required the lender to go back and either re-foreclose the property or obtain the necessary releases or corrective documents. In one instance a title company overlooked a multi-million dollar lien in the form of a judgment which would have remained with the property following the transfer.

As a result, I cannot emphasize the need to have an independent title exam performed for anyone who is wiling to accept the lender's title policy which often has countless exclusions for liens, etc. leading buyer's to have a false sense of security.

Another major issue I encounter when dealing with title companies involved in foreclosure is that many are run as a sweat shop located outside of the state. Not only are many of these companies unfamiliar with many of the nuances of Florida Law, a few of them are either incompetent or down right thieves!

I cannot begin to tell you of the excessive mistakes and charges I have discovered and corrected on behalf of buyers. Ironically, I have never once seen a mistake on a closing statement benefit a buyer. Common examples are shifting closing expenses to the buyer which were not a part of the contract such as the seller's documentary transfer tax, charging unconscionable fees for title examination, title searches and settlement fees which were not part of the contract, shifting past due assessments and other seller obligations onto the buyer.

So often buyer's haggle over the purchase price and overlook some of the biggest expenses of sale on closing statements. Many times seller's dangle the carrot of even offering to pay for the cost of the title insurance provided you close through the seller's closing agent. In essence, a number of times there may be hidden defects or costs involved. Remember the old adage "if it sounds to good to be true.....

At the end of the day, protect yourself, protect your buyer and be sure to engage a qualified Real Estate Attorney to perform an independent title examination any time the seller offers to provide title insurance because insurable title does not necessarily mean marketable title.

Fannie Mae - WTF - You'd Think They'd Just Want to Sell It

Jan's been restless lately and she's on the prowl for another place to rehab.  We found a ban owned condo in a nearby golf course community named Peridia where we've rehabbed 3 houses and hooked up with Roger Cumbie to take a look a few days after it went on the market.  The place actually looked pretty good and I was glad to see that the whole place had already been tiled (my back is thankful).  I estimated that we'd possibly get by with only putting around $5K into it before we would get it back on the market which would mean that we'd have it on the market in a couple of weeks since it was almost all cosmetic stuff that we would do.

HOWEVER much too our amazement the bank actually had placed a few conditions on the property purchase. Some of this stuff we've seen before in the old days when investors were a dime a dozen.

SURPRISE 1

The first thing was that for the first two weeks it was on the market the property could not be purchased by an investor - in other words someone who was not going to live in the unit for the first year.  If you disregarded this and did buy and sell the bank reserved the right to come after you for money.. basically a penalty clause.  So we decided to wait the two weeks and see if the property was still available.

Turns out we were the only ones who looked at the property so we decided to put an offer in before the asking price primarily because no one else looked  at the property and also so we can get the property for as little as possible (we are cheap - but  prefer to think of us as helping someone get rid a property)

SURPRISE 2

So we could live with the first surprise but the second one was a bit more restrictive.  In the event we sold the house within 3 months for more than 20% that what we bought it for there was another penalty.  So say we bought the place for $100K we could not sell it for more than $120K within the first three months we owned it...  which by the way is prime time for resale here in Florida (snow bird season first 4 months of the year).   There goes the profit and the prime season to sell..

So what to do?

What we decided is to make an even lower offer because of what I call the "time of money".  Seems they are not really all that keen to sell the place so perhaps a low offer will wake them up!  We'll let you know it goes...don't they want to sell the place?  and why rule out buyers that have money regardless of how long they may own.. besides we're going to do the work to make it sellable so why shouldn't we reap the reward.

Real question is the logic behind the restrictions..

Well it turns out the house is a Fannie Mae house and all the surprises and all the surprises are part of the Fannie Mae Addendum that they add to all sales contracts..  There some resources on the web such as Home Path that provide information on Fannie Mae properties and several blogs and are specifically about the addendum such as Source of Title.  Source of Title has a entire list of links to other blogs that discuss the legal impacts of purchasing property.

