Is that the case in your area, Sandy?

Just kind of annoys me when I have to read about soil, rocks, what a mortgage broker has to do, etc.

There are also a lot of swamplands in that area that even before Sandy hit would've made me cautious about investing right there.That being said some of those towns are as you know vacation destinations for Phila area people in particular.

To investigate these RECs, we propose to install two sub-slab soil gas probes to collect sub-slab soil gas samples which will be analyzed for VOCs and APH.

We've done subdivisions that cost 6 figures.There are municipal costs, engineering costs, survey costs, soil costs, flood, wetlands, steams, and historic considerations.You need to know what the zoning actually is and what are permitted uses as well as minimum criteria like, lot size, lot width, setbacks, etc.

permits are not often pulled for a lot of what he is talking about.. subs are not required to be licensed that's a huge problem Also building codes in TExas are weak  one really needs to be aware of what your buying there.. next thing will be soil and foundation issues.

For example, we had a client that's home was on a ton of clay and during a drought the home literally split in half because the soil shrank and no insurance would cover it so the bank of course foreclosed. 

Bring a hose and run the water outside the bathroom soaking the soil.

I invest in Toledo Ohio, Just beware of Expansive soil.  1/2 the houses that folks want to sell to us have foundation issues and they will tell you "now issues with foundation".  

Originally posted by @Sandy A Armer:I have ten property in Alabama, and 4 in Texas.