Buying and selling wood homes in FL

[Dave Smart]

I am a flipper from CT moving to Fort Lauderdale in a week looking to buy property to flip. My concern is: will it be more difficult to find a buyer if the home is not built with block? Many of the distressed homes I find are wooden and have prior termite damage, which I am fine with fixing, but I am wondering if the stigma of termites affecting wooden homes will hurt the number of potential Buyers I may have. Could anyone with knowledge of the Florida market provide any insight on this? My selling point is going to be around 250k, so i will be selling mostly to first time home buyers and lower income buyers. Thank you!

[Jeff Copeland]

There are two types of homes in Florida: Homes that have termite damages, and homes that don't have termite damage yet. 

In very general terms, block construction is preferred to wood frame. But there is no particular stigma associated with wood frame - ultimately it boils down to price and condition. 

Fact is, there is plenty of wood in a block home (interior walls, roof system, etc) and I've seen block homes where the roof trusses and rafters were completely destroyed by termites. 

A termite warranty (which usually comes with any type of treatment) is a great selling point for first time home buyers. So my advice would be repair the damage, get it treated, and use the termite warranty as a selling feature. 

The only time superficial termite damage often becomes a major issue is when the buyer is using VA loan. The VA requires a completely clean WDO inspection report (and it's very hard to find a home in Florida with zero termite damage, and zero evidence of termites ever having been present).