Chris and Jan Land Developers (Part 3)

Part 3 - The  development process continues

Plant More Trees

Along the way with trying to subdivide the property and get the application into the county I ran across some unusual requirements.  It really made me wonder what the government does - check boxes?  or come up with reasonable approaches.  One of the requirements was a 10ft buffer around the perimeter of the property.  Within the 10 ft buffer there was a requirement to have a certain size tree spaced a certain amount in effect creating a wildlife buffer of some kind.    The tree survey had to be included on the submission to the county.  To meet this requirement I spent a weekend mapping every tree around the perimeter of the property in the 10 ft buffer. This was then provided to the surveyor to create a plat showing the trees and size of the trees.  Remarkably the county wanted me to plant even more trees to meet the requirements. Bear in mind that the 4.4 acres already had over 400 trees of various sizes... In pointing this out to the county planner I found out she had never visited the property.  Eventually she agreed to drop the requirement for more trees.

1.9 Mile Sidewalk

One interesting requirement was to install sidewalks between the subdivision and schools if less than 2 miles away.  The property as it turns out was 1.9 miles from Johnson Middle School which created a problem.  They also wanted us to install sidewalks on the highway frontage - some 300+ ft in total.  Bear in mind that in the entire Elwood Park subdivision (covering a couple of miles) there was not a single sidewalk. The nearest sidewalk was in Sabal Harbour over a mile away.  Eventually they realized how silly this was and waived the requirement.  They did however make us sign a statement that did not relieve us from the obligation in the future.

The Lucky Fire Hydrant

Another requirement had to do with fire hydrants and required that the closet hydrant be within 400 ft of the property.  Another subdivision that was created a mile away had to install a hydrant at a cost of $70K before the subdivision would be approved.  Lucky for me there was one within 200 ft.  I did not know about this before we bought the property.  I consider that my lucky fire hydrant.

The Septic Resolution

Because of where the property was located (rural) the local sewer system had not been extended to area.   This meant that I had to also obtain a septic resolution which would basically state that there was sufficient room for the septic system and that the ground was sufficiently porous for the drain field.  Seemed a little silly since all the surrounding properties had septic already.  Luckily I located a septic company that provided me an estimate along with some estimated calculations from a friend at an engineering company for a nominal fee I had what was needed for the county... another piece of paper.

The public notice and being on TV

Eventually I had everything needed and then the county was able to put the application on the county commission docket since every approval had to go through the commission for approval.  This also meant that we could now put signs for a "Notice of Public Hearing" on the property and advertise in the local paper (which we had to pay for).  I still remember watching the commission meeting on TV.  The head planner presented the proposed zoning change and outlined the subdivision as well as recommended it for approval.  It was approved unanimously!!

To get to this point took almost two years!

We eventually sold one of the 1 acre lots right after we got approval and last December sold the remaining 2 lots.  In the time between selling all the lots we paid lots of property taxes and had the property bush hogged regularly.  With the crash of the market it had taken almost 5 years from the time we bought the property to selling it all.  We learned a lot along the way and had great partners in my sister and brother in law.  I got lucky on a lot of aspects as you have read and this could have been one of those to walk away from.  We've learned that you can't make money on all of them and the important point is to learn and get smarter with each real estate deal we do..  if it was easy anyone would do it.

Chris and Jan Land Developers (Part 2)

So now that we have the lot clearing under way I started to deal with Manatee County Building Department which handles subdivisions.  The acreage was zoned for up to 6 residential units / acre so to divide 4.4 acres into 8 lots would appear to be a no brainer.  And that's exactly the problem - the people that came up with the land development code had no brains!

In order to subdivide we had to get a surveyor involved to survey and and to create the sub division plan to be submitted to the county.  Not sure how we found him but we ended up using Clements Surveying in Palmetto after interviewing a number of local engineering companies.  In some cases the engineering companies would not even call me back.  In a couple of other cases they would give an estimate of $30K or more.  These guys were reasonable and fair from the start.  Remember this is the tale end of the boom here and everyone was extremely busy.

Kim Holbrook at Clements Surveying was great and truly went out of her way to help.  Along the way we had a few delays getting the tract surveyed before we could even subdivide.  Jimmy Clements the owner must have contacted every surveyor that ever did work in Elwood Park to make sure he got it right and he did.  At the end of the day we did not want to worry about the property lines.  He swore he would never do work in Elwood Park again - I think he liked the challenge.

