Should You Buy a Home Close to a Fire Station in Florida?

When you’re looking for a new place to live, moving close to a fire station has both pros and cons.  Essentially, the cost-benefit analysis comes down to two factors: noise and response time to an incident.  Let’s discuss the noise issue first.  Fire Buying a home near a fire stationtrucks are…loud.  Truck operators blare their siren/horn in order to alert oncoming traffic that the truck is entering the street and to warn motorists to get out of the way, so that the truck can get to the accident scene as quickly as possible.  Individual city noise ordinances vary, but in most cases fire trucks activate their sirens as they are leaving their station, regardless of the time of day.  Therefore, you can safely assume that the fire station near your home will make noise and you will simply have to deal with it.  Resident annoyance due to sirens/horns is not a major concern for the folks who are fighting fires and saving lives.  Since you can expect noise, the operative question becomes how much?

In order to answer this question, you need to ask a couple more.  First, how many fire stations are in your community?  Have a look at our MoveMap to see the number of fire stations in your area.  If you live in a sprawling suburb and there is only one fire station, you can bet that it’s going to be fairly busy.  On the other hand, if the fire stations are distributed evenly throughout your area, you can expect less noise.  Next, inquire if the fire station is full time or part time.  Additionally, ask whether the station just responds to fires or if it offers emergency medical support as well.  In Florida, fire stations do much more than just fight fires, so knowing which events the station responds to is crucial to determining how busy it will be.  If you’ve got a couple of hours to kill you can always sit outside and observe or ask the neighbors.  This will provide a little firsthand experience to supplement answers to the above mentioned questions.

Although fire stations can present noise problems for some people, living close to them offers benefits as well.  The most obvious among these is reduced response time to an incident.  While incident response time depends on many factors, such as the amount of traffic, time of day, and staffing level, residents living close to a fire station can generally expect faster service in the event of an emergency.  In fact, folks that live sufficiently close can have lower insurance premiums than their more distant peers!  Insurance breaks aside, proximity to a fire station or hospital is an important factor for elderly persons and those with unpredictable medical conditions.  A more esoteric, but still important factor to consider is simply the peace of mind that comes with knowing that if an emergency occurs, help is only a few blocks away.  Finally, Florida is prone to hurricanes and emergency response centers like fire stations have a very high priority when it comes to repairing the electric grid.  If your home happens to be on the same part of the grid as the fire station, you can expect to get your power (and therefore, air conditioning) back more quickly than your neighbors.

So we’ve established that living very near a fire station presents both benefits and costs.  Whether or not you should live close to one depends on your unique situation.  Anecdotally, most people say that they get used to the truck noise and that it doesn’t wake them up at night or bother them all that much.  However, if you plan to resell you home in the future you should take time to consider the perceived impact proximity to the station will have on your home value/time on market.  While no definitive study has been done (to our knowledge), the common perception is that living close to a noise source like a fire station can negatively impact home values.  On the other hand, close proximity can actually be a selling point for people with certain medical conditions or concerns about fast emergency response time.  We encourage you to check out our MoveMap and take a look at how close your prospective home is to a fire station.  Then consider how much things like noise and response time matter to you.

5 Awesome Tips for Buying a Home at Auction

When looking to buy a home many people want to buy a home that is 100% finished and needs little or no additional work or upgrades. These homes can be found but it goes back to the old saying “you get what you pay for” – you are going to florida real estate auctionspay a lot more for a house that is completely upgraded.  Other opportunities for a better deal come in the form short sales, foreclosures, and auctions.  Some of the best deals may be hidden behind some ugly paint, poor landscaping and a little disrepair.  Purchasing a house at an auction is not for everyone, but a little research could turn out to be very profitable.  The following items are top things to consider when looking to purchase a home at an auction.

1. Dry run – being a novice at anything would require you to take things slow and do a little more research the first couple of times.  My first suggestion would be to visit an auction as just a spectator the first time or two.  The best thing you can do is look and listen, understand the pace in which the auction operates and what everyone else is looking for and saying.  Things like presentation and attire can be the difference of someone attempting to out bid you or taking a knee.

2. House research- normally you would do research on any place you purchase but with a foreclosure there may not be too much information available.  Items like the surrounding neighborhood and homes structural integrity could be a make or break if you are looking to sell the home as an investment.  Some foreclosures will have an open house and many others may not, your best chance of finding out the homes issues is to walk around as much as you can even looking inside the windows and bringing a contractor with good knowledge. Keep in mind the neighbors may not know anything about the homes history but many times what the home looks like on the outside is what it will look like on the inside.

