Snowbirding 101 Episode#2: Floridian real estate nuances and architecture

Snowbirding 101

Bill: Where are you joining us from?

Kristine: I'm joining us from Orlando. So for those of you who are just tuning in, this is "Snowbirding 101." We're going to come to you with a ... did we say monthly? Monthly series?

Bill: Monthly. Yes.

Kristine: Just talking about if you've had any thoughts of moving down to Florida, down to the warmth, down to the sunshine, this is a great series to kind of get you started. And just we're going to talk about pretty much everything. We're going to pick a topic each month. This month, we are talking about the differences in construction, what to expect. There's so many differences, like Bill was saying, to anything that is, what'd you say, new construction is after the war?

Bill: Post war. Yeah. [crosstalk 00:01:08]

Kristine: Which is so funny to me.

Bill: [inaudible 00:01:10] foundations, that's the way to go.

Kristine: Yeah. So obviously, things are really different. And so, I'll just start with that first difference, is that you're going to find a lot newer homes here, especially in the Orlando area. We were going to have Janet from Tampa on our show today. She's sick, so we'll have her on, probably next month. But I can't speak for every city, but that's why we're bringing on a bunch of different agents. But I can speak for Orlando, and here in Orlando, especially the county that I'm in, which is Seminole County, you're seeing the majority of homes in 1980s, 1990s, and then a ton of new construction. Like my house is built in 2016. So it really helps with your home insurance. Who wouldn't want to insure a brand new home?

Bill: It's so refreshing to hear, because we get a lot of buyers looking in the Melrose area here, and sit down, they're like, "We want that open concept floor plan. We want something relatively new, we don't have to put a lot of time in." And it's like, "Have you thought of North Carolina?" Because it just doesn't exist up here.

Kristine: But you don't have the charm of those old homes. And here, our new construction is really built on, maybe like 1/4 of an acre, and they are "cookie cutter" homes. So basically, the builder gets a planned unit development in a subdivision, sometimes it's gated, sometimes it's not, and they have anywhere between like three and seven floor plans. And they pretty much just build those over and over and over again. So it is pretty cool. You can go in ... It's called semi customs. You can go in and choose the floor plan, you can choose your lot, and then you can choose all the finishes, but they already have all of the plans for the home done. And then the outside of them looks different. You choose like your elevations. There's usually like two or three different outside aesthetic options that you can do. But it's a good system. It takes them about four months to build the home, and so, that's from scratch, that's from dirt on the ground.

Bill: Okay. Yeah, that's a pretty quick turnaround. And I think the good news is, like a lot of people up here have lived in their 1890s Victorian, or turn of the century Colonial, 1920s Colonial, and they've spent 15, 20, 25 years with the upkeep of that property. And I think they're pretty much done with the charm aspect of it, and they're just kind of looking for something easy, so I think that's obviously a great fit. And we'll get a little nerdy here about the architecture and how things are built. So most of the stuff here, Kristine, is wooden frame construction. Tell us what it is down in Florida, usually.