Throughout the process I dealt with a number of people at Manatee Planning Department and really learned a lot about creating a  subdivision.  Needless to say there are countless rules and regulations as outlined in the Manatee County Land Development Code and plowing through the code was an education unto itself.  Luckily we fell into the Minor subdivision realm as outlined below:

902.1.1. Minor subdivision shall mean any residential subdivision containing less than eleven (11) lots or parcels of land; and does not include any type of non-residential subdivision. The minor subdivision shall front on an existing public street or private street built to the current Manatee County Development Standards; and which meets the following three (3) requirements:



1.Not involving the establishment of a new street;
2.Not involving the extension of any public facility mains within the rights-of-way and creation of any new general public improvements involving the review or approval of construction drawings, as determined by the Planning Department excluding individual lot service connections; and
3.Not in conflict with any provision of the Comprehensive Plan, Land Development Code, Building Code or other officially adopted plans, policies or regulations.

Basically what this meant is that if I built a road I was screwed and would fall into the major subdivision category which meant more government. 

In order to get things moving with the county a Land Development Application needed to be completed and submittted along with a multitude of attachments.  Now bear in mind this is not just any application. And the Application only came after a completness review and meetings with the county.  In order to subdivide we also needed to rezone and the county wanted to retstrict the lot size to 1 acre which meant the zoning went from RES6 to A1 (Agricultural - 1 unit /acre).  They also wanted to take right of way on the street which amounted to 0.1 Acre. 

Here's a copy of the transmittal page to the county.  Notice the number of copies of the application thats needed - 18!  Welcome to government! and what I learned was that those copies were needed for at least 16 different government departments to review.  No wonder it takes so long to get anything done anymore..

More in Part 3 - Chris Amstutz the Developer..















The waiting

Chris and Jan Land Developers (Part 1)



Aerial view of Elwood Park with arrow pointing to the Lot

About 5 years during the height of the real estate boom and about 6 months before it imploded we purchased 4.4 acres of vacant land in an area of Bradenton called Elwood Park.  Elwood Park was originally subdivided ~50 years earlier and at one time was an outpost on the Braden River that feeds into the Manatee just east of downtown.  The property belonged to an estate and had been "lost" for 50 years. For some reason someone had continued to pay the taxes and now there were over 25 heirs to the former estate. Apparently the guy had bought it as an investment, never used it, and died.  I drove by this property every day on the way to work and one day saw it was for sale - so I started to look into it.



8 lot subdivision concept

The thought was to sub-divide the property into 8 lots and sell off the lots and in the process making lots of money.  The property was approximately 300' (frontage) by ~600' deep.   It had never been developed and was heavily wooded and very overgrown.  The first time we attempted to walk the property it took us over 30 minutes just to get halfway into it.  Buying the property and walking through it turned being the easy part.


The first task was to clear the under brush which included an amazing amount palmetto bushes.  We took several bids and eventually ended up with a local firm.  Before bidding I encouraged each contractor to look at the property before hand whcih most of them did.  I also negotiated the hauling off of the debri as part of the deal (this would prove key a month later).  Others would just throw out and number and hope that it stuck.  I finally agreed to terms with one and they began clearing after a week or so. 

After two weeks of non-stop clearing and taking more away than thirty 30 cubic yard roll-off containers of debri I started to get some push back from the contractor.  In addition to alot of trash, they had also found over 200 tires on the property which apparently had come from the adjacent property over the years (but no way to prove it).  The place was so overgrown you could not see the trash or the tires.  He had underbid and was complaining about how he was losing money - the original contractor had also sold the contract to a buddy who was actually doing the work.  We finally worked it out after some haggling and he was gone.   I ended up spending alot of time at the lots after that hand clearing areas and taking another 5-10 truckloads to the dump.  Everytime I looked around I found more garbage and trash under brush and alomost all on the north side - it had become a dump for the neighbors after all those years.

More in Part 2 of Chris Amstutz the Developer..

On the Hunt for the Next one - Could it be a short sale?

Jan's bored and looking for another project.  No rest for the weary!

 We are looking at two properties this week - the first one's a one bedroom condo a couple of buildings south of our place on Lido Key with marginal beach views.  The other is a three bedroom, 2 bath, 2 car garage condo near the first one with beach views that we could easily live in.  The one bedroom is a short sale for $90K, the other one is $595K - wow!!

