All Forum Posts by: Bienes Raices

I went to the houses in question and the 3/2s actually looked like the best (in terms of neighborhood, etc.) so it looks like I'll be putting offers in on them instead of the 3/1s.

I went with the realtor to view the two houses I posted about in another thread.

Both houses have a half finished garage conversion which should probably be converted back to a garage, also one of the houses has a medium case of mold. Otherwise these are nice houses in a well kept neighborhood.

The realtor mentioned maybe not telling the insurance company too much about these problems, because they may never come out to check the house in the first place. However, since the house will have to be vacant for at least a month while these repairs are done, I''m concerned that there could be fire or something, and my insurance company could deny me, especially if they found out serious work was being done they didn''t know about.

Anyway, my idea was to insure through TAPCO while the repairs are done (similar to Foremost, but Foremost won''t insure in Florida). TAPCO will cost about 2.5 times more than normal insurance, but I'll just factor that into my offers.Then I'll go back to a regular insurance company once the tenant is in.

I guess what I'm asking is has anyone ever lost a deal because the insurance company wouldn''t insure? I'm trying to figure all this out before I go to my insurance co. and tell them all this.

Thanks.

There are some 3/1s around here that will meet the 50% rule. Is it possible to add an extra bathroom onto any type of house? Thats''s not something I''d want to do in the immediate future, but it's an option I'd like to have at some point.

There's another house on the same street as this one that I'm going to look at. I looked at the information sheet again today and that one has a garage conversion too, although it doesn't say anything about "unapproved''. Maybe it's something a lot of people in that neighborhood do.

Also, I'm only going by what the MLS listing said about unapproved--I won''t be able to see the house for a couple of days. Maybe I should post back again then. And it was built in the early '90s, so it's not that old.

It said "unapproved" in the ad, not illegal--my mistake. Also, as it turns out, this is an REO, if it matters. I thought it was a regular seller at first because the ad doesn't give indication that it's an REO, but then I found out otherwise.

I want to buy a 3/2 SFH to rent out. Is there a minimum bedroom size or living room size that I should be looking for? And, I know it''s dependent on the market, but there are some newer homes that would be low maintenance, but they're 900-1050 square feet--I don't know whether tenants would consider this too small.
What about square feet overall?

Would I have to pay a structural engineer to look at the garage, or just a run of the mill inspector? Or should I go to the building codes office and ask them.

I definitely want to play it by the book, in terms of liability, safety, etc.

I definitely need to find out more about this house, when it was last sold, etc.