Buying and owning an "older" home in FL...(and a condo question) (Tampa: new house, construction)
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If a room was added, lanai enclosed or shed built in the backyard, it is either on the property records or not, and the evidence is clearly visible (or not) with sites such as Google Satellite. Yes, local governments are using satellite views to monitor illegal construction and additions to properties these days. Most likely the building department will demand you pull permits for the previous work done -- but here's the catch -- those remodeling jobs will have to meet CURRENT building codes, not the codes from when the work was originally done.
Just because things were ignored in the past doesn't mean they are ignored today. Because of all of the reasons above, it makes sense to get permits when required as a home owner and be very cautious about checking for permits when buying a home, especially an older home.
Something I noticed the last time I was looking at the online ‘tax card’ from the Property Appraiser’s office for my own home was that at least in my county, they’ll now attach permit records going back to at least 2010 (when we redid windows and garage door) that list permit type and how much the improvement cost to the tax card for each property.
IMO, condominium prices on older associations, three stories and higher, built in the 70's, 80's & 90's will drop as their maintenance skyrockets in order to comply with SB4, the SIRS and 30/40 year inspections. Many have continued to waive fully funding their reserves which will result in the increase of fees.
Older homes, no HOA, better choices...
All true. It seems most condo associations in Florida are whistling past the graveyard and not thinking about the new legislation and just hoping it'll go away if they don't talk about it. The reckoning is coming whether they acknowledge it or not. The current high selling prices will not survive the coming fee increases.
Thank you kyle. So do you feel it's smarter to buy a home built in the 60s-70s vs the 80s? You said "mid 80s" so does that mean early 80s houses are better than later 80s?
I have heard about the strap improvements for roofs. When you do that modification, do the insurers no longer treat it like an older house?
Yes I do. The well-established neighborhoods in most FL cities consist of homes of the same circa and are usually nicely landscaped versus new builds where every bit of mature landscaping was mowed down in favor of a smattering of cheap annuals, and some tiny saplings that'll provide shade in about 20 years. Beyond that in terms of durability, they've lived through countless storms. For about 30K you can redo plumbing, electrical, the roof and all windows if needed for a home in a proven neighborhood. New construction guarantees nothing in terms of neighborhood quality over the years, as evidenced by the recession several years back. I can name a few neighborhoods in my area that were new builds then that have gone off the rails and look horrible now. 1984-1985 was about the cutoff between the better builds and the craptastic dry wall and tape wonders. Chinese Drywall was a mid-2000s issue and not applicable to pre-1980s.
For about 30K you can redo plumbing, electrical, the roof and all windows if needed for a home in a proven neighborhood. New construction guarantees nothing in terms of neighborhood quality over the years, as evidenced by the recession several years back. I can name a few neighborhoods in my area that were new builds then that have gone off the rails and look horrible now. 1984-1985 was about the cutoff between the better builds and the craptastic dry wall and tape wonders. Chinese Drywall was a mid-2000s issue and not applicable to pre-1980s.
As someone with a 1981 house who has worked their way through that project list over the years, I’ll say it’s worth paying a premium if the seller says a lot of that has been taken care of (and has records for it). It’s easy to find ‘Chuck with a truck’ to do that kind of stuff but when you’re talking licensed and insured and properly pulling permits and all can be something of a grind, especially when you’re talking a time when a lot of construction companies and labor are working large hurricane recovery efforts in other parts of the state.
We’re very glad we got our roof redone about three months before Hurricane Michael because otherwise it would have probably been a year of waiting (and paying higher much higher property insurance) because all the state-licensed roofers in the region were busy printing money in Panama City. as hurricane recovery progressed.
Older homes can be great options if you watch out for certain things, such as roof age, electrical & plumbing updates (nor not), whether permits were properly pulled for remodeling and additions when required.
Regarding roofs: Florida recently passed legislation that allows insurance companies to change the way they cover older roofs. Under the law, if your roof is over 10 years old and it gets destroyed during a hurricane, your insurance company could pay you what your old roof is worth at the time as opposed to paying 100% of the replacement cost. It creates a sliding scale for payouts on roofs over 10 years of age. Many insurance companies have issues about insuring homes with roofs that are 15 years old or older, so be sure to look up when the roof was last replaced in the county building department's website. Do not rely just on info supplied by the sellers, they often are off on the exact dates.
Electrical and plumbing updates: If you buy an older home, most all insurance companies are going to want to see at least a 4 Point Home Inspection before they will issue new coverage for that property. The 4 point inspection covers the roof, electrical, plumbing and HVAC system. They want to know that all are functioning properly, that all are to code for when they were installed (as in permits pulled if permits were required) and they generally want an estimated life expectancy for things like water heaters.
Permits: This is a biggie when buying an older home that has gone through remodeling at some point in the past. Often on older homes you will see that a FL room has been converted to living space, or a kitchen wall was taken down to create a more open floor space. Often if you look up permits for the property you will find none on file regarding the remodeling. Things like this were often ignored in the past but no longer.
More times than not, unpermitted work will not be covered by your homeowners insurance. In fact, unpermitted work can interfere with your homeowners insurance coverage as a whole. If you file a claim with your homeowners and they find out that there has been unpermitted work performed on your property, they have the right to drop your coverage due to risk.
The lack of permits can also become a big headache when you go to sell your home because once you know that unpermitted construction was done on your home, you must, by law, disclose the issue to all potential buyers. That will likely have a negative impact on the sales price. Plus, your buyer must obtain insurance on the property for closing if they are doing financing -- and the buyer may run into problems finding an insurance company willing to issue new coverage for the property.