It seems it's hard to find anything less than $100K around here and most one bedrooms sell for ~$150K so we could be on to something...This would be a good winter project and hopefully (god willing) we can clean it up, add some paint, and new furniture and flip it within two months during season.  This means we'd be done before April and just need to sell it.... which always puts us on hold before we buy the next one.

A short sale also takes longer.  Depending on how closely the seller is working with the bank the price may have been pre-negotiated in advance. Essentially the bank has agreed to write down the difference.      However, it's not uncommon that when you make the offer on a short sale property it takes up to 45 to 90 days for the bank to approve the deal.  In the meantime they hold the money and kinda put everything on hold while you are patiently waiting.  I'm not sure what takes so long but in some cases we've seen some amazing deals.. 

The one bedroom deal short sale for $90K has a first mortgage of $222K and a second mortgage of $60K for a total of $282K.  This means the short sale is 32% of the mortgaged amount.  Hard to believe but there are lots of those around here - Welcome to the epicenter of the mortgage crisis.

Wish us luck

If you are interested in educating yourself about Short Sales there's a ton of information on the internet.  A Couple of links that I found useful are listed below.

Short Sales - about.com

Short Sale Process

Our First Beach Place

After a two year search from Anna Maria Island to Siesta Key (and Longboat in between) we finally purchased a place at the beach on Lido Key a barrier island in Sarasota, Florida.  Over that two year period we looked at hundreds of properties, made over 10 offers, and drove 100's of miles.

In the end it came down to "lifestyle" and we had to chose between two places one of which we had previously made an offer that was rejected and now the owner wanted to accept the offer since another one he had fell through and the market had changed.  The other unit was close to an area we both loved and had spent a lot of time at over the years.

The place we did not select was a condo in Bradenton beach in a development called Bermuda Bay Club.
It's located about a haf mile north of Cortez on the bay side.  The unit we were looking at was one of two in the last building facing the bay.  3 stories, 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and a 2 car garage - 1700+ sq ft.  It was about 10 years old and had three balaconies, two of which faced the bay.  Looks of extras and probably at one time was the model for the development.  During the peak the unit sold for $900+K.  The beach is about a 2 minute walk but you can't see it from the unit.  There are some local buisnesses but the walk took you down the main drag and in some cases you took your life into your own hands.  Basically you had to drive to get to the good places.

The place we did select was a condo on Lido Key in a building called Lido Shores.  Its located about 5 minutes walk from one of the premier shopping and dining areas on the west coast of Florida called St. Armands Circle. 


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Lido Shores is located across the street from the Lido public beach.  The unit we selected is on the fourth floor and we have a view of the beach and the homes around St. Armands when looking out the east side.  2 Bedrooms, 2 bath, 1250 sq ft. with covered parking.  The unit was less $$ than the other and needed some work as parts of it had never been updated.  The Kitchen however had been redone and opened up to make a great room with the dining and living area. 

In the end we decided we liked the idea of parking the car on Friday and not having to drive anywhere since everything was close by.  Jan even created an office for me on the enclosed porch where I can work out of rather than head into the office - I actually get more done there!  What's not to like - plus now we've decided we like living at the beach so much we're thinking of selling this one and getting a bigger place.  If you're interested drop me a line..  If you are interested in a seasonal rental look for us on Facebook.

Beach House Withdrawl

 

Lido Shores Condo 350 South Polk Dr



We started cleaning up the Beach House (condo) today since we are about 2 weeks away from moving out for 4 months while it's rented during high season.  In fact we've only got three renters over the four months of 2011 (Jan - Apr) and two have rented from the previous owner (who we purchased from) in the past.   There's a one month minimal rental period in the building and about a third of the owners rent.

Since we purchased the unit we have spent a considerable amount of time here and in fact have lived here continously for the past 3 months of 2010.  We were unsure if we'd really like it down here all the time and what we've found  "WE DO".  In fact we've already started a search for a bigger place that we can live in and have intentions of selling the house.  Yeap the house where we've lived for the past 10 years and finally got to just where we like it.



