All Forum Posts by: Jessica Pearl

@Sean October Hi Sean. I am in Palm Beach County and just started looking at duplexes in Fort Pierce. Planning to head up there next week with my real estate agent. Did you end up investing there?  There are pros and cons to this market- seems like long term potential for those with patience. Would love to exchange thoughts if this market is still on your radar. 

Is it possible to include a clause in the contract that reaffirms the tenant is taking the place as is, and any adaptations required would be at their expense and with your permission? I don't know anything about the legality of this but just thinking out loud.

Southeast Florida is very difficult now for property insurance, especially near the coast. As mentioned above, it is due to huge amounts of fraud for roof replacements. It is very expensive and choices are limited- in our case until we turned to USAA the lowest quote we got from our agent was $6.5k for a 1800sqft house (we converted the rental property into our primary residence). This was last summer. It has definitely been a factor in deciding which market to buy an investment property in. 

Sounds like you are still being very generous. One piece of advice I came across early on was to always raise the rent every year, even if it was a a token amount, because it gets the tenant used to annual increases and avoids the uncomfortable situation you are in (because you are a compassionate person). You definitely need to be charging enough to cover the costs of the property and then some. I agree with the other poster that if you are still charging below market rates as a courtesy to the tenant for being a good tenant, they will likely end up staying (rent for similar place plus moving costs and hassles). If not, it will give you an opportunity to make a full market adjustment on your rent.

We had to convert our insurance from renter to owner occupied last year when we moved back and had a terrible time getting insurance. I have a great guy near FLL who was our agent for over 10 years if you are still looking for someone. He told us that property insurance companies were leaving the area and it has become both difficult and expensive down here. He also mentioned the issue of fake roof claims. Our neighbors across the street got dropped out of the blue by their company this year. If you are eligible for USAA we got an excellent quote from them, and then got the storm insurance through Citizens with USAA as the agent.