All Forum Posts by: Stephen Shelton

At my "day job" we have a lot of legalise to provide to customers and sometimes they question a gray area. I always fall back to the literal meaning of the words and not the implied intent because what seems like a gray area to a regular person will be black-and-white to a lawyer. 

If it says 30 days I would literally treat it as 30 days. Err on the side of caution.

I also hate it when things are measured in months since a month is not a defined period of time.

I've received offers by snail mail to buy specific houses of mine for years, but now I'm getting these personalized text messages from a local area code where the sender says something like:

"Hi Steve this is Freddy. Do you own the house at 1428 Elm St in Springwood?"

These always catch me momentarily and make me wonder if this is a neighbor telling me the house exploded or collapsed in a sinkhole, but I know if I respond it will be spam to buy the house.

These seem new.  Anyone else getting hit with these? I get one from a Josh offering to sell me a house too.  Believable to the point I checked here if I've messaged him lol.

I bought a property in Dec 2018 for $100,500. Zillow now estimates it at $137,000 while Realtor estimates it at $98,000. 😅 Rounding error I guess!

I think the sites and their estimates are pretty impressive considering they contain virtually every home in America, often with interior pics, but they are what they are: free tools that used automated formulas to predict something that can often be a bit unpredictable and can't fully account for the human emotional factor (for example I bet something like the Brady Bunch house zestimated far less than than its actual value)

I know I know I'm cringing at the topic of this, but I'm going to get specific so it doesn't seem so noobish 😄

It's Florida. I bought a single story rectangular block home on a concrete foundation. A back porch was added and turned into 2 simple interior rooms built from wood. The house was abandoned for a decade and the addition was left to rot. Literally.  The floor is even wood.

I want to rebuild the space into 2 rooms. How much (ballpark) should I expect to pay for this scenario:

* Size 30' x 12'  / 360 sqft

* Walls: standard 8'

* Walls: Prefer block, but due to existing structure contactor recommended wood walls with hardiboard exterior siding.

* Concrete foundation

* One basic 6" sliding glass door

* 1 window

* No closets

* No plumbing/water

* No roof (it exists and is perfect)

* HVAC already routed

* 3 total ceiling light fixture boxes

The existing walls and rotten flooring and fireplace will need demo'd and hauled away. The existing walls are loaded with old awning-style windows.

Things I don't want factored into this estimate:

* Finishes: tile, baseboard, paint, etc.  I will do that myself.

* AC: the extra space will likely impact ac system demands.

I do have an estimate on the way, but can someone give me a ballpark estimate on what they'd expect this estimate to cost? I really have little idea.

Update: The day came to pick up the rent and speak to the neighbors. I went over, rang the bell 3-4 times and no one answered. I figured they may have left the property because Hurricane Dorian was projected to hit in 36 hours. I decided to try again in a few days, but last minute things prevented it.

I went back Monday. Rang the bell a few times, complete with enough time between rings to not be annoying, aaaaaaaaaand

Nothing.

My tenant told me that the couple is older, the wife works and the husband does nothing but live in the house.  On my last attempt the car was in the driveway so both of them should have been home. She thinks they're in there and not coming to the door. She thinks they may only want to speak with me over the phone because on her 2 encounters with them that's how they requested we speak.

I'm going to try again tomorrow, but again I have things to do.

78°? I remember living in a house in the heat of Pennsylvania summers with no AC at all.

If the "problem" happens because sunlight is striking a part of the house in the afternoon a cheap solution may be to put a heat-reflective tint on the windows on the side getting the sunlight or maybe even painting the house a nice boring white. Another option could be to add plants for shade, and one thing I've wondered is if shading the AC condenser (maybe with a piece of fencing without blocking airflow) would make it run better.

 I agree with what you and Joe are suggesting. It's also true my view of the tree benefits from the fact I don't have to clean it up. I also don't have to live next to them so I don't want to be the big bada$$ who says "Go kick rocks!" and then drive home leaving my tenant to live with the soured relationship.

If he wants to split the cost of removing the tree I'll do it because good relations with neighbors is very valuable, but I can't just pander to any demand he dreams up otherwise it will be an endless series of demands (the house might as well be ruled by an HOA at that point).

Heck I'll even buy the replacement tree! I already know what I want! 😄 Yards are required to have 2 trees in the front yard and I only have 2. Loads in the backyard, but 2 in the front.

I'm not sure how close it is to the property line, but whenever I go there to do some work on the house I park between it and the property line so that I'm not blocking access to the driveway. There's plenty on space on both sides of my truck when I do this. I'm not sure if any branches are directly over the line, but if so they'd be small. Too small to cause damage to anything unless they stage something.

I've seen some ridiculous trimming where the main branches are all cut off and the tree looks like a lollipop, but this was different. It did branch out prior to the top so these main vertical branches were cut, and the some horizontal branches were cut. It didn't have that ugly topped look, but the height was definitely reduced.

UPDATE: Gawd this is like out of a sitcom. Apparently my tenant was out in the driveway moving things into the house and the husband neighbor stops on the road to block her car.  She said he was being extremely rude and livid that nothing has been done about the tree and that I have not yet talked to him. He said that he is going to start charging me $50 for every day that he has to rake leaves and that he is going to have "something" written up and sent to me.

My tenant is scared to death of palmetto bugs and tree frogs on the house. She worries about a sinkhole collapsing the house.  She a self-proclaimed worrier, but this guy is just making her mad.  She said she felt the New York in her wanting to come out.

My plan was to meet him once I pick up the rent 9/2, and I'm not going to rush to his aid because he's throwing a tantrum over LEAVES.  I work 10 hour shifts and an renovating a new rental on my days off. I lost hearing in my right ear due to shingles a couple months ago and I'm pushing off addressing that until I have free time so I'm certainly not going to rush over to pander to him. Sheesh!