South Florida real estate?

Wow, very lucky! We got 14 inches of water from Helene, no damage from Milton. It would have been fixed months ago if not for the permit situation. It’s pretty much done now, but I signed a year lease at the new place so I’m going to rent it out short term and working on getting a grant to elevate.
Our Airbnb is a duplex close to John’s pass. We got 30 inches of water there. Much worse, and still waiting for permits to be approved on that one. But it’s small and block, so it should be a quick rebuild once it gets started.

 

$16,000/yr to rent a parking spot. Yikes.

 

Damn, for that price I hope the utilities are included. I've been living in my 5th wheel full-time for almost 7 years now. Most expensive place I've lived was $7500/year in Juneau, AK and that was the only game in town.

 

Do you own your RV if you have to pay to get it registered?

runs

 

Run faster.

You’re paying rv registration taxes to use it on public roads.

Park it in your driveway, no registration taxes…but prolly mega HOA fines

 

Our realtor in New Port Richey got flooded during Idalia in 2023, rebuilt, and got flooded even worse last year by Helene. Insurance is now forcing her to elevate. Like you, she moved and has applied for assistance to raise the house before she rebuilds. They did the demo and mold mitigation and it's sitting like that until it gets raised. Felt bad for her, because they just got finished remodeling from 23 when it happened again. She moved to a rental she owns, but now she's losing that income. Life living on the Gulf of America isn't all a basket of roses I guess.

 

Considering the original registration expired in 2020, it's been pretty cheap

 

I’m ignorant on this stuff. It sounds like the one you haven’t rebuilt yet is a rental? Does your insurance help cover loss of rental income, or pay the mortgage if it were still financed?

 

very slim but some areas of the country have wild swings in property values.

 

I hear DC area home values are tanking right now. That'd be #1 target for the M&B LLC REIT.

 

I have yet to meet anyone who has lived on both coasts that’s doesn’t prefer the west coast of Florida
If you were in your 20-30’s I could see the appeal to the south Florida areas on the east coast like Miami, Fort Lauderdale, etc.

Also watch what people refer to as “south Florida” for me it would be anything south of say Naples on west coast and West Palm Beach or Fort Lauderdale on the east coast. Many people will refer to areas like Sarasota even Tampa as south Florida. Heck USF (University of South Florida) is located in Tampa .

In 2019 when I moved to the Sarasota area everyone was convinced including storm experts etc that from Clearwater down to around Naples was basically immune from Hurricanes. There was a theory that the bay water being shallow and other factors made the area resistant to storm. The last few years clearly show that isnt the case.

Those storms will change your life.

I plan on moving back to the Sarasota area but no way I will live with 30 minutes of the shore. Main reason being insurance costs the closer to the water the costs keep going up. I dont want to have to rebuild even if I had the insurance money to do it. I dont know anyone who had storm damage and came close to breaking g even with their insurance money.

The insurance industry also really took a hit the last few years many of the insurance companies have left the area or went under.

Citizens insurance company was started in 2002 by the Florida State Legislature as a non-profit last resort insurance for people who couldn’t get coverage. Last I checked It’s now the second largest property insurance company in Florida!

Until prices drop it’s way easier and I would argue cheaper to rent. Now if you were starting a family, planned on being in a house for 20 + years then buying could make sense.
One thing that people don’t talk about or are aware of is the mold issues in Florida.

Even if a house hasn’t had storm damage the humidity and heat can create mold issues. If you are living in a building that has had storm damage unless the entire building was gutted there will be mold.

I know several people who lived or worked in places that had mold (unknown to anyone) and they ended up extremely sick. One was hospitalized and came close to dying.

So any older condos, apartments I would stay away from.

The other cost chasing people out of Florida are the HOA fees. My HOA rose by 40% in 4 years. There usually isn’t a cap so your HOA can jump up really fast. My HOA was low and you really had to do something to get a violation so it wasnt bad at first. The storms came and are crushing these community HOA’s with expenses. The more they take care of the more it’s gonna cost and costs exponentially rise after a storm . My HOA fee basically covered gate access, community landscaping and keeping people in check. I still cut my own grass, had to to do everything outside from paint to roofing. I lived in a house so that’s relatively normal situation. Live in a condo and anything outside even if you could fix it you won’t be allowed and all those repairs keep driving up the HOA costs.

As far as taxes go I don’t care where you live the government gets you one way or another.
I remember the first time buying clothes in Florida and it was a sizable bill (new suit etc) . I was convinced it was rung up wrong until I realized Florida charges sales tax on clothing. lol . Growing up in Pennsylvania I nvr had to pay tax on clothing.

In the last 7 years I have lived on Pennsylvania, Florida, Connecticut and Texas.

There are pros and cons for each. Well except for Connecticut. I see no advantage to living there.

If you look anywhere from Clearwater to Sarasota (Venice beach being further southeast) I can help you in those areas. I’ve lived there and know tons of people .

One last thing …people bitch about the heat in the summer time in Florida. First of all no shit. It’s Florida ha!
Second what do you do in the winter in other areas when it’s extreme cold? You stay inside in the heat. Same thing you do in the summer in Florida. Stay inside in the AC but morning and evening you can be outside whereas winter in the north it’s even colder at those times.

Oh yea one more last thing … mesquites .
You have to come to a truce with them. Most of them I had agreement that at 6pm or later if I was outside I was at my own risk. Easier to have a screened in lanai around your pool or deck which btw will be the first thing destroyed in a storm

 

Ok Broome tldr!

 

They do not… Trying to get some SBA help. My mortgage company suspended payments for 3 months, but we have to pay the interest back from those months in the following 3 months. And it’s now been 4 months and I just got the permits for the one property, still waiting on the others. The one I lived in was a triplex, so I had a total of 5 units on the island all uninhabitable for at least 5 months. Pretty unfortunate.

 

Yea, living in paradise comes with its catches for sure. Neither of my properties ever had any water before. Never even got remotely close to the one I lived in. But, we all knew that this was not only a possibility, but only a matter of time.

 

It's funny, we had a place at the beach up north, Fenwick Island beside Ocean City, MD. All the stuff on the water is built up on pilings or has a block first floor/garage. When we started looking at stuff in FL, I was like, what the hell is with all these ranchers on the water. They're like sitting ducks in a hurricane. Everyone lamented about they never get hurricanes around here. I said no way in hell I'd buy a house on the water that was ground level. Then two storms swamp the whole west coast of FL in back to back years. Like you said, only a matter of time.

 

That’s baffling to me as well. Md resident here that’s spent a lot of time in OC and the beaches of Delaware. Just about everything near the water is built elevated on pilings. And we don’t get many hurricanes up here.

It’s inexplicable to me that FL homes aren’t built in the same manner.

 

Sorry to hear that. I don't have earthquake insurance, not sure if that is dumb or not? I do know unlike regular insurance there is a huge deductible, 15-25% with earthquake insurance, so that made me think I will pass for the last 30 some years.

 

I was living in Tampa and drove up to New Port Richy and thought to myself...1 hurricane and this place is toast

 

Everything west of Rt19 anyway. Only a few limited spots east of 19 got flooded, by storm surge anyway. Helene didn't have much rain at all, Milton had 12ish inches up our way. The rain caused flooding inland, a lot of it days after Milton passed. Helene caused the coastal flooding up that way.

 

Just remember,

That's 25% of Coverage A, which is the limit on your building.
$2M limit, deductible is $500,000

That's how wind insurance works in FL, also