All Forum Posts by: Kristin Kiddy

Gainesville is a university town so there are a lot of opportunities for student rentals... If you can deal with students. Ocala is more of a retirement focused area and popular due to it's proximity to the Villages. If rents are anything like we are seeing here in Daytona, then you should have an easy time finding renters in either location. Have you investigated what is available for your price point and what the rents would be? In Daytona, a nice looking SFH priced for $130,000 rehabbed would rent for between 1200 and 1400 depending on size and location.

@Lien Vuong has a point.  Did you sign a buyer's agent agreement?  Often the contract will specify that the agent's commission will be paid by the buyer if the seller doesn't agree to do it themselves.  Also, commissions are not always percentage based.  They can be a flat fee or a combination of the two.  It is also possible during your purchase negotiation that the price was lowered but the seller told they didn't have to pay the buyer's agent fee (making it a wash more or less).  

I have vinyl plank flooring in my rental... higher quality... commercial grade.  The stuff is indestructible.

@Ali Taghikhani  Very cool.  We lived in Mexico for 2 years.  My husband is a programmer and works remotely too.  

@Stuart M. My handy man built a completely new sink cabinet for me.  The old one was water damaged and falling apart.  All he did was buy melamine sheets from Home Depot.  He cut them to size and screwed them together.  The cabinet doors were easy to reuse because they are frameless boxes.  Here is a pick of after. (the cabinet over the microwave was there when we bought the property).

@Ali Taghikhani I'd like to learn more about your tech recruitment business.  Are you looking to recruit here in Florida?  If so you probably want to locate yourself near a university, such as UCF, U of F, FSU, or FL Polytechnic.  @Ricardo Lopez also recommends a good area that has a lot of high tech workers.  Of course I would love for you to fall in love with Ormond Beach, it is a great little city... but I may not be the right fit for your business.

From what you described I think you are talking about flat melamine cabinets that were really common in the late 80's and 90's remodels.  Did you know that you can repair the peeling melamine?  It is an iron on strip and you just use a regular clothes iron to put it on and then clean up the edge with a metal file.  My rental has these and they were in decent shape except for the sink base which was falling apart.  I had a handy man build me a new box out of the melamine sheets you can get at Home Depot.  I re-used the doors and hinges.  Then I cleaned up all of them with bleach, put new handles on them, and a new formica counter top.  The plumber who came back to hook up the sink actually asked if I had put in new cabinets!  

Septic is separate.  Unfortunately, my inspectors are all here on the East side of Volusia county.  They charge in the range of $400 for a medium sized (under 3000 sf) house.  Just to give you an idea of going price.

You can always get an appraisal yourself.  I know it costs money, but appraisers are more accurate, better trained, must follow legal requirements, and do not have a conflict of interest to list your home or get your business other than the fee to appraise.  It sounds like you may need this just to get a good number on the property since it is a town house surrounded by single families.  And the good news is that when you do get an offer, you know that it should bank appraise for that amount.  Also I agree with @Russell Brazil.  Zestimates are a mess.  Never trust them and don't let them ruin you day.

There is a lot of drama over here in Daytona as well.  We have a commercial zone just off the beach and if you have a unit in a condo that allows str then you can, but most condos prohibit it in their regulations.  There is the rare house that qualifies.  Owners of strs in other areas are in lawsuit with the city.  I don't think anything is resolved yet.