oh so negative.. Now, does anyone have any positive. (townhouses, sold)

[hiknapster]

Originally Posted by tmozer

How do you post images?

I usually upload the pic to photobucket, sometimes flickr. Once you do that, you'll get a url. To get it, hover your mouse over the pic. The bottom choice is IM code. Copy that. Click on the little square that you see in the cd reply box. Paste that url, that you got from photobucket, into there. Voila. Your image is on CD!

[IMG][/IMG]

Oh, no! Who could that be?
btw, kroeran, excellent advice. It should be a sticky for all potentional retiree and second-home residents. It could save money and headaches.

And I love this housingcrashsurvivor poster. Great new member!

[nhkev]

[quote=housingcrashsurvivor;12790551]Hey, stop complaining about everybody complaining.

Then check out my post under the strategic default thread and you'll find a deepwaterfront home for under $150,000. Out of the $100k I just saved you, take $50k and get yourself one of these:


I've got to say that 127 sw57th st in cape coral is an interesting listing. So I want to pick it apart a little. #1 if I was looking for a parcel of land in cape coral this would be it. The proximity to open water, no lochs, no bridges, in a built up area, good mix of nice homes, utilities already in place. Located in the South west which in my personal opinion is the best mix of properties in Cape coral.

Where this could be a trap... small sq ft. the big difference in florida's sq ft is very little storage, no basements, smaller garages, limited if any attic space . So you typically need more sq ft than you would expect. the other is it's a 2 bedroom which is going to limit your market. The other biggie is the age 1964 could mean a big home owners insurance bill as it is not built to today's hurricane codes and older homes are usually more expensive to insure, florida's weather is not kind to houses.

You had said that someone bought a house and knocked it down to rebuild. Other than someone who really only needed a small house with 2 bedrooms it is probably the best use for this property, because there is something written in the code that if you want to do improvements to an older home if it exceeds a certain value (which I believe is 30% of the value of the home) you must bring the whole house up to code. Which includes bringing it up to flood elevations, which means essentially levelling the house and bringing in dirt to raise it's elevation.


This was a good find I'd be interested in 4 yrs pulling this address back up and seeing what someone has done with it.

[housingcrashsurvivor]

A home like that is perfect for someone who wants to put the rest of their money to better use. It would be excellent for a retired person or couple and it even has an extra room for an office/guests. You get yourself a little sailboat and yer set.

I'd just do some cosmetic work and be happy with that, maybe new bath & kitchen if I was planning to stay for a long time. But you could do substantial-enough improvements if you wanted. For my property in Broward County I think the limit to rebuild before bringing the entire structure up to code is adding 50% of either the existing square footage or 50% of the value of the entire property (not just of the value of the structure). So if you bought for $150k, you might be able to add another $75k worth of house to it without dealing with compliance, though I do not know Cape Coral codes.

As to insurance, I've three older homes and I do not believe I pay significantly more than does my brother who has a fairly new house, but for the Broward property which is fairly close to the beach so I pay for that.

I can not imagine lifting such a house as the one in Cape Coral to be cost effective. It's not like you'd be trying to save an historic structure. That being the case, just tear it down and build new. But I think any of that is moot currently, particularly for me, considering that I could not even get myself to buy in that area after looking. So certainly I would not consider investing much more than just a purchase price at this time if I did.

One of the funny things (well, I guess not funny, sad maybe) about all this is that during the bubble my brother kept kicking himself in the butt for not buying in that area when he considered picking up some parcels back in the late 90s/early 2000s but decided against it. Since the crash, however, even as prices are better than when he looked earlier, he won't even look at the place. These are scary times.

I'm playing this as safe as I can figure because I can't figure out what's happening or where this is headed. With that uncertainty in mind, for now I'd only buy something that can provide income which means for me looking more towards employment centers of the state, to places where I can rent outright or even bring in a paying roommate. These are not the times to be elevating historically insignificant houses. These are the times to hunker down.

[JBMallory]

how about this, most of the negativity comes from people who don't even live here,, advice is worth what you paid for it...

[MrTudo]

Florida is awesome. I left NJ a little more than a quarter century ago and moved to Ft Lauderdale. Lived there until about a year after Andrew smacked the southern end of Fla which resulted in lots of people moving up from Dade. I bought a house and moved to West Boca. Got too crowded there so I bought a place in Paddock Park 1, Wellington. Left the US for several years, returning in late 2003 and moved to the west coast of Fla. We bought a little house in Port Charlotte and despite all my complaining initially and then blowing more than 25 G'd traveling back and forth and forth and back to North Carolina, we decided this is where we make our last stand.

So we're trying to buy another house, here in Port Charlotte although if this one doesn't close ( I'll lose my mind! ) ( well, not really but some of these realtors....ya know? ), we'll still look in PC but I'm also open to looking either in Sarasota or further south in Cape Coral maybe.

But definitely Fla*. Heck, even the people who left the state just cannot seem to stay away from posting in the Florida section and no matter what they say, it's telling don't you think?

[apesxux]

Originally Posted by MrTudo

We bought a little house in Port Charlotte and despite all my complaining initially and then blowing more than 25 G'd traveling back and forth and forth and back to North Carolina, we decided this is where we make our last stand.

Mr Tudo, how does SoFL, east or west coast compare to NC? Where in NC?

[cpt757100]

are you from Cape Coral?

[MrTudo]

Originally Posted by cpt757100

are you from Cape Coral?

No, charlotte county.

We've decided to look in Naples. I want to go back to the east coast. But as a compromise, we'll look later this week I hope in Naples.

[MrTudo]

Originally Posted by apesxux

Mr Tudo, how does SoFL, east or west coast compare to NC? Where in NC?

There is no comparison with nc in any way.

[justNancy]

Originally Posted by kroeran

$240k will get you one of these in my neighbourhood - 2 story condo

Sure, in 2007. Paseo just sold 2 brand new townhouses for $159K.