All Forum Posts by: Sam Leon

Thank you all, especially Dion DePaoli for the detailed explanation, I guess I need to do some due diligence first to make sure the "owner" is authorized to sell the property and not a bankruptcy trust. The listing agent may not be 100% reliable.

Last time I had a mold test done was at a property that had NO visible mold (I didn't see any black moldy spots on the walls) but there was an exterior wall that the sheet rock was warpped and bulged and I can feel the wall surface was slightly damp, and electric was off for months due to bank not paying the bills.

The tester tested air samples in different areas of the house. At the location where I suspect there may be mold, upstairs, entrance, backdoor, outside, in each bathroom etc...and they have a "control" sample.

Big difference in various areas of the house. They tested for Cladosporium,

Other Ascospores, Other Basidiospores, Penicillium/Aspergillus, Smuts, myxomycetes, Stachybotrys, Unidentified Spores etc...and all other areas showed nothing significant, but the downstairs kitchen wall showed 1,300 spores per cubic meter of Penicillium/Aspergillus and 140,000 spores per cubic meters of Stachybotrys which is the toxic black mold. The kitchen is literally 15 feet away from another test area and that showed nothing so it definitely is concentrated and localized. But once you turn your AC or fan on I am guessing all bets are off.

There is a property I looked at, where a bank was originally scheduled to take possession of it via a foreclosure auction in Sep 2013, then the owner filed bankruptcy to stop the foreclosure, then the foreclosure was dismissed (so I was told), and now the property is on short sale.

Will this short sale be the "SAME" as any other short sale or there may be complications due to a prior bankruptcy filing which stopped a foreclosure?

John, I am not too familiar with the official definition of war zones, I have always assumed an area is a war zone if:

(1) As I drive through it, all the passengers in the car have a sudden desire to lock their doors...

(2) You wish you have a weapon with you, if not, one of those "club wheel locks" you had back in the 80s might help a little...the female passengers finger through their purse to check for their mace or pepper spray.

(3) You pray your car doesn't break down, you would never stop to fill your gas tank even if your dash says your gas tank is empty.

(4) You check how many bars your cell phone has, you pre-dialed "911" just stop short of pressing "CALL".

If some of the above are true I call it a war zone.

Jeff, the MF is not for sale, it's a series of four buildings, each have 12 units.

Each building has a different owner, but they do not own the land these buildings sit on, there is a land trust. One of the building is vacant, and another is semi-vacant, that's why I got interested, need to look further into it.

Jeff, the rest of the area are fine. Those few buildings are the worst on that street. Two of the building are occupied, one is vacant. I actually thought the same, that I may be able to turn this into something better.

Philip, I looked into this last week there isn't any changes in any boundary I can tell, except one is SFR, the other side is Multi, and of course, one is waterfront with ocean access no fixed bridge, the other is land locked.

I have heard the term "war zones" used here from time to time. What is the opposite of war zones?

I wonder how many of you have been around neighborhoods where one switches to the other within a short distance. There are many such mixed neighborhoods down in South Florida. War zones, but three blocks down, you have million dollar homes.

One such extreme is in Fort Lauderdale. Here is one street.

To the right of this street are expensive homes, in the 500K, 600K range, they are water front homes along the river. You can see parts of sailboats docked behind them.

Now if I turn and look to the left, same street, you have these apartment homes.

If you look close enough, EVERY window has holes in them. I don't know if they were caused by bullets or baseball bats.

I do know these are NOT hurricane damages!

Are these pipes type L, M or K?

Where did you get them, I would take a section of what you have replaced and see if you can determine the cause of leaks, take a look at the pin holes. Are they all over or they are "dotting a line"?

I have seen many copper drain lines with pin holes at the bottom, most times due to chemical put down the drain line, chemical such as Draino, and they would eat at the pipes and that's why the leaks are always at the bottom.

Your leaks are from pressurized supply lines, not near a fitting. Is it thinner at the spot where the pin hole is?

Also are those soft copper or rigid? I have seen where plumbers have bent soft copper pipes, and they end up "kinking" the pipe a little, that kinked spot is primed for leaks as it creates turbulence on the flow inside the pipe, same reason why after cutting copper pipes they recommend deburring, the shape edge may create turbulence which increase the potential for thinning the pipe walls there.

As for the 10K job, it's hard to tell without looking at your situation. I suspect most of the budget is not the actual plumbing of the pex, but to open and close access to the various manifolds you have around the house to connect the PEX to. In Florida's older homes we have no basement and copper lines were ran under concrete slab, so to redo with PEX you run the new PEX in the attic, but there is no avoiding opening up walls at each manifold location, and if those locations are behind kitchen cabinets, behind bathtubs...you have little choice but end up with a bunch of mini renovations.

Believe it or not, I got a call yesterday, Thanksgiving day, at 11am from someone who says they want to see my place for rent, says it's perfect for them.

I asked them a couple of questions, they have an accent and I asked where they are from. Pakistan he said but his native tongue is Russian.

I asked him when he needs to move he said immediately, same day.

I said no, one has to apply and be subjected to a screening and being it's a holiday weekend, it might take a bit longer, and a lease has to be signed. I said Thanksgiving day is a tough day, but I would be happy to send them an application form, and after they read through it and have the information available, I can schedule a showing for today.

I asked for an email address. He gave me some weird address with a domain extension of ".RU" as in Russia. I said you are still using a Russian email account for your US correspondence? He said yes...I asked him if he is a legal resident he said he has a green card. I said to him "no problem, after you reviewed the application form and screening procedure, call me back and schedule to see the property, but bring your passport with the permanent resident visa and driver's license".

No call back.

Probably the case but what doesn't make sense is the price dropped twice during the time I tried to make contact. First time dropped 25K next time 10K. If he's getting bombarded with 100 calls why the price adjustments?

I'll get an agent on my end to initiate the contact to see if it makes a difference. That's the catch 22. I was using an agent before and every time I lost out and they told me because having an agent cuts me out because everyone was double ending deals in Miami.