The Office that Jan set up for me



Living at the beach has been both relaxing and a lot more work.  Not only did we rehab the place but I also found that I ended up working out of the condo when I was in town.  It helped that Jan set me up a little office on the back porch when I was in China - it was a nice surprise when I got back.  I found that over time when I could not sleep I would starting checking emails or catching up on other work related tasks - hence the problem.  I work more at the condo that I ever have.  There's something to be said for getting up and going somewhere, like an office, and not starting work at the crack of dawn.  I'm an early guy anyway and when there's stuff to do I find it hard to lay in bed with my eyes open.

Our friends the Maguires

It is nice though to grab a cup of coffee, throw some clothes on, and walk across the street to the beach.   Or when it was a little warmer I'd do 5 miles to the bridge and back and then cool off in the ocean before tracking sand and water back up to the unit.  It's hard to explain how it decompresses the soul - perhaps it's the sound of the waves and water..

We've also had a lot of fun with our friends over the past 3 months.  The sunsets are spectacular here and our ritual seems to be sunset on the beach with cocktails or wine followed by a nice dinner upstairs or at the circle.   We've had a bit of a revolving door which we like and will miss the place over the next four months.

I consider us extremely lucky because never did imagine we'd actually have a place like this.  Now that we do we will be working even harder to get an even bigger an nicer dream.  All those nights, weekends, aches, and pains all seem worth it now.  Happy rehab and come visit us sometime, we'd love to have you.

Living the Dream on Lido



Selling Rehab 4470 - Yahoo

We should be selling rehab 4470 tomorrow.   We have learned some very valuable lessons on this one and pretty much will break even on our investment.  However we lose the sweat equity which in some cases is very hard to quantitate outside of a lot of nights and weekends.  If I had to list the biggest factors into why it took 8 months to fix up and sell -our longest ever it attribute it to the following factors in retrospect.

Stick to your market

Traditionally we have worked in the <$200K market.  This way our first foray into the $200K + market and we found that there were just less buyers that were willing to pay that amount in the current market conditions.  So back to the basics!  There are also more buyers at lower prices.

Don't underestimate Negatives

This house had a few negatives that in the end were greater than we originally thought.  The first negative was it was a large house with only two bedrooms rather than 3 bedrooms.  Another was the back yard backed up to a fence and behind the fence was a ditch.  Several buyers said they liked the house but the back yard was just two small.  As a point of reference the house we flipped before this one had a wall and a busy street behind it - however there was room for a pool between the house and the wall.

Don't over improve

This can sometimes be the hardest thing to do.  This house had about 300 sq ft of tile in the kitchen and hallway that we jack hammered out and replaced with 18 x 18 tile.  Did we really need to do this?  It probably added $1000 in cost and a month of time between removing the old tile, jack hammering up the old thinset, and putting the new tile in.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  We also took down a small wall between the kitchen and dining room and rerouted the electric - it ended up looking realy good but it can't say it helped sell the house for any more than we did.  Look at improvements really close - its easy to go over board.  At the end of the day the more you do the longer it takes - the longer it takes the more it costs and the market can change even more and usually not in your favor these days.

In retrospect we learned alot in doing this house and alot of it was what not to do.  the house turned out great and we are very proud of what we did.  I'd rather have money in the bank and have done less and gotr rid of it sooner. 

Guess we paid for that lesson with sweat equity - happy rehabbing.

Living the Dream on Lido - Coffered Ceilings

It's been along summer and I've not had much time to blog since July.  Between work, finishing the last house and finally finding and rehabbing a condo near the beach (after a 2 year search) the year has gone quickly.  The good news is the remainder of the year should be relatively uneventful and we are looking forward to spending more time with our friends and family over the holidays.

As with most any project that Jan and I get into the Lido condo has been no different and had the usual surprises some of which were more costly than others.   We also tried some new things to make the property different and have had some pretty good feedback.

The condo was built in the 70's had concrete floors (and ceilings).  Needless to say there were no ceiling fans in the rooms and those that had added over the years were bolted to the ceiling and then the wire run through a metal conduit of sorts until it met the wall.  The wires were then either snaked through the wall to a switch or in the case of the Master bedroom the metal was continued down the wall close to a receptacle and then fan plugged in.  Pretty cheesy to say the least.