If a room was added, lanai enclosed or shed built in the backyard, it is either on the property records or not, and the evidence is clearly visible (or not) with sites such as Google Satellite. Yes, local governments are using satellite views to monitor illegal construction and additions to properties these days. Most likely the building department will demand you pull permits for the previous work done -- but here's the catch -- those remodeling jobs will have to meet CURRENT building codes, not the codes from when the work was originally done.
Just because things were ignored in the past doesn't mean they are ignored today. Because of all of the reasons above, it makes sense to get permits when required as a home owner and be very cautious about checking for permits when buying a home, especially an older home.
Older homes often have character that newer homes lack. They are often built on larger lots and come with mature landscaping. There's nothing wrong with buying an older home as long as you know what to watch out for and be sure to get a thorough home inspection (not just the 4 point for insurance purposes) by a qualified home inspector when buying one.
In 1985, when we lived in Miami, FL ww bought a home built in1958. It was a large house, on a 1/2 acre corner lot in a desirable neighborhood with the county's best public schools. It had been extensively remodeled, not all of it necessarily up to the current code or permitted properly. We were ignorant of the potential problems this might cause us later, and it seemed our realtor, the attorney we used, and even the title insurance company turned a blind eye towards the issues.
Fast forward a few years, enter hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the winds from the northern eyewall of this hurricane ( plus a portion of our neighbors' roof that came flying across the street and straight through our shuttered living room windows) tore off the roof- including shingles, plywood, and broken trusses, destroying that portion of the house. The main damage was to the addition, though a major factor for that was its eastern exposure where the worst winds came from.
We rebuilt the house, and I suppose there was a silver lining in all this mess, as we had to rebuild the house, including the unpermitted addition, up to current code and of course properly permitted. This included not just the outside wall of the addition, this time with the rebar and poured concrete according to code, but updated electric and AC, plumbing. We would not have had the money to do all this if we had not gotten it from the homeowner's insurance.
We had several hurricanes after that in the years that followed, none with near the intensity of Andrew and no damages to speak of ( other than loss of pool cage screening and some damage to the screen frame from a tree falling on it). We replaced the roof in 2011. We made no insurance claims after Andrew.
Homeowners' insurance became and remained a major hassle after Andrew and remained that way up to the time we sold the house at the end of 2012. State Farm became State Farm of Florida ( for the purpose of reducing the exposure of their parent company to windstorm damages in FL) and dropped windstorm coverage from our homeowners policy. This necessitated having a windstorm only policy through Citizens, the state insurer "of last resort". And we were required to have flood insurance through FEMA as well. No claims so we avoided that mess but the rates went up every year,,and by the time we sold the house we were looking at paying close to $11,000 annually for all those policies.
Despite being completely rebuilt to current codes, including those intended for hurricane wind and rising water mitigation, and adding extra protection against wind damage on our own ( extra bracing on trusses, an additional hurricane strap on trusses, a double roofed "safe room" with a metal door), the insurance industry still considered our house a 1958 build, assuming it was built without those added protections, and our policies were priced accordingly. Didn't seem to matter what we provided in the way of documentation or mitigation reports, it was an old house, and in an area( east of US 1 that they claimed made us more vulnerable to windstorm damage.
We escaped all that when we moved away from Miami and sold the house at the end of 2012. No problem selling the house, we had several offers the first day it was on the MLS. We met the demands of the appraiser, and the only hassle was resolving several open permits dating from our rebuilding after Andrew. Open permits must be resolved and closed before the closing, and our buyers wanted a quick closing. Those open permits turned out to be due to contractor or county bureaucratic snafus, not structural problems, ie, one was a duplicate permit for windows, the other window permit had been processed and closed, another was a structural permit for the rebuilding of the addition to the house, no final inspection report- the contractor used a private structural engineer ( as permitted by the county at the time) for the inspections, but his report had not been filed properly by the county. The third open permit actually had been finaled, we had a copy of that, but never had been filed in the county records. We had fortunately kept copies of all the permits and final inspection reports, but in the interest of time had to hire a guy who could plow the bureaucratic obstacles with the county ( wondering how many palms he had to grease to get this expedited) and get those permits closed. Took him a week, but he,did it and the sale went forward.
That's our saga of the old house in Florida.
Last edited by Travelassie; 12-22-2022 at 07:02 AM..
Much of Florida was built out in the 1960s and 1970s. Those homes were almost always built with a concrete slab and concrete block walls, otherwise known as CBS construction. The roofs were built with standard trusses and for those inclined for insurance discounts (or required), modification can easily be done for a few hundred dollars where the trusses are strapped at four corners to the top of the concrete walls. These houses (pre-wind mitigation) have held up through many storms while many of the newer builds (mid 80s through 90s) were virtually destroyed in varying hurricanes. In terms of condos having insurance issues, I wouldn't guess so if they've maintained updates and had roof mitigation work completed. There's always a market for condos in the state, especially in the better built and well managed options. Townhouses can be tougher and would greatly depend on location and market conditions of that area where SFH prices perhaps are traditionally higher.
"many of the newer builds virtually destroyed"...........that is an exaggeration. Hurricane Andrew was a tornado type storm that ripped through Homestead though.
Old homes/condos = older plumbing, no hurricane codes = higher insurance costs
It’s astounding to me that the O.P. considers a house built in the ‘70s as “older.”
It is! A house built in 72 is 50 years old!
Now compared to something up north built in the late 1800's a 72 build is a new house but keep in mind Florida didn't really take off in development until the 50s 60s.
"many of the newer builds virtually destroyed"...........that is an exaggeration. Hurricane Andrew was a tornado type storm that ripped through Homestead though.
Old homes/condos = older plumbing, no hurricane codes = higher insurance costs
Andrew ripped through areas well north of Homestead as well, we lived about 17 miles north of Homestead and were in Andrew's northern eyeball.
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