Episode 2 | PropertyLens Inspects the Hidden Past of a House for Sale
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In This Episode
Hosts: Bob Frady & John Siegman
Property: 745 Captiva Court NE St. Petersburg, Florida
Topics: floodrisk termitedamage hurricanepreparedness insurancecosts
Episode Summary
Join Bob Frady and John Siegman as they conduct an in-depth PropertyLens analysis on 745 Captiva Court NE in St. Petersburg, Florida. This episode uncovers key insights that every homebuyer should consider when evaluating a property, from flood risks and hurricane damage to termite history and insurance costs. Learn how PropertyLens reports can reveal hidden issues, empowering buyers to make informed decisions.
Key Takeaways
✅ PropertyLens reports uncover crucial homebuyer questions that sellers must answer honestly.
✅ The selected home has experienced multiple wind events and is at risk for flooding.
✅ Termite infestations are common in the area—know what to inspect.
✅ Homebuyers should verify if previous flood claims were repaired properly.
✅ Insurability factors, including hurricanes and sinkholes, greatly impact the cost of ownership.
✅ HOA coverage for roof replacement can be a valuable benefit.
✅ Historic property updates and permits provide insight into past renovations.
✅ Distance to water isn't just about the beach—it's about flood risk.
✅ Understanding insurance replacement costs can prevent financial surprises.
Resources
🔹 Zillow
🔹 Try it: Propertylens.com
🔹 Questions? support@propertylens.com
Transcript
[00:00:00] Bob Frady: Hey everybody, it's Bob Frady and John Siegman from PropertyLens. We gather thousands and thousands of data elements to help you understand what you're walking into if you're buying a property. If you're not subscribed, click on the subscribe button. You know how to do that in the YouTube land or whatever the socials are that you're on, click on the subscribe button.
[00:00:34] So here's what we like to do. We like to pick a property almost at random. We pick a random zip code across the U.S. and then we go in and we pick out a property and we say, let's run a PropertyLens report on that property. And then tell you exactly what we see. We don't know beforehand what we're going to pick, we just happen to go in and pick one. Because we want to make sure everything's right.
[00:00:57] So today, John, what property have we picked?
[00:01:02] John Siegman: We have picked 745 Captiva Court Northeast in beautiful St. Petersburg, Florida.
[00:01:08] Bob Frady: Now, as many of you are aware, St. Petersburg has had some gnarly weather the last few months with hurricanes flying left and right. So, we didn't pick on this house for any particular reason. And that's the zip code that came up.
[00:01:21] So normally what you would do, is, you would go to PropertyLens.com, enter in the address, go buy a report, it's $99 for one, $199 for three, $299 for five. if you're looking at multiple properties, but we're going to skip that part because, you know, while it's interesting to our bank accounts, it's not very interesting to walk through on a podcast or a video cast.
[00:01:47] So John, why don't you pull up the Captiva Court Northeast St. Petersburg report from your PropertyLens portal, and we'll go through and see what we see.
[00:01:59] John Siegman: Our reports are broken into many, many sections, starting with the BuyerLens. Which is a questionnaire, essentially, that the buyer should ask the seller, and we do that because every state has some level of disclosures, not all of them are equal, and the only overriding factor that is, is that if you ask the seller, a question, they have to answer to the best of their ability and honestly.
[00:02:31] But if you don't know which questions to ask, that's a problem. So you can see on this report, three potential wind events. We will get back to those very shortly. Property has a high experience of termite infestation.
[00:02:48] For those of you who don't know, a long, long time ago, I worked for a little company called Qualitative Marketing Software. They built the first single disc geocoder, and one of their big customers was Sears Termite, because they needed to know whose house was getting serviced, and then all the houses around them, because when you wipe out termites, You know, you kill a bunch of them, but they go visit all the properties next door.
[00:03:13] Bob Frady: You mean termites have high mobility? That's crazy! Really? Termites everywhere!
[00:03:17] John Siegman: No, high mobility. Who knew?
