31 May 08 10:07, Cindy Haglund wrote to Roy Witt:


 CH>> Crazy how they keep building when there's so many existing homes for
 CH>> sale. How can that increase values for anybody?

 RW>> The people doing the building don't want to live in those little
 RW>> shacks.

 CH>  True of shacks but I'm talking about 2k to 3K sq ft. 3 to 5 bdrm/3
 CH> to 4 bath...etc.

Those are shacks. 5000 square feet is a minimum for them.

 CH> The horrid bit about this is they're plopped on .05 to 1.5 sq acres
 CH> of land. (the bigger house gets the larger lot of course, but it
 CH> amounts the the same size yard as the smaller houses with what's left
 CH> over and the houses are so close together-...... a friend put it this
 CH> way: you may as well be in an apartment.

That's normal for California. You can reach out and actually touch your
neighbor.

 CH> I think large yards are a waste unless you use them for trees/gardens
 CH> anyway but still the closeness of these big houses to each other
 CH> gives you the feeling of ' a bigger shack'.

Here in Texas, we have lots of room to waste. My lot is 89 x 125 w/a 1450
sq ft cottage and some out buildings on it.

 CH> Not to mention the workmanship is not always as good as the house
 CH> looks. Very deceptive in fact. These houses go up in five months.
 CH> That's fast. The ground has no time to settle before the slab goes
 CH> down. Crack crack crack...

Wouldn't settling mean that they bulldozed and/or leveled the land before
they built? I thought Florida was as flat as it can get.

 CH> When we first moved to our Development in 2003 we were oen of the
 CH> first houses there. A neighbor warned us about the plumbing. The
 CH> builders hire the cheapest they can find. Sure enough we had plumbing
 CH> problems. Got it fixed by the same company (this all under warrantee)
 CH> but it wasn't a good fix. Hubby ended up fixing it himself which I
 CH> must say was a better fix. (Involved sealing around the toilet in
 CH> upstairs bathroom)... Sometimes it pays to do it yourself as long as
 CH> you know what you're doing.

That's a wax seal, so it's not hard to do.

 CH> He's got electronics exp so wried a missing bulb socket in the
 CH> utility room. It's amazing all the little oops that go undetected
 CH> during inspection!

I doubt that they inspect for what's supposed to be there as in fixtures,
rather, they inspect wire routing and hook up to the mains.

 CH> OH there was the gas leak from the stove nobody noticed. I smelled it
 CH> and finally when the plumber came to do that fix on the toilet he did
 CH> too and THEN we got the leak fixed. Funny that. Nobody noticed it
 CH> during inspection. hmm. Not even me but at that time I wasn't
 CH> looking.

Maybe the gas wasn't on when you inspected it?

 CH>> There was no bubble in DFW when we moved there in Feb 2003. But by
 CH>> geroge there sure was one in FL in 2004. Doubled. It was said
 CH>> 'brought houses up to ""par"" with those in
DC area and CA more or
 CH>> less. That is a starter home less than 2000 Sqft going for 200K.
 CH>> ((Depending on location of course.))

 RW>> We were going to move to Jacksonville before we chose Texas. The
 RW>> reason we didn't move to FL was because of home prices.

 CH>  They did go zoom up in 2004. We were flabbergasted. GEE just think
 CH> if the lay off at KSC had held out for one more year we would have
 CH> gotten DOUBLE the value on our home in Titusville. We found this out
 CH> when exploring condos to buy and rent out. This didn't pan out
 CH> because property management costs too much to make it worth the
 CH> while. (The game plan was to move to the condo when we could get back
 CH> to FL as we are now. Would have been nice, but it is hard to buy and
 CH> rent out from distance unless you're well heeled (with money) We
 CH> already know of horror stories - what tenets can do to a place you
 CH> have to repair, sometimes more than the renter's deposit will cover.
 CH> In other words, a big pita.
 CH> .....................

Been there and done that with our rental in California. Not being there
and having an agency take care of it wasn't what we expected either. They
didn't care about the property, just their 10% cut from the rent. Not to
mentin that they wanted us to use their handy-man to fix things. I already
had a taste of that when they cut the grass. $75 for a patch of yard
25x60 - $150 to replace a leaking faucet in the laundry room. Stuff like
that. A friend of mine who has a business of taking care of these places
put a new faucet in for free.

 CH>> There's a house near ours that has been vacant since it was built in
 CH>> 2005. Almost bought finally last spring then it like several others
 CH>> on the block developed foundation cracks. This lowered the value and
 CH>> almost got bought again last winter but the bank wouldn't allow it.
 CH>> SO it and 20 0ther houses in that section including ours is for sale
 CH>> still and values are all steadily dropping trying to sell...

 RW>> And they should, as the contractor who built them probably built
 RW>> other problems into that project. Cracked slabs in CA weren't all
 RW>> that bad, in fact ours was cracked. I would imagine with the water
 RW>> table being so high in FL, it can create a lot of anxt among buyers.

 CH>  FL is having a drought as it is. DFW had a big wet the last two
 CH> springs.

We were just told that there's a 'burn ban' that took affect yesterday. No
rain for quite a while here. My yard is turning yellow.

 CH> The development our house is in is said to have been built on a fill.
 CH> That's why the cracks are happening. At first it was thought this was
 CH> happening with only one builders' model but no. It's happening to
 CH> others too .. creeping around the neighborhood like a some kind of
 CH> plague. You never know when or who it'll hit next. Our block at about
 CH> six of them last year. SIX houses! One after another. Just like that.
 CH> (There's oh I think 18 or 20 house on that block.)
 CH> ...............

That sucks. Californians have been successful in bringing suit and being
compensated for cracked slabs.

 CH>> Meanwhile at the other end of the development (which sprang up
 CH>> mighty fast in five years) they're still building .. houses.

 CH>> How can they keep building when there's so many for sale?

 CH>> It's crazy!

 RW>> Eventually they'll be sold, as more and more people reach retirement
 RW>> age and want to move to warmer areas.

 CH>  Warmer?

New York is warmer than Florida?

 CH> No I think they'll want SMALLER houses. I kid you not. Some of these
 CH> people have lived in their big 2-3K sq foot houses for only one year
 CH> and sell.. move to smaller house in the same neighborhood.

New Yorkers, usually owning million dollar apartment/condo, will be glad
to buy one of those large houses after they get their money out of the
apartment/condo.

                R\%/itt



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