quote:

Originally posted by frayedends:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Georgeair:

That's really not correct at all. Only shitty builders take longer. My wife is a realtor for a builder here in Massachusetts. Delivery is 60 days from mortgage commitment. Building doesn't start until then (except for site work that would be done no matter the house).

The Villages has it down to a science. There are only so many model homes. They are now using tilt wall construction (concrete walls are prefab and just tilted up on the slab). The Villages is selling about 300-500 homes per month.

I'm amazed at how fast they're building these homes. I'm doing a Lifestyle Visit in a couple of weeks and have been following all the construction in Lake Denham and Dabney. There's a good YouTube channel by Gold Wingnut that documents the day by day progress of some new construction homes - interesting to see the precast concrete walls going up with the windows already in.

Good luck with your search. I think our timing for a new build is going to push us over into the new Eastport area...away from the turnpike and prison hopefully.

^^^^^

Those are the exact locations we are looking. We have a few homes picked out, but they may be sold by the time we get there. There are some other areas to be built soon, so maybe a home site there. But we want to check out the new areas South of the Pike. Eastport area looks to be awesome. But it is close to a prison and a water treatment plant. So if we don't like that area we will likely buy something next week.

And yes, we watch Gold Wingnut all the time! We know more from him than our realtor knows.

My aunt has a winter home in Florida. (had)

She turned the AC up to 82 when she left. I told her to turn it down to 79 and buy some dehumidifiers. You can leave a dehumidifier in the shower/bath tub. They are programmable to come on if the humidity level rises above a certain percent, say 60% or so. I TOLD her how important it is to get rid of humidity inside a vacant house.

Fast forward to the late fall when she flew down to stay for the winter. The entire home was DESTROYED inside with mold. Turning the AC up to 82 degrees meant that the AC didn't run long enough to remove moisture out of the home. The house was a sauna inside, the mold destroyed everything.

She's been fighting with insurance for the past 18 months and the only things that has happened is a company was hired and they gutted the entire place down to the studs and threw everything in the dumpster. Everything. The TV's. The plates. The dishes. The pots and pans. The beds. Everything.

Basically, its been a nightmare. All she had to do was turn the AC down and install some backup dehumidifiers like I told her.

And yes there are property watch companies that will visit your property, take pictures, make sure nothing is damaged, no insects invasions, no water leaks, no mold, no break ins.

Turn the water off, the water heater off, unplug your fridge and open it up and make sure to dry it out with a fan. Leave the fridge open.

Google had this to say about mold growth in a vacant house:
If there are no cold-condensing surfaces and the relative humidity (RH) is maintained below 60 percent indoors, there will not be enough water in those materials for mold to grow. However, if the RH stays above 70 percent indoors for extended periods of time, mold will almost certainly grow.

Yikes. How long was she up north? I know mold is bad but I didn’t know it would get that bad that quick.

Thanks for all the great tips. There are definitely a few things I didn't think of.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
Yikes. How long was she up north? I know mold is bad but I didn’t know it would get that bad that quick.

Florida snow birds typically come down in November/December and head back up north in March or April. I cant recall how long she was out of the home, but it was a typical time frame.

Not trying to scare you off...... But the possibility of Localized flooding from over flowing creeks , rivers, retention ponds , due to heavy rains / storms / Hurricanes. ... Elevation levels for building site..... Elevation levels around the residential area that might hold large amounts of water that might trap residents in and not allow easy acecss to a particular area.. for unknown time limits..... Am speaking from personal experience..... Live in supposidly no flood zone with no flood insurance required.... Own the home outright.... After a 2 1/2 day rain event with approx 33inches of rain we ended up with 41 inches of flood waters inside which did not recede for 3 days and four days until we were able to get inside the house to survey the damage................. drill sgt.

quote:

Originally posted by drill sgt:
Not trying to scare you off...... But the possibility of Localized flooding from over flowing creeks , rivers, retention ponds , due to heavy rains / storms / Hurricanes. ... Elevation levels for building site..... Elevation levels around the residential area that might hold large amounts of water that might trap residents in and not allow easy acecss to a particular area.. for unknown time limits..... Am speaking from personal experience..... Live in supposidly no flood zone with no flood insurance required.... Own the home outright.... After a 2 1/2 day rain event with approx 33inches of rain we ended up with 41 inches of flood waters inside which did not recede for 3 days and four days until we were able to get inside the house to survey the damage................. drill sgt.

I'm not too far from you . I had 49 inches .

