The ONLY Type House I Would Ever Buy in FLORIDA!

What's happening folks? Welcome to another video. Beautiful day out here at Pensacola Beach and last night it's 28 degrees. That is as cold as we ever get here. That's why I'm bundled up right now a little bit. It's still pretty chilly out here. For those of you that are new, just tuning in. My name is Brant, real estate agent right here along the Florida Gulf Coast. I'm just here to bring you up-to-date information about what's going on in Florida. I understand that there are problems with Florida right now and I'm here to help you navigate those problems if you are looking to buy or sell a house in the area. I love these winter days out at the beach though. The water is just so beautiful. I'm working with a lot of buyers right now from out of town that are relocating to Florida. I get lots of different questions and the biggest questions I get are, Brant, what type of houses do we need to be looking at? We see all these crazy news clippings about, you know, Florida's underwater, hit with another hurricane, all these crazy things happening in Florida. Brant, what kind of houses do we need to look for? And that is what I'm going to go over today because last video, if you didn't see last video, I talked about some houses to stay away from, some areas to stay away from, but this video is going to be the opposite. What are we looking for? First home that I'd have no problem buying here in Florida is any ranch style brick home that is just off the coast. All right, if you're right on the coast and we get hit by a major hurricane, and what I mean by right on the coast, if you're beachfront right here on the water, I'm not really speaking to you because you get hit by a major hurricane, there's gonna be a lot of problems. Most of the people that live beachfront or live on the water can afford to take the risk of having those problems. And so with these ranch style brick homes, now if you don't know anything about a ranch style home, they're one story, they're rectangular, all right, they're much harder to destroy if we do get hit by a hurricane. They're usually very easy to maintain, really popular house here in Florida. Now we do see them in a lot of older homes here in Florida, so I got to talk to you about that because when you're looking at older homes, you are looking at insurance issues. And so if you do go with one of these ranch style homes, which here's the bad thing about it, some of these older homes are built way better than the newer homes, not all of them, but some of them. And so if you do go with some of these ranch style homes, I would highly recommend making sure that it has the necessary upgrades so that it is insurable and that you're not going to get crushed with a high premium because a lot of these ranch style homes here in Florida are going to be your older homes, especially in my area. Like Pensacola has a ton of these and they're built very well, but you got to have that newer roof, you got to have some updates and some upgrades. Another thing that I really like about the ranch style home is its resale value. It holds its value great, you're always going to be able to sell it, and so you're not, it's not one of these homes that is like such a unique home that the buyer pool is very small. You got a bunch of buyers looking for these ranch style homes, so it's definitely something that if you are looking to move to Florida, I'd put at the top of my list. House number two that I would not have a problem buying is any single family home that is off the coast that has hurricane upgrades like windows, doors, any other upgrade that is necessary in case we get hit with a storm. If you're waterfront, there's not a lot that's going to save you, but if you get one of these single family homes that is off the coast, that's inland just a little ways, you're going to fare a whole lot better and I would go with a one-story single family home because once you get, when you get to two stories, insurance is going to go way up. If we do get hit by a big hurricane, you're going to have more problems with a two-story home. I actually own a two-story home, but we're going to get to that in a minute, and I get asked about hurricanes all the time. What happens, you know, we're scared of a hurricane. That's our biggest fear if we're moving down to Florida. Well, here's the facts. I've lived in Florida for 40 years now, and I've gotten hit by two major storms, Ivan and Sally. Ivan was, I believe, they may have been both category fours. Ivan, there was a lot of roof damage to the area, and Sally, there was a lot of flooding. Those are the two biggest that have hit this area since I've been alive, and I'm not trying to minimize the damage that one of those big storms is going to do if it does hit you, if you do have bad luck. Most of the time, we get hit by tropical storms, maybe a small category one or two hurricane. You're going to be just fine with those storms. It's when you get up to that three, four, and five that it becomes more of a concern. Another home I'd have no problem buying is anything with concrete block construction. All right, that is going to be a lot more wind resistant, and you see a lot of those in South Florida, and they hold up really well in storms. We used to have a bunch of them on Pensacola Beach. We don't