Renee Hahn breaks down what Florida property buyers miss: taxes, insurance, HOA dues, and condo fees beyond the purchase price. Community Development Districts can saddle you with 30 years of bond repayment. Lenders require condo associations to maintain reserves, so the association's finances can kill your deal.
Hi, Renee Han from Downey Frye Real Estate. This is another one of my short clips, uh, to give you tips on real estate in Southwest Florida. So for this segment, I want to talk about owning or purchasing property in Florida. There are some nuances if you've never owned property before in Florida. It's important for you to know what some of these are. You know, I'm a huge fan of Southwest Florida. I obviously made the personal decision myself to come down here when I was with corporate America and absolutely love living here. But some of the things that I found that were different than any place I've ever been before are things such as homeowner associations, gated communities, CDDs, flood insurance. Even some of the tax infrastructure may be different than what you're looking at from your prior ownings. So what I want to encourage you to do is make sure that you take time upfront to do a couple of things. I'm going to talk first financial. Oftentimes when people come to me, they'll tell me what their budget is based on the cost of the home that they want to purchase. They'll say, I want to purchase something between $500,000 and $650,000. And that's great, but I always make folks take one step back and say, let's talk about what your budget is, because what sometimes gets forgotten, in addition to the things like taxes and insurance, which is going to be the case in any state you live in, here, depending on whether you buy a condo or a home, you may have homeowners associations that have dues, you may have mandatory club fees if you you happen to live in a community that has golf as an amenity, as an example, that requires membership, mandatory membership. You may have condo fees. So it's really important when you set your budget and you start to look at real estate to understand what your total budget is in terms of what you can afford to purchase, in addition to the things that you're looking for in a home. So that's probably a big one. Some of the other things that I think are important for you to know about— there are CDDs, and essentially, um, CDDs are in communities where when the developer started that community, part of how they funded the, um, some of the infrastructure in the community is to take out a bond that essentially in a CDD is being paid for off in future years, oftentimes up to 30 years by the current and future homeowners. So that gets passed on when one homeowner sells to another. They may have 20 years remaining on a CDD. So that's another financial figure that it's important to know if the communities you're looking for have CDDs. They are few in count, so most of the communities in Southwest Florida do not have them, but they are certainly present. They're especially they're becoming popular in some of the newer developments. Another aspect is to get familiar with what insurance requirements might be. You may need to purchase, depending on where you are looking at homes, flood insurance, as an example, particularly if a mortgage broker requires you to have that. There are wind mitigation tests you can, you can take to, um, you know, lower your insurance. So again, think about geographically, there are some differences in Florida, not all parts. There are many parts of Southwest Florida that would not require flood insurance, but as you get closer to the water tables, uh, and the Gulf, it may indeed require insurance, additional insurance. So those are some of the things to think about, um, when you're looking. The last and final one, if you are looking to purchase a condo and you will be financing, the mortgage companies often have, uh, requirements for what the reserves would look like in a condo association's budgeting. They obviously want to make sure that the association is in good financial, um, control of the management of that property, so that could be another nuance. Again, these are just a few samplings of the types of things that could be unique to you if you've never purchased property in Florida or areas that may have very similar requirements. Have a great day, and if I can ever be of assistance to you in buying or selling your property, please don't hesitate to give me a call at 239-287-2576. Again, Renee Han with Downing Fry Real Estate. Thank you very much.
North Naples vs. South Naples: Which Area of Naples, Florida Is Right for You?
North Naples vs. South Naples: Which Area of Naples, Florida Is Right for You?
