After completing several property rehabs in Miami-Dade County, Florida, I wanted to try something out of the county but still in Florida. My parents lived in Sarasota, Florida so I thought this would be a nice place to start. Distance would be an issue but my father was down for the winter and he could check up on the progress being made on the individual properties. Also, my Dad is an electrical contractor which brings many rehab benefits but that is a future REIC posting.
I found a duplex FOR SALE fairly quickly on Debbie Street, Sarasota due to the advantage of attending Sarasota REIA group meetings on Florida's Gulf Coast. Other than the distance, four hour drive, I felt this would be like any other rehab.
I decided to start in February with a two week property visit. Well during that time, several problems arose that I didn't experience before, like:
- Most of the properties were on well water. Hard on the pipes, fixtures and tasted awful. Our duplex had city water service which was a blessing but caused me a problem I had to resolve.
- Septic Tanks! No county sewer systems had been installed. The drain field was the front lawn and it was clogged.
- Clothes Washer waste water line emptied onto the backyard lawn.
- Pine trees over fifty high. Pine needles build up on the roof and lawn.
- Gravel driveway that the neighbors thought they could use to park their cars.
- Drug addicts lived about 50 yards away in an apartment.
- On and On and On....
Apparently it was very expensive to get connected to Sarasota's water system due to high impact fees. Impact fees are the city's way to tax you for hooking up to the water system network. You have to pay for the following:
- Impact fees
- Installation fee for digging up the street and installing the water meters.
- Hire a plumber to run lines from the city's water meters to the duplex's water system.
- Had to pay twice since it was two separate water meters, one for each unit of the duplex.
Luckily, my duplex already had these meters installed by a previous owner. The problem was the neighbors knew this and thought they could help themselves to the city water from our duplex. They would go to our outside water fixture and fill their 5 gallon water containers.
By the end of the month, I had a very large water bill which I couldn't figure out why? My rehab contractor said he never used too much water. I thought I had a water line leak from the meter to the duplex.
One day in July, my rehab contractor said he saw one of the neighbors filling up their containers and told me about it. I was flabbergasted but realized that this was going to be an ongoing problem!
Below is picture containing the anti-theft water system parts and installation video.....
Related Links, Blog Postings, Presentations or Articles:
- Section 8 Inspection Checklist
- Sarasota REIA on Facebook
- Sarasota Real Estate Investor Association on Twitter
| Written by +Bob Burns. | |
 | Life is a Beach. Go Find Yours! Real Estate Investor about.me/RobertKBurns Telephone #: 305-586-5280 email: sec8@planocho.com |
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Thank you, thats very interesting information. I need to share with my friends.
ReplyDeleteInteresting and important information. It is really beneficial for us. Thanks
ReplyDeleteClear, informative, simple. Like your post!
ReplyDeleteGreat blog! it's a useful post, this will helpful for everyone who interested on real estate.. thanks for sharing this to us... i really appreciate this.
ReplyDeleteThere are actually a lot of things to consider first when you are planning to rehabilitate your house/property. This includes a number of factors that may in turn, back drop on you and your investments. Many has already considered rehabbing but some failed due to misunderstanding of certain facts that has to be and always to be known by them.
ReplyDeleteOnline Real Estate School
Alex:
DeleteYes you are correct but if I go over all of them the posting would be too long. I choose this item since it affected me directly.
Bob