have as many anymore, but any of those concrete block construction homes, you're probably going to be okay. Those things are built really well. So, the next thing I would do is I would look for something that's elevated or that has really good drainage. Look for a retention pond in the neighborhood. Did the builders build your home up, and is there good drainage going off of your property? All right, because if there's not, and we get hit by even a small hurricane, you could have a flooding potential, and you definitely don't want that. You can avoid that by just making sure that, hey, you got decent drainage on the property. I live in one of the most elevated areas of Pensacola. I live in scenic heights, way off the water, doesn't flood. I feel like that's really important. If you're going to buy a house, you just have to be smart about it in Florida, folks. If you're going to buy a house, don't purchase one that was built in a swamp. Don't purchase one that wasn't built up a little bit, that's not a little bit elevated. Some of these builders will build homes that have horrible drainage. You definitely have to be mindful of that, folks, when purchasing a home here in Florida. Another thing I would have absolutely no problem purchasing here is anything in the suburbs of off the coast. You take Pensacola, for example. Now, Pensacola is right on the coast. If you look, there are a bunch of suburbs to Pensacola. You have Milton, you have Pace, Cantoment, Navarre. A lot of times when you get outside of the city, you're going to have more affordable homes. You're going to get a lot more bang for your buck. You can find the cheaper new construction homes. Your insurance is going to be better. There's a lot of benefits to living in the suburbs of any of these Florida coastal cities. You're buying inland. You take me, I grew up in Milton, Florida. That's about 30 minutes north of Pensacola. When we got hit by Ivan, which was the biggest storm to ever hit this area, we were just fine. We had little to no problems. It was kind of scary. The winds were pretty darn high, but we didn't have a lot of issues. That's one of those things. If you're worried about hurricanes, if you're worried about flooding, if you're worried about all these Florida horror stories, buy in the suburbs, buy a little bit inland. You don't have to live waterfront. A lot of these homes that are getting destroyed are either waterfront homes or they just have awful drainage in this area in their flooding. You really just have to be smart about where you're planning on purchasing a home. I'm working with a lot of buyers right now, folks, that are getting actually really good insurance quotes on fairly newer homes. When I say good insurance quotes, some of them have even surprised me recently. It just shows that those quotes are available if you buy smart. It's the people that don't purchase smart that are getting destroyed. You make sure the area you're buying in has a good track record. What I mean by track record, how did it fare during those major hurricanes? How did it fare from a flood standpoint? Did the other homes around it flood? How did the neighborhood fare? You can easily look that stuff up. Were there a lot of claims filed in that area? You want to be mindful of past history. How did the area fare? How did it do when these hurricanes hit? Realistically, Florida has a couple issues. The biggest issue is being insurant. I'm not talking about condos at the moment because there is a condo crisis going on as well. But if you want to live in Florida and you want to buy in Florida, you just have to think, okay, use some common sense. How am I going to get around the hurricane issue and the insurance issue? You're going to buy smart. You're going to buy in the areas that I'm talking about or the type home that I'm talking about. Now, if you really want to beat the insurance issue, buy newer. I didn't say new construction. I just said newer. Anything in the last six years is going to get a good insurance quote or really anything in the last 15 or 20 years if it's been updated. 15 to 20 year old house that has not been updated, you're going have a roof issue there. And so there's going to be a roof negotiated in the deal some way, somehow. That is going to be a problem because insurance companies no longer put up with roofs over 14 years. But like I said, there's ways around that, folks. And so I truly believe, and I still believe, that Florida is a paradise. I absolutely love living in the state of Florida. I could not see myself living anywhere else. But like I always say, Florida's not without its issues. Florida's not without its problems. We just have to figure out ways to navigate those issues. And the issue with Florida is that lately it's had a negative public perception because everybody on the internet has figured out that if they talk bad about Florida, they can get a lot of views and make a lot of ad revenue. That's what has happened. I'm still walking a beautiful white sandy beach with emerald green water. The sun is shining, and there's not another person in sight. If you have any questions about the state of Florida, feel free. Hit me up. All my information is linked in the description below. Shoot me an email. Send me a text message. Whatever you want to do is fine. We will catch you next time.