[00:03:20] This property is at risk for flooding, and we will see that on the map. Hurricanes, it's Florida, hope that doesn't surprise anybody. This isn't an area of high storm surge, as you will see. It is near a lot of water. It's off a couple of canals, and got a little pond and the whole bit. Sinkholes: not just a Florida-only problem. But definitely in an area that has them. Mold. You got heat, you got humidity, you got mold.
[00:03:55] Property is 40 years old. it's pretty much at the almost end of life for the sewer line. Something you'd want to take a look at. furnaces, water heaters, you'd want to definitely find out how old those were.
[00:04:08] This is an interesting one. The county marks it as having a basement. Very few homes in Florida have a basement. This one does not have what would be considered a traditional basement. But the garage itself is three feet lower than the rest of the house. So lots of good information that you could find there.
[00:04:28] InspectorLens is dedicated to your inspector. So inspectors are really good at what they do. They do it all day long, but here's all the things you want to make sure that the inspector looks for in addition to making sure all the appliances work and the water heater and the furnace and the air conditioning are all in functional order.
[00:04:50] So, you know, let's check around the foundation for termites. Let's see what the wind events, if they did any damage to the property. Has there been any flood damage? In this case, in the MLS, it was noted this property has had some water intrusion in the garage, but not in the property itself because of the three foot difference.
[00:05:15] Definitely, high risk for hurricanes, we already talked about that. So these are, again, all of the things that you'd want to print off, hand over to your inspector and say, let's go get some answers for this.
[00:05:26] Bob Frady: Not that the inspectors aren't going to do this. But sometimes, sellers will put pressure on the inspectors not to say too much. Because the inspector, many times, is paid for by the seller. So we just want to make sure that you say, Hey, make sure you take a look at these things so I'm comfortable with what I'm buying. Yep.
[00:05:47] John Siegman: So, insurance knows a lot about houses, right? So, they know it's in an area for hurricanes. you're probably, you know, you might want to ask the seller if it's insured by citizens. Which is the insurer of last resort in Florida.
[00:06:05] High sinkhole risk. You might want to find out if there have been any sinkholes near the property. The property is 40 years old. Older properties cost more because if it needs to be updated, it's got to be brought up to code. And code enforcement is always going to cost.
[00:06:23] And then, you know, what do you need to insure this property for? At least $360,000 is the estimated replacement cost. And replacement costs have been skyrocketing recently because of materials, because of new codes, and because of the cost of labor. To insure this house, it's probably close to the $3,000 estimate.
[00:06:46] And again, within Florida, these rates are going to continue to go up and it's going to be pretty hard to get new coverage. So things that you'd want to know going in.
[00:06:58] Property overview. Here's everything from the county assessor and from the MLS listing. So how many square feet is it? What's the number of stories? basic appliances. whether or not it's got a fireplace. all of those good features, distance to the coast, 112 feet, so it's very close. To a surge area, salt water, lots of things that could happen.
[00:07:23] Bob Frady: I want to talk about that for just a second. You know, one of the things that we have seen in the past is that people think about the coastline as the beach.
[00:07:33] You know, where's the beach? What we're trying to show you is where's the distance to water that can impact your property. That's the shoreline, to us. So, you may think, oh, the beach is five miles away. But the [inaudible] water that can come into your house is 112 feet away. So it's a much different number than a lot of times you'll get from people who are thinking, well, where's the beach?
[00:07:57] John Siegman: That is not the question we're answering. Where is the water that's going to enter your house is the question that we're answering. A pretty good size roof. You're looking at about 34-square if you're going to replace the roof. it's a ranch style house, slope, the land is flat, there's not much slope to it. It's in the city of St. Petersburg, it's Pinellas County, you can plant whatever you want. Listing details for $695,000. Current market value range, so we give you all of that.
[00:08:31] Bob Frady: There's a lot of repetitiveness here about floods. Like how the garage flooded, but not the house. Which makes you want to make sure that you inspect everything for flood damage in that property, and this is an area that is tricky because there has been flooding. It hasn't come over with a transom, but three feet is not that much.
[00:08:58] You know, if you get hit the wrong way, that three feet can go up pretty high, now, what's cool about this house is that the HOA replaces the roof every 15 to 20 years. So the roof age is coming up needing to be replaced and they take care of things for you, which is kind of cool. So there's a lot to like about this house, but there's a lot to be cautious about this house as well.
