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My role for my client, at least that’s how I see it, like a responsible head of household, is to be a safety net in a market they’re unfamiliar with, where everything is new. The idea is to defend and protect my client whether they’re the buyer or the seller. That’s my role, anyway.
Being a safety net means making sure everything runs smoothly and checking things out, even looking for potential problems or hidden issues, even if they’re not immediately apparent.
Earlier, I was talking about the constraints one can encounter in managing a particular property, specifically condos in buildings.
I remember, for example, a client of mine who was offered a fantastic house by a friend. It was a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom house with a pool on the canal, which allowed him to park his boat behind it.
So he called me to start the paperwork.
Well… I calmed him down a bit before going to see it for myself. Well, actually, we found the problems. The seawall, that’s the wall in the canal that plunges into the water, was completely in need of rebuilding. We couldn’t see it because there was a dock, and the owner’s boat was parked in front of it so we couldn’t see what was there.
That alone cost was $80,000.
We also realized the pool was leaking and the pump needed replacing. So, that was a story of, well, for the first thing: $80,000 for the seawall, let’s say, for the repairs. For the pool and the pump, if I remember correctly, it would cost around $9,000, maybe $8,500 or something like that.
And another thing, the electrical panel. Again, there was a problem with that; it had been cobbled together, and it needed replacing too.
The owner had taken advantage of a Florida state program to insulate his roof. However, it wasn’t visible, and to find out about it, you had to look at the city since his mortgage payments were made annually through his property tax bill. There was a small portion of it, so the remaining balance was $15,000. And that’s what my client, the buyer, was going to inherit.
He forgot to mention this to his friend.
In fact, he didn’t even buy the house.