Natural disasters can happen anywhere. Not much sense in changing my life plans for fear of them. At least we will be in central Florida where hurricanes are usually less intense. The villages has a pretty good infrastructure to help keep from flooding homes. IIRC the last time they had flooding it was just the golf courses. They’ve planned it that way.

quote:

Originally posted by Powers77:
Trappers list is pretty good.
Only thing I'd add to the Florida list is you need to leave the AC on and set to about 82. Otherwise you run a high risk of moldy/musty smell on return.

The other thing we do is turn off the water and then cover toilets with saran wrap to stop evaporation. Don't want them evaporating and allowing sewer gas to back up.

I would keep the A/C even lower, 80 at most. I'd leave water on and have someone check the house a couple of times a month and run all water sources.....sinks, toilets, showers etc.......all traps could dry out and you'll have a roachathon.......

quote:

Originally posted by jimmy123x:

quote:

Originally posted by Powers77:
Trappers list is pretty good.
Only thing I'd add to the Florida list is you need to leave the AC on and set to about 82. Otherwise you run a high risk of moldy/musty smell on return.

The other thing we do is turn off the water and then cover toilets with saran wrap to stop evaporation. Don't want them evaporating and allowing sewer gas to back up.

I would keep the A/C even lower, 80 at most. I'd leave water on and have someone check the house a couple of times a month and run all water sources.....sinks, toilets, showers etc.......all traps could dry out and you'll have a roachathon.......

This seems like the best option. There are services that do this for reasonable rates. We also may have friends down there that can take care of this for us. Heading out today and have a bunch of showings with the realtor tomorrow.

All it takes to turn the water on and off is a quarter turn of a valve outside the house. Not turning it off is lazy and stupid. There is no benefit to leaving it on when no one is there. I can write 3 paragraphs of personal experience with busted pipes in Florida. It would take longer to read it than it would to turn your water off and back on again.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
All it takes to turn the water on and off is a quarter turn of a valve outside the house. Not turning it off is lazy and stupid. There is no benefit to leaving it on when no one is there. I can write 3 paragraphs of personal experience with busted pipes in Florida. It would take longer to read it than it would to turn your water off and back on again.

Good point. I think it will depend on how often we are renting it out. But we do want the the traps to not go dry. So there is a benefit to leaving it on.

For 15 years, my parents spent six months in MI. I’m the guy that went their house in Florida to run the faucets and flush the toilets. Their shut off was on the front of the house by the driveway; an extra 30 seconds to turn it on and another 30 seconds to turn it back off. Once a month was enough to keep water in the traps. It was 30 minutes of travel time for me to do this and 15 minutes in the house, but an extra minute to turn the water on and off.

Leaving it on when no one is there is lazy and stupid.

Forgetting the busted pipes which is a rarity even though I’ve had it happen three times at three different houses in Florida, how about a leaking flapper valve in the toilet tank. I’ll bet most people have had that happen. Water is not cheap in Florida, so how much money goes down the drain when your aren’t there? It cost my dad an extra $50 and he was there. He didn’t catch it intil hos water bill because it was a bathroom he doesn’t normally use. If you have to turn the water on a d off 5 times a year, that could be $50 for 5 minutes worth of work my kids could do whem they were 8 years old. Keep in mind, you are talking about two houses, your current one and the one in Florida, so you have double the chances of having problems that could be eliminated with a minutes work.

We shut the water off whenever we are gone even for a few days. There’s no reason not to.

I actually have four paragraphs, three personal experiences of busted pipes in Florida, one of busted pipes in Tennessee that was my brothers, tens of thousands of dollars in water damage including a short term rental where people were there almost every week if you need further convincing.

^^^^^
Again, all good points as long as a property management company will turn it off and on every time renters are coming. But if I find I’m renting it most months I’d have to leave it on anyhow.

I’m only talking about if no one is there.

Here’s want can happen in a week:

My brother got a great deal on a fairly new log cabin in the Smoky Mountains in TN when the real estate market had tanked around 2009 or so. He still owns it. Great rental history, great location, great view, but needed $20,000 in repairs because one of the hoses to the cloths washer had burst between rentals and water flowed down the wood stairs into the finished basement for a week. Lots of flooring and drywall got replaced. They owners didn’t have insurance for this, so they dumped it.

Yup. Buy the U shaped rebar handle thingy and turn the water off. I used to own a 2 story house with the laundry room upstairs. I always worried about a water hose to the washer busting. My wife loved the laundry room being so close. I would rather haul the clothes up and down the stairs. Lol

No matter what you do, the suggestion of having someone regularly check in on the property is great advice.