[00:09:20] John Siegman: Ownership history. So, really, the key for this is to make sure that, if you're not buying a flip.
[00:09:28] I don't think there's anything wrong with buying a flip, but you want to make sure that they're typically, if you are buying a flip, that you do massive amounts of, inspection, because sometimes the work's not all those cracked up to be, but you can see here, this is not a flip. The last time it was sold was in 2017, so the owner has been there seven years. They've got some experience with this,
[00:09:53] Bob Frady: They'll also know whether the property has been damaged. So they'll have seven years of history by saying, so when you ask these questions, at least their knowledge will go back seven years, so you'll get a better description than if somebody had only been there for say a year, where I don't know is an acceptable answer because they weren't there for the event.
[00:10:11] John Siegman: Historic tax values, all of the pictures from the MLS, roof condition. As Bob noted, the HOA takes care of the roof, this roof is almost a C, it's, you know, just over the B transom, so it's in okay shape. It'll keep the rain out, which is important because they get plenty of that down in Florida.
[00:10:38] You can see, they've had some wind events recently, October 11th, October 9th, and September 26th. So this is coming off of the most recent hurricanes. So we keep our data very, very frequent and up to date. So if something has happened within the next couple of days, if it was significant, we're going to capture it. We're going to know.
[00:11:05] So you can see here the 17th was, after Milton. There's our favorite little house here in St. Petersburg. Here's one that was taken on October 5th, 2022, another hurricane event. You can take a look at the plants. Notice that there's a lot of trees that went down. Milton was pretty hard on the flora and fauna.
[00:11:31] But fortunately, they all fell away from the house, which is a good thing. Property updates. This is coming from all permits. We double sourced the permits, so we know the new roof was, 14 years ago, so it's come in due. electrical about 12 years ago, they made a change. Building improvement 8 years ago. Plumbing 11 years ago. All of this took place before the current owner stepped in, but it's things that you'd want to ask about.
[00:12:00] See if they know, and as well as, as we've shown in others, that you get to find out, you know, if the company is listed, like in this case, Precision Overhead Garage Door, we let you know who did the work. So you get to, if you've got questions, you can go back to them, you can find out about them.
[00:12:21] Bob Frady: That's so aggravating when you buy a house. Like, who did everything? You can't even tell. So this way, we at least give you a list of here's who did the work in the past, so maybe you can call them up again in case you need work done in the future.
[00:12:35] John Siegman: We noted that this house didn't have solar. Solar would essentially wipe out their electric bill, so it might be something you would want to consider. Risk assessment, not surprising. Flooding, hurricane, it's got some pollution, we'll talk about that in a little bit. Sinkhole. hail, lightning, even a wildfire, you know, with the exception of earthquakes, Florida is in winter risk, Florida is a pretty risky state.
[00:13:04] You can see this picture is entirely red because the entire area is in an 100-year, FEMA flood zone, you are going to get wet.
[00:13:14] Bob Frady: What does that mean if you have a mortgage, John Siegman? It means that you are required to have [inaudible] insurance. You will get insured through FEMA for this. but there's a couple of things you have to look out for.
[00:13:29] if you're buying a house that has been damaged by FEMA, that has been damaged by flood and paid for by FEMA. FEMA doesn't require that the work was actually done. They don't need a certificate, to show that the work was completed. And we've seen situations where someone has taken the check from FEMA and never done the work.
[00:13:48] The property dries out. It floods again and then FEMA says we ain't paying because the work wasn't, the work looks exactly the same as last time. So you have to be super careful when you have floods in Florida to make, if they took a claim from FEMA, make sure that the work was done.
[00:14:06] John Siegman: Here are all of the details that go behind all of the scores for all of the hazards.
[00:14:12] Environmental risk or pollution. mold is high here. Termites are high here. It is relatively close to a toxic release facility. May or may not be a concern, but you need to know about it. And so we tell you. Closest contaminant sites that toxic release facility happens to belong to Duke Energy. It is a power plant. It does produce some known carcinogens. You might want to not be downwind from it.