3. Timing- too many times people get excited about one home and believe its all or nothing.  Timing is everything, especially during an auction.  Best advice is to sit back and wait till the offers slow down and be willing to walk away.  The idea of letting the pace slow down is to not add fuel to the fire.  The thought behind being willing to walk away is self explanatory, after being to a few auctions you will see yourself that not every auction home is a good deal.

4. Actual costs- there are other costs involved in an auction purchase, some larger auctioneer companies charge up to 5% for their services right off the top of the final purchase price.  Other cost (besides the unknowns of the house) could include back taxes, liens or other mortgages.  Your due diligence could save you thousands and chances are if the deal seems to good to be true, there maybe an underlining reason for it.

5. Early bird- during the day of the auction there maybe a handful of homes being sold, this has an impact of the crowd that may show and how aggressive the bidders are during the first part of the day.  Chances are some may not show until later and only for one particular home they had their sights on. One suggestion I have is to get there early and be prepared to bid, there could be an opportunity to jump on one of the early homes and get a steal all while the others are still trying to gauge the aggressiveness nature of the bidding crowd.

No matter what investment you are looking for it will always be important to do your research and learn how to play hardball.  Be aware of what you are getting yourself into and keep an open mind.  Real estate always has potential to make money in any market but the key is to make informed decisions and using home buying tools like the MoveMap on www.moversatlas.com is a great way to gather information on a potential home.

Homes Near Correctional Facilities In Orlando FL: Should I Be Worried?

Prisons, jails and work-release centers are prime examples of so-called unwanted land uses.  Unsurprisingly, many home buyers and Orlando Correctional Facilitesrenters try to avoid living in areas close to a correctional facility.  The reasons are not hard to imagine – prospective residents fear a higher crime rate in neighborhoods near a prison and that they might have a hard time reselling their home.  By looking at the MoversAtlas MoveMap you can see that neighborhoods close to prisons in Orlando, FL  have median income and home ownership rates slightly lower than in other areas of the community.  What’s interesting is that this link is not nearly as pronounced as might be expected.

The relationship between prisons, property values, crime rates and other statistics that affect homeowners is actually quite complex and a fair amount of debate revolves around the subject.  As we discussed earlier, most peoples’ perception is that the presence of a prison in a community lowers property values, increases the crime rate and reduces quality of life for residents.  However, at least one study conducted by Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University in conjunction with the US Department of Justice found that these beliefs are false.

The study examined 7 prisons across the country and using statistical techniques (a regression analysis) found that in all but one instance, the presence of a prison did not have a statistically significant effect on property values.  Interestingly, Realtors were also surveyed about how the presence of a prison affected their ability to sell a home.  Generally speaking, Realtors believed that correctional facilities had little to no impact on the sale price of a home and only two reported losing a sale due to the presence of a prison.

Likewise, the study found that prisons did not adversely affect residents’ quality of life or increase the crime rate (in many instances the crime rate was actually lower around prisons).  Using the median income and home ownership figures on our MoveMap as a rough indicator of neighborhood economic health seems to confirm the study’s findings.  Stay tuned, we’re working on adding parcel values to the MoveMap as well, so it will be interesting to see what actual home values look like in areas close to a correctional facility.

Now we’ll briefly discuss what types of correctional facilities are located in Orlando.  Of the 6 points you can find on the map, 5 are work release centers and 1 is the Orange County Jail.  Work release programs are designed to gradually reintegrate inmates back into the community by allowing them to work at legitimate jobs towards the end of their confinement.

Generally speaking, inmates convicted of the more serious violent crimes are not eligible for work release programs; only sufficiently trustworthy prisoners or those who can be adequately monitored are allowed to do work release (a full breakdown of who is/is not eligible can be found here: http://www.dc.state.fl.us/oth/inmates/wr.html).  There aren’t any perimeter fences around work release centers, but inmates have to remain at the center when not working or attending programs like Alcoholics Anonymous.  Inmates participating in work release are allowed to leave jail for a work and return to serve their time during the evenings or weekends. Below is an example of one of the work release centers in Orlando, Florida:

Bridges of Orlando is located at 2011 Mercy Drive Orlando, 32808.  It is a work release center that specializes in treating people with substance abuse issues and drug related crimes.  Their program entails interrupting chemical dependence, initiating physical and mental rehabilitation and implementing a long term recovery plan.

Jails are a bit different than work release centers as they are designed primarily to hold persons awaiting sentencing.  Work release centers on the other hand, house inmates that have already been sentenced and in many cases are near the end of their confinement.  Jails typically hold inmates for short periods of time, such as when they are awaiting a trial or serving a brief sentence of one year or less.  Counties generally operate jails.

We hope that this blog post has been informative; if you’d like to see if there are any correctional institutions in your area, check out our MoveMap.