Large Sinkhole Swallows Street and Threatens Homes in Spring Hill Florida

It’s scary to think you could find the perfect house and then realize there is something terribly wrong!  Normally the “big” items are caught during a home inspection and you either receive leverage on negotiating the house’s price or you have Sink hole opens up north of tampa in spring hill communitythe opportunity to walk away.

The only problem is when it happens to be a sinkhole it is difficult to predetermine the problem.  Sinkholes in Florida are much like floods or even hurricanes, you know if you live in an area that is prone to these “acts of God” but you cannot tell the future so you never know if or when a sinkhole will actually occur.  This is exactly what happened in a neighborhood just 50 miles north of Tampa and no, this won’t be the first or the last.

On July 20th a sinkhole opened up in Spring Hill, FL right in the road and adjacent front yards 40-yards wide and 30-feet deep.  County officials will investigate the hole to determine the next action.  Engineers will look at geological test to ensure the hole is not going to grow even further.  No one was hurt but until the investigation is complete three of the closest home owners are awaiting the results and the fourth homeowner is planning to move out.

For homeowners the most important things to keep in mind about sinkholes are:

  1. Insurance costs and effects the sinkhole would have.
  2. Acts of God can happen almost anywhere.
  3. Knowing your neighborhood is more important than how much you love the house.

Bottom line is Florida is all limestone and when the water table drops the cavities under the surface can open up forming a sink hole.  With an increase in property development, water management (or there lack of) and erosion it is sometimes a recipe for sinkholes.   There is an upside though, you can get this information and have the ground tested by professional engineers.  There is always a chance something not so favorable could happen but do your due diligence of the areas you are looking to live in.  Much like living in flood zones, sinkholes are tracked and state geologists are working on creating a statewide map showing where sinkholes are most likely to form.  The fieldwork they completed has offered a “relative vulnerability” map that has proved to be 93 percent successful in the plot area predicting where sinkholes will form.  The plot area includes 230 locations in the Columbia, Hamilton and Suwannee counties.

If you are in the process of searching for a new home you will definitely benefit from the information provided on our MoveMap! You can research all kinds of information about your potential home, neighborhood and surrounding community so you can make sure the home you buy is the perfect home for you!

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.