[00:14:41] Insurability and claims, what the policy looks like, what the replacement cost looks like, total replacement cost for the property, things that will impact your insurance, flood, hurricane, sinkhole, hail, even wildfire. Which is, you know, not something most people think of for Florida, but Florida is in the top ten states for having wildfire and wildfire events.
[00:15:04] Bob Frady: Right here, we see our friends from KID Insurance, who do not sponsor this program. But, are well known to us as a potential insurer in Florida. So, when we give you a quote, we get, well, what we do is we take the filings and estimate what the amount should be, but we also give you the ability to get an exact quote from one of our insurance partners.
[00:15:26] In this case, it's Ken.
[00:15:27] John Siegman: Alright, health and safety crime, relatively safe neighborhood, yay, fire protection is a B. one of the issues that they have is while they do have fire stations that are close and are professionally paid, which is what you're looking for, it still takes them a while to get there.
[00:15:46] This is a gated community. You gotta get to the gate, you gotta get through the gate, you got things that you have to take care of. Property timeline, again, very unusual, but we've got a couple of roof conditioner visuals that are very close together, 12 days apart.
[00:16:07] two hurricanes will do that to you so you can take a look at when things happen and if you scroll through here, you'll notice that the roof changes color. And one of these pictures did a good job in replacing it when it was last sold, imagery and then when all of the permits took place, so you have a pretty good idea, pretty solid history. of what happened to this property.
[00:16:36] Bob Frady: What are the top three things that you would look for at 745 Captiva Court NE?
[00:16:44] John Siegman: First, you gotta look for water. You just do. I mean, it's surrounded by water. and it's going to flood. It's in a FEMA flood zone. You have to take a look at that. You just have to. you'd want to see if, you know, the raised areas had access so they could let the floodwaters out. The garage had flood vents. I mean, there's a number of different things that you'd be wanting to take a look for.
[00:17:15] The second thing that I would look for for this property is mold. It's in an area where it happens. You've got heat, you've got humidity, you've got no downtime. So, it's not something you want to find after you've bought the house or after you've moved in. So you want to definitely check for that.
[00:17:40] And then the third thing that I would check for that's not listed in the report, given the age of the house, I would want somebody to go up and take a look in the attic, which they're going to do anyway because they're going to check the termites. And ensure that the roof was strapped to the walls.
[00:17:58] Bob Frady: Cause what can happen if it's not?
[00:18:01] John Siegman: Well, then your roof can end up at your neighbor's and that's never a good thing.
[00:18:04] Bob Frady: Yes, it can pop off and go twirling down the street. No one likes that to happen.
[00:18:10] John Siegman: What would you look for?
[00:18:11] Bob Frady: I would look for the top three things I would look for, number one is the roof. You know, the roof, they, they say that the HOA replaces it.
[00:18:18] You want to talk to the owner about when that's scheduled to happen next, because the roof is approaching the end of its term life in the HOA. So number one, I would look for the roof.
[00:18:27] Number two, I would look for signs of flood damage. Sure, it's come into the, it's come into the garage. Hasn't come into the house. I would verify that as much as I could. There are a lot of wonderful things about this property and this location. Those are two that I would look like.
[00:18:43] And the third is termites. because termites, like you said, termites travel. So you want to look for any signs of termite infestation. And usually an inspector will do a good job at that. But you want to make sure that they take a look. So number one, the roof. Number two. Flood damage, number three, termites.
[00:19:04] John Siegman: And there we go.
[00:19:04] Bob Frady: And there we go. Well, thank you, John, for yet another episode of PropertyLens Discovers America. We're gonna come up with a better title, something catchier, but PropertyLens Discovers America, one property at a time.
[00:19:17] Listen, if you're buying a property, you gotta get a PropertyLens Report. If you're buying a property as is, you really need a PropertyLens Report to help you, listen, you may fall in love with the property and that's A OK, but you want to know what it might be hiding in the house, and we help to tell you.
[00:19:35] For PropertyLens, I'm Bob Frady.
[00:19:37] John Siegman: I'm John Siegman.
[00:19:38] Bob Frady: Till next time.
