Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Welcome to the Business Happy Hour radioshow with your host, Frank the Bank
Kodo, President of Lincoln Lending Groupand eight Won three mortgage for twenty years
right here in Tampa Bay and joinedby his incredible co host Roseavahiti and Senia
Akishana, top producing real estate agentswith Mahara and Associates. These three bring
nearly five decades of experience into localreal estate market. If you're looking for
(00:25):
real estate or business advice, nomatter what your experience level, the Business
Happy Hour team has been there foryou for almost a decade right here on
news radio WFLA. Now sit back, relax, and get ready for some
serious real estate and business talk withthree of Tampa Bay's top experts. Here's
Frank the Bank. Hey, TampaBay, welcome back to the Business Happy
(00:46):
Hour, your number one show forall things business and entrepreneurial, right here
on news radio WFLA and live onFacebook. And yes, we are in
landscape today and it's all Frank's fault, so hopefully you guys think it looks
good. It actually does look prettygood on the Facebook screen. I don't
know if you ladies can see iton there, but I think we look
wonderful, weird still ak great?Am I in? I am all like
(01:08):
sideways. So I'm just trying notto look at my part of the screen.
Just you, I'm gonna show youlook awesome. Look at that,
Oh Rosa, you are literally onthe screen. No, it's okay.
We thank you guys for listening today. We'd like to have a lot of
fun. By the way, ifyou're listening on Sunday mornings and you ever
want to catch the show, there'sa couple of ways that you guys can
(01:30):
do that. One, we area podcast. You can go to the
iHeart Media website, iHeartRadio, iHeartMediawhatever they call it these days. You
can go over there and you canlook a look up the business Happy Hour
under the podcast section, and youcan check us out anytime. But you
don't get to see our faces.That's why we do the old Facebook.
You get to watch us live atnoon every Tuesday on the Facebook. Hey,
(01:52):
by the way, good to seeOh dang it, Jim. Jim
is telling me I have no audioagain. Why does he always tell me
that? So there we go,Jim, I'm gonna turn that audio on
hopefully that you can hear me.You just appreciate that Gem is always joining
us. You're the best. Jimshould be like our like pseudo producer or
something. He should be our Facebookproducer or something like that, because yeah,
I don't even understand how I haveno audio. And then Jim's well,
(02:15):
you're muted on my so why don'tyou I mute yours? I think
all of us usually you know muteso there's no echo. But you got
to unmute yours. Somehow. We'regonna have to figure out how to unmute
here on Facebook. And you know, Frank never knows what to do up,
Well, there goes something. DidFrank just do that? I think
I did? Did I just unmute? I think it's sorry radio listeners,
(02:35):
you guys all think that I'm crazy. But where the heck is that coming
from? I have no idea.Anyway. What I was saying is you
can download our podcast that totally worked. Whatever you did. I can download
our podcast on iHeartRadio, or youcan watch us on the Facebook live at
noon every Tuesday, and we alsoshare it on there, so you can
catch it if you happen to missit. It's a great way to tune
(02:57):
into us. You can also messageus if you have any questions or anything
on the Facebook Live and we'd loveto hear from you guys. But it
does look does look like we finallyare making some noise over here and having
a great show. And speaking ofgreat shows, we've got a great guest
on the show. Would you liketo introduce our guest or would you like
me to? Absolutely? Yeah.So we've actually we've been working with Byron
(03:19):
for a while. He's, youknow, a really valuable resource for us
at Maharan Associates and it's Byron Andersonwith SCI which is structural engineering and Inspections.
That's great, Okay, Yeah,thanks for coming on the show,
Byron. Yeah, thank you somuch. You're you were going to get
hit with all kinds of questions thatyou did not expect today. Good.
Well, can I just throw outthe promo of SCI Florida dot com?
You absolutely you know what all doyou guys do? Tell everybody what you
(03:44):
well, if you want to findout everything we do, go to SCI
Florida dot com. That's SCI Floridaspelled out dot com. I love it,
and we are a full service consultingengineering firm. I like to tell
people that we will do anything that'slegal and we can make money at From
a consulting perspective as it relates tobuildings, we have been a business since
(04:08):
two thousand and two. Originally westarted out designing buildings for large developers such
as US Home, Lenar, KBHome, things of that nature. Most
recently, over the years, we'vereally have been focused on diagnosing problems with
buildings. You know, if somethingis going wrong with the building, we've
(04:30):
been involved with it and we're ableto diagnose that and come up with what
a solution is for it. Soit could be anything from hey, a
car ran through the front door ofmy house or garage to turn my damage,
water intrusion, water damage, wind, hell fire, basically anything that
(04:50):
can go wrong with the building,we've investigated it. And so when does
somebody call your company? You know, I know, obviously like you were
mentioned a whole bunch of things assound like insurance claim issues. Are are
they getting you getting involved in those? Or what's when's the typical client going
to call you? Guys? Typicallya client is going to call us.
Another thing that kind of a matraof ours is if it's easy, we're
(05:14):
not going to be involved. Sotypically we're getting the call when when everybody
else has tried to resolve an issueor solve a problem with a building and
they can't figure it out. Ohgosh, you're like the guy of last
resort. Is that what I mean? Kind of? Yeah, kind of.
And a lot of our clients,probably forty percent or so of our
(05:35):
business is related to property insurance claimsin some form or fashion. Again,
could be wind damage. We've donea lot of work over the past few
years thanks to Hurricane Irma and Ian, and also just other types of perils.
