Florida Property

I Googled my parents old subdivision in Pasco county. It is called Lakeside Woodlands. These are typically 1700 square foot homes built around 1980. The two foreclosures listed were for right around $48,000. They look to need some tender loving care, but they were not horrible. The non-foreclosures were asking $125,000 to $135,000.

I think your view is correct. I have been watching for about a year in Volusia,Citrus, and Alachua counties (FL) for a year or so and the cheap one have problems or are gone in a few days. Or are in developments I wouldn't live in like Deltona. BUT there are some good deals out there if that is what you want. It's going to be somewhat remote and rural if you want something decent cheap.

They won't be in cities, or at least most won't. If there is a decent housing market, when something pops up from an estate in that range, somebody will grab it quickly and work to flip it.

I've been shopping, I use Zillow. I set up what I'm looking for, they send alerts to my phone. Really low priced properties are either stagnated by legal problems or turn over very quickly, so you need to be able to act quickly. There are other real estate search engines, I've gotten used to this one.

Low priced housing is usually rural or in small towns that are almost ghost towns, available all around the country, not just Florida. I'm finding properties in the Missippi Delta, rural midwest, the parts of eastern Texas that used to be cotton belt. I can find lots of cheap properties in Oklahoma, Kansas, eastern New Mexico ghost towns and nearby rural areas. Florida is a little more difficult and must move fast, you are competing with investment buyers.

A typical $20K to $50K 2-3 bedroom home built in the 1930s to 1950s will need that amount of money again to be marketable to someone who actually wants to live in it. I've got one right now the appraiser says is $83K for the purposes of taxing me that needs $20K worth of work before I can rent it out or sell it for $50K. I don't want to talk about what I already have in it, it was a bad choice.

Florida is really tricky. Visited family there for 50 years, lived there two years, mostly when it was one of the cheapest places in the country to live, ambivalent about living there again, things can change really fast. Rural property can be overwhelmed by development, once "hot" properties can collapse on natural disasters. People are becoming more aware of the flooding problems, sinkhole problems, things to which we once turned a blind eye.

If I were looking for cheap property safe to live on the next 20-30 years, maybe Hernando County or Pasco County away from the coast, and some distance from the major highways, or Levy County well outside Ocala. Old farmsteads, mostly.

A nice modern place in a developed area? Not at the prices you are talking about.

JRS & B wrote:
Rockhillmanor - This year. We closed on April 16, 2014.

There appears to be a distinct category for "Waterfront" property in the Charlotte County Records. Our property is not on the waterfront. It is my understanding that waterfront property, velocity zones and outrageous flood insurance rates all go together hand in hand. So combining the two categories kind of makes sense.

Of course it makes no sense at all to those people whose grandparents bought waterfront homes for $25,000 many, many years ago, and now it cost more than that just to fully insure the home for a single year.

The important thing to me is that the property I bought is not on the waterfront, is not in a velocity zone, and has been previously built up to be at 10 feet about sea level, and the flood zone is shown as 10AE. So we should be good to go. I am paying cash for the home we are having built so I am not required to buy flood insurance. But as long as it is affordable, I will spend the money.

Sounds like you found a real great deal!

I'm really not complaining. I paid cash also so my feet are not in the fire on what all I have to buy for insurance.

I got a good deal also. After a few years of getting tired of paying high costs for sardine parking in Florida CG's for the winters it was a given for me at these prices to buy a house w/acreage to park me and my MH on as a new home base!

Full timed for a few years and found myself getting homesick for Wisconsin's spring, summer and fall weather, so thinking of reverse snow birding from here back North during the summer months.

Rockhillmanor - This year. We closed on April 16, 2014.

There appears to be a distinct category for "Waterfront" property in the Charlotte County Records. Our property is not on the waterfront. It is my understanding that waterfront property, velocity zones and outrageous flood insurance rates all go together hand in hand. So combining the two categories kind of makes sense.

Of course it makes no sense at all to those people whose grandparents bought waterfront homes for $25,000 many, many years ago, and now it cost more than that just to fully insure the home for a single year.

The important thing to me is that the property I bought is not on the waterfront, is not in a velocity zone, and has been previously built up to be at 10 feet about sea level, and the flood zone is shown as 10AE. So we should be good to go. I am paying cash for the home we are having built so I am not required to buy flood insurance. But as long as it is affordable, I will spend the money.

JRS & B wrote:
Quick after thought, I never heard of the 10 mile rule.

We looked at homes in the Pensacola area that were probably no more than one mile, two at the most, from the Gulf. But they were located on one of the few hills in the area. So at a grand elevation of 27 feet above sea level they required no flood insurance.

If you build to the proper flood zone level either by bringing in fill dirt, or building a stem wall, then flood insurance should only run about $500 a year, regardless of how close or far you are from the water.Now velocity zones are a different matter.