Not liking the wires and wanting to hide then we decided to try a cofferred (sp?) ceiling.  This would allow me to hide wires behind boards and give the room an updated look at the same time.  We decided on 1x5 MDF (medium density fiberboard) that looked like wood.  To hide the wire I routered out a groove on the side that would be against the ceiling.  I drilled a hole every 16 inches and then glued the board to the ceiling while propping the board up with 2x4's.  Then 3/4" cove on the inside of the MDF and crown around the outside where the wood on the ceiling met the wall.

The ceilings are 8 ft high so I was able to stand on the floor (with my new hammer drill) and drill holes straight up into the ceiling.  This was followed by Tapcons  and lots of spackle to fill in the holes by the countersunk tap cons.  Once the mdf was up the 5" crown was installed to round out the look which we've actullay beeen told makes the ceiling look taller than it is.  Gloss white paint and we are looking pretty good.  so good we decided to do all the rooms!

The best part is no wires running across the ceiling and no other unit in the building looks like ours and we took it up a notch.

Rehab 4470 - Working on the Front Yard

In the past we’ve been fortunate to not have spent too much time or money on the landscape. Probably the biggest time we’ve done is throw down a 10 x 10 brick paver porch to give the back yard some character along with a few nice plants. In fact at the last two houses we rehabbed did just that and the new owners proceeded to rip it out and either added a porch or a pool. Perhaps our outside creations inspired that! This house is perfect for a pool because of the large porch and quadruple sliders that totally recess to the porch.

Rehab 4470 however had yard problems and the landscape was just not cutting it. Since we had the house painted outside we decided to salvage some of the hedges and add some new stuff. Over the years the former owner had planted things here and there and the small trees in the front yard were held up with ropes tied to 3 foot metal rebar pounded into the ground. I found even more rebar in the garage. So we proceeded to cut down all the small trees and dig the stumps out (3 total). I got to buy a new hatchet to chop the roots out (yeah – new tool!). The picture to the right is me cutting down a tree in front of the Master bath window. If you look close you can see the rebar poking out of the ground.

We purchased the home at the end of winter which was actually quite cold this year in

Florida so the yard was pretty dead when we bought the house. I expected that when spring rolled around some water and sunshine would green it up. It did work for most of the yard with the exception of 2/3 of the front yard – wonderful. The spots that were not green were weeds. So I nuked the yard with Roundup and then proceeded to dig out the old stuff which then led to me ordering 2 pallets of sod (800 sq ft). Overall it looks pretty good and now we have to water it a lot until it takes otherwise green will become brown.

Jan originally purchased a bougainvillea tree to position outside the kitchen windows so you’d see it front inside but when we placed it out front we both realized it made the front of the house. So we proceeded to buy another ($50 each) and put them in black planters at the entrance along with river rock to give it a non cluttered look.
For the flower beds Jan convinced me to go with the red mulch (it has eucalyptus) which I have to admit looks better than I expected. I ordered 2 yards and we only did about half the beds – luckily we finished the front yard first. The border stones lining the beds were removed – they look like something a grandmother would do. For plants we stuck with hibiscus (yellow and red flowers) and border grass for replacement plants where we dug out the old stuff. Originally I wanted a couple of palms up near the front of the house and even toyed with moving the pygmy date palms near the street – 20 years of root growth changed my mind. It was like trying to dig through tendrils; besides the palms near the street look good. Inside I found 2 large White Bird of Paradise plants at Lowes and was able to get the price down from $200 to $75 for both.

Overall we think it turned out good – we laid the 2 pallets of sod, planted all the new plants, mulched, added ½ yard of stone and lowered the sprinkler heads on Friday and Saturday of the last weekend we worked on the house – it was hot and we were tired but it turned out great.

Rehab 4470 – Trimming the Windows and Plant Shelves

One of the easiest things that we do to dress up the inside of houses we work on is to wrap the windows which is essentially just adding trim around the windows and the sliding glass doors. It’s fast and adds a lot to the house and looks considerably better than the marble window sills that most houses in Florida have. We also always add trim to the plant shelves to add definition.

For windows you just need to break the caulk seal between the marble window and the wall (or window). Sometimes you can then pry the sill off. Most of the time I get the hammer out and break it into pieces. At one time I thought I’d be able to use the old sills or sell them – instead they took up valuable space in the garage. I install a new window sill out of finished pine. The new window sill is always 8” wider than the opening and 1” deeper than the old sill. I route an edge to give it a nicer look and cut out the portion of the sill that wraps around the sides of the window.