Like I said earlier, so ifa car runs through a building something
(05:59):
of that nature, now, now, well, we're going to ask you
a lot of questions today. Sure. And then also a good percentage,
probably another forty percent, is relatedto what we call construction defect claims,
where somebody has constructed something a house, a condo, a building, a
barn, doesn't really matter, butit's not performing as it was originally intended.
(06:24):
And so we're getting in and diagnosingwhat the problem with the performance is,
how it's going to need to berepaired right, and also what the
cost associated with and maybe who's liablefor the repair that that to me.
I'm as a consumer. That soundsto me like the most important thing you're
really trying to find out is youknow, especially if I bought. Matter
(06:44):
of fact, you said something inour in our pre show interview that we
might as well just go into rightnow, Well we'll jump ahead, if
that's all right, because you broughtsomething up I think it was Senya where
we're talking about there's this statute statuteof repose. Yeah, go ahead,
Well you to repose. I don'tknow what that is. Well, so
I was going to ask you aboutit, and so the new construction,
(07:05):
especially, I think a lot ofconsumers are that is something that they should
know about. So you were mentioningthat it was ten years and now it's
seven years to repose. That's correct. So there's a if I may make
a distinction, and I'm not anattorney, so we'll go with that caveat.
The difference between a statute of limitationsand a statue to repose is that
(07:29):
a statute of limitation starts to runonce somebody knows or should have known,
that there's a problem. Okay,that's interesting. Should have known yes,
no new or should have known solike so when something happens, something goes
wrong, Something goes wrong. Youknow, you're you're ceiling in your garage
collapses. Okay, there you go, good example. So I don't know
(07:53):
until it collapses that there's something wrong, right, But once it collapses,
now you have a certain period oftime, typically like three years to bring
suit against the builder the developers.So what happens if you're outside of the
statue of repose? If you're outsideof the statue to repose, which is
it was originally ten years, right, This is the big news guys,
(08:15):
by the way, that the wholeten year and now it is down to
seven years, so they've taken threeyears off of it. Okay, if
you're outside of the statue to repose, there is no going back to the
builder. And the real concern withthis is that most people do not know
that they have a problem with theirbuilding within the first few years. Right.
(08:37):
I use the analogy earlier. It'slike getting married. When you're getting
married every morning is ex benedict forthe first few months or first few years,
right, a few months, butover time, you know, things
start to kind of wear out alittle bit. And I've been married for
twenty years, so I'm not tryingto say that her much. But the
(09:05):
reality is, when you first buya house, everything is rosy and everything's
rosa, and everything's rosy. Youdon't realize that there's a problem. And
even if you do start to discovera problem, it's typically a few years
after the original construction is done.It takes time for water to migrate into
(09:26):
the building envelope and start to becomenoticeable. And then the next thing that
happens is you go back to thebuilder the developer and you say, hey,
I'd like to make a warranty claimbecause I see a stain on my
ceiling in my garage, right,And then they come out try to address
the problem with warranty, which pushesyou another few years down the road.
(09:48):
And so really seven years is avery small window when you think about from
the time of building is completed.Yeah, because everything's going to be fine,
kind of like you said the marriage, everything's fine for the first few
years. Yes, So what aresome things that buyers should be looking for?
Then? Is there any type ofsigns with new construction? Yes?
(10:09):
Absolutely. And let me just touchon one other thing on the statute change.
Not only did they reduce it fromten years to seven years, but
they also changed the time period inwhich that seven years starts to run,
the start date from issue and certificateof occupancy to substantial completion. Well,
(10:33):
what does substantial completion mean? Itmeans that they can get a temporary CEO,
which is what some builders do now. So they don't even have to
be finished with the building yet,they just have to have it done enough
to be able to get a temporaryCOO for that time period to start to
run. So not only did theyreduce from ten to seven, but they
(10:54):
also took some more time off thefront end. That's probably only typical in
condos though, right, that's notgoing to happen in a house because your
people that can't move in before there'sa CEO. But they don't get these,
do they do? Well? Theyget you can get a temporary CEO
on a house, you have tohave like one finished bathroom, what the
kitchen really and the doors on thebedrooms. I mean, it's going to
differ by the municipality, but there'ssome things that you can do to basically
(11:16):
say the minimum necessary to live inthere. They get the temporary CEO,
that time period starts to run andthen they continue to work on the finishes.
Is this like a scam? Actually, we do have to take a
quick break here. We've had alot longerst segment. We'd have fun on.
When we get back here, weare going to ask Brian Anderson from
SEI Engineering a little bit more aboutthis. I want to keep diving into
(11:37):
this because this is one of thebiggest legislation changes that we've had in a
long time that I think most people, especially not in real estate, they
don't think about this. I didn'tknow about this. I didn't even know
what Statute of repose was, butI think this might be a big deal
going from ten years to seven years. And now Brian's educating on some of
these other little tricks that could shortenthe timeframe. So you could hear this
on the Business Happy Hour with SeniaAkisha and Rosa with three of Tampa Bay's
(12:05):
top experts. And now you're ahost of the Business Happy Hour. Here's
Frank the Bank, Rositi and SeniaAkish. Hey, Tampa Bay, welcome
back to the Business Happy right hereon nine seventy Actually News Radio w f
l A. They have changed thingson me all the time here, but
you'd still find it on nine toseventy. I'm pretty sure. Anyway,
you can find this as a podcast. You can check out our Facebook live.
(12:26):
You can go back to the Facebookif you want to catch that as
well, if you want to seeour pretty faces sans Rosa today. I
know she's been gone for a coupleof weeks. Everybody's wanting to see her
face, but they they believe she'shere. She's here. Anyway