All Forum Posts by: Jim Hiler

I have the same question. If I want to participate in the auction. (Palm Beach County, FL) but am not willing to bid the same or above the plantiff's max bid is it even worth participating?

@Glenn Gurvitch @Nicholas White  Has some good points. Lots of variables. Depending on the exact location / neighborhood etc. I would say that $1,200 for 950 w/ a washer dryer is low.  Do you manage any multifamily property? I may be interested in this deal as well if your buyer is not.  We should connect.

Im in contract to buy a cat infested condo. In my reno costs assumed doing similar remedies as to what all are describing above however now the HOA HOA president is trying to make me gut the place down to the shell and start over. She wants air reports from a certified mold company that all the mold and toxic by products of cat pee are removed.My plan would be to remove all flooring, baseboards, etc and remove 24" of drywall on walls, treat the slab and bottom of studs and put it all back together. Then kilz all remaining drywall. If I can't convince her of this approach I may not be making much if any money on this flip.

@Account Closed

Has anyone on this thread just tried to use Kilz oil based primer to get rid of the smell?

Pat - I would appreciate it if you could please send the OM my way as well. 

[email protected]

Thanks,

Jim

@Jon Huber  Thanks for photo.... BTW I threw your name out there as a potential guest on the Jake & Gino podcast @Gino Barbaro 

You can try http://www.jilsamanagement.com/

When you say multifamily community, how big? 

1. Did you hire the engineer directly or through an architect? 

2. I assume you are working with a general contractor also? 

3. How big is this project? how big is the lot? how many parking spaces? How many pages of drawings did he submit?    8 days @ 8 hours is 64 working hours, that seems to be more time than he would need to complete the original design. What is his hourly rate? Most engineers charge around $125 - $150 an hour - That's almost $10k. What did he charge you to begin with?

4. Did you review the comments from the plan reviewer? Are they being unreasonable? What are they asking for? Sometimes the plan reviewers are over zealous and make overly stringent requests that the building official can over ride. Typically a contractor or architect who has done several projects in a town has a relationship or rapport with the plan reviewers and building official and can reason with them to some extent.

5. Has this engineer submitted permit plans to the particular municipality that you are trying to obtain a permit from in the past? If he has any experience with this town he should know what they require. I would agree that every town chooses to enforce the local and state codes differently but if he's worked in the town before he should be aware of most of what they're looking for. 

95% of all new houses built in South Florida are CBS (Concrete block and stuccoed).  The main reasons are stated above but I can restate them. Some houses as you move up the coast are still stick built but if they're in High Velocity Hurricane Zones the amount of strapping required almost cancels out any savings  you would realize from wood framing.

1. CBS is stronger/ more resistant to hurricanes

2. They resist termites and other wood destroying organisms better although almost every house does still have wood trusses.

3. They resist water and rot better. During the summer the climate is very wet down here. 

The older homes, that were built in the 20's and 30's down here were built using dade county pine which is an extremely hard wood more resistant to termites and rot although those houses obviously were not built with all the current hurricane strapping, tie downs etc. If the house has been there for 80 or 90 years then yes most likely it will withstand most hurricanes but you never know. The wood used today is not nearly as dense and resistant to termites and rot. There are also other considerations you need to take into account. 

1. Whether you own a CBS or wood frame house you need to closely monitor any termite or other WDO infestations and stay on top of it.

2. Your insurance premiums will be higher if your roof isn't strapped and you don't have hurricane shutters or impact resistant windows. There are other factors that come into play also during a wind mitigation survey - age of roof, shape of the roof, how the roof was framed, nails used etc.

3. If you do a major renovation on the property your local building inspector could force you to add strapping to all of your roof trusses or hand framed rafters, plus additional strapping / tie downs on load bearing and gable walls.

4. And yes there will be more maintenance if you have some type of wood siding as a building facade or wood windows etc. Most times you can stucco over existing siding if it's bad shape or strip it and install boral or hardie plank cement based siding.  Just make sure you have someone certified to deal with lead paint removal if the old siding is painted.

I would still consider wood framed properties but proceed with caution and make sure you are taking all of the above into consideration.