The sill is installed first using 2” brads followed by a piece of trim 1” shorter than the sill with the ends cut at 22.5 degrees. The fluted sides then go up next and are set back ¼ inch from the edge of the window. The top is a piece of molding that is as wide as the sides and cut at 22.5 degrees on the ends (occasionally we overlap it a ½ inch). Everything is nailed using 2” brads, then nails holes filled and caulked with white paintable caulk. At times there can be gaps between the new sill and the inside of the window because the window opening is not square. Small gaps can be caulked, larger gaps I use spackle and then sand it after it dries.

Most of the time the trim comes primed but the wood used for the sill never does and needs to be primed before the paint goes on. Otherwise the wood will soak up the paint differently than the other trim and not look good. For paint we use gloss white of high gloss ultra white and also paint the insides of the window opening. This gives it the look that we trimmed out the inside of the opening when all we did was paint it to match the trim.

The same concept can be used to trim out sliding glass doors. The only difference with sliders is we add an additional piece of wood across the top to give it a taller look. Other times we match the sliders to the nearby windows.

Obviously the bigger the window the more wood, trim, and paint needed. We estimate $50 -$75 a window and have found that it worth every penny. It really differentiates our house from all the others in the neighborhood and provides that wow effect that just adds to the overall look that we strive for. We want to the house to look better and different than the others.

BTW – the first time we trimmed out windows was our house years ago, one of the few times I did not learn something new on the job.

Rehab 4470 - The Kitchen Is Done

I’ve been remiss lately in posting our progress to the blog. With travel and so much time away over the past few months seems like there’s not much free time. However we have made great progress on the entire house will the tile and hardwood completed – yahoo for my back! The kitchen has turned out really nice and we just have a little plumbing to complete in the next few days to finish it off.

I still question ripping up the 12 x 12 tile and putting in the 18 x 18 tile. It was a lot work. The new tile however turned out great and installation was easier than the last job even though the floors had bits of old grout even though we basically jack hammered the old floor out.

Mark did a great job on the cabinet installation and claims he’ll beat any bid. So if you need a cabinet guy I’d suggest you give him a call. As much as I would have liked to try to install them myself this time when there’s a guy like Mark I can focus on stuff that really needs to get done. He also did both bathroom vanities. Mark can be reached at 941-232-5631.

Granite from Johny exceeded our expectations and looks great. We had the same granite installed in the bathrooms. The large slab concept we added where we removed the wall turned out great and gave the desired effect we were looking for. We do regret not installing a couple of hanging lights over the large slab.  Check a previous blog for Johny's contact info.

Lou did marvels with the electric as always. Even he questioned what some of the wires were for when he saw the mess when we took down the side wall between the kitchen and the dining room. It was just a matter of moving the switches to adjacent walls and running new wire down the pillar that ran to ceiling. With vaulted ceiling there was not too much room to work in for Lou. He does great work at a fair price.  Send me a note if you need an electrician

We opted not to install a granite backsplash and tiled the backsplash with sheets of 2” travertine looking tiles. We found 12 x 12 sheets at Lowes on Clearance for around $3.50 / sheet. They fit almost perfectly and we used the same grout we used for the floor. Jan did all the grouting and switched out all the electric receptacles (great job honey – now I gotta teach you how to lay tile! I’ll stick to laying wood). We also reused the old under counter lights and just had to replace the light bulbs so all the light colors looked the same. The new bulbs made by GE for kitchens and baths actually bring out the backsplash color quite a bit.

Appliances were another story. After Lowes delivered a white stove with the stainless frig, dishwasher and microwave they delivered a stainless steel stove that did not work. Turns out it was discontinued and they had no others. They actually tried to get us to pay more – their argument was they had to give us a better stove because they had none of the ones we ordered. My argument was I wasn’t going to live there and didn’t care how nice it was. They finally delivered a current year model that matched all the others appliances – needless to say we got an $850 stove for $500. I almost want to replace our Kitchenaid unit at home it’s so nice. Give it to Lowes – they made it right as they always do.

A few more weekends of small stuff and this place is ready to be on the market!