What year were you looking at property?

The commission report and decision on home owners insurance just finished up late this past year. A lot of changes were approved.

Bored to tears this past year I watched the entire live feed of Citizens Insurance report/request to the government regarding ins policies, rates, and zones. VEDDY interesting I might add all what was brought up and decided on during this commission report. Esxpeically about even if you were able to get insurance all what they didn't have to pay you when anything happened. Surprised that since this was public access that none of it hit the media.

Bottom line in 'laymen's' terms if a property is within the waters edge of a coast it is a risk for hurricane damage. Flood, velocity terms were merged and muddied so they did not have to insure anyone on the coast.
Needless to say private providers are using this as a form of a precident to refuse coverage to certain of their policy holders.

Quick after thought, I never heard of the 10 mile rule.

We looked at homes in the Pensacola area that were probably no more than one mile, two at the most, from the Gulf. But they were located on one of the few hills in the area. So at a grand elevation of 27 feet above sea level they required no flood insurance.

If you build to the proper flood zone level either by bringing in fill dirt, or building a stem wall, then flood insurance should only run about $500 a year, regardless of how close or far you are from the water.

Now velocity zones are a different matter.

Sink holes were a common problem in Hudson FL in the area my parents first home was in.

What actually happened when people had a sink hole was that the insurance companies payed to fix the sink holes. There would be a convoy of cement trucks pumping cement into the ground and they had it down to a science. They could bring your home back up right to the point that the cracks in drywall came together.

But, after a second full blown sink hole repair the house would become totally not insurable for sink hole damage. That is why after a first sink hole repair many people sell because they do not want to be the owner if and when the second one comes along.

On another subject, we looked seriously at real estate in San Antonio TX in January 2007. Their homes were not cheap at all!

And then there was the crazy way they handled property taxes and the fact that there is no circuit breaker on the amount a person's taxes can go up in any year. If the average value of homes in your subdivision doubled in three years, your property taxes would double. There is no limit tied to inflation or anything else. At least that is how the real estate salesman who was trying to sell us a home explained it to us. It was not in his best interest to scare us away like that, but he did.

So there is no one perfect place to live and no free lunches either.

pawatt wrote:

rockhillmanor wrote:
Have you ever had the insurance company explain sink hole coverage?
I did, made her read the whole dang thing to me. And you know what?
No mater how, when, where, why or how big or small.......you ain't covered for a sinkhole with a sinkhole policy because every 'exception' covers every actual sinkhole.

And there is a clause regarding flood insurance that if there is a wind they don't cover the flood.:?

I am still reeling from how they calculate your deductible! It's not a flat fee like it was back in my home state......it's a percentage of the value of your home!:E

Who has that kind of money laying around in cash to be used for a deductible if your house was severely damaged and in need of repair asap?

Geez, when you cross the state line of Florida there ought to be a border crossing and the question to get in being "are you planning on buying a home and living here"?

If you answer yes they give you a brochure on ALL what you need to know since NOTHING is like any other state! Hdd I know how different and costly insurance is here I might, well maybe, not have bought a home here! :B

Don't even get me started about the 500.00 impact fee on top of the registration fee for bringing in an out of state vehicle x 3 for me!

Rant over. There is no snow in winter here, I am happy.:C

I think you should come to Texas, you will find that they will take much less of your $$$$

I went to Texas once.
RV'd to Houston in summer for a sporting event. 112 degrees. Thought I'd die. Ya I know the key word there is summer but geeze it was plumb unbearable.

BTW: That is where I first got to hear the fan clutch motor kick in on a V-10, holey moley is that loud! At first I thought I had blown the motor!:B

rockhillmanor wrote:
Have you ever had the insurance company explain sink hole coverage?
I did, made her read the whole dang thing to me. And you know what?
No mater how, when, where, why or how big or small.......you ain't covered for a sinkhole with a sinkhole policy because every 'exception' covers every actual sinkhole.

And there is a clause regarding flood insurance that if there is a wind they don't cover the flood.:?

I am still reeling from how they calculate your deductible! It's not a flat fee like it was back in my home state......it's a percentage of the value of your home!:E

Who has that kind of money laying around in cash to be used for a deductible if your house was severely damaged and in need of repair asap?

Geez, when you cross the state line of Florida there ought to be a border crossing and the question to get in being "are you planning on buying a home and living here"?

If you answer yes they give you a brochure on ALL what you need to know since NOTHING is like any other state! Hdd I know how different and costly insurance is here I might, well maybe, not have bought a home here! :B

Don't even get me started about the 500.00 impact fee on top of the registration fee for bringing in an out of state vehicle x 3 for me!

Rant over. There is no snow in winter here, I am happy.:C

I think you should come to Texas, you will find that they will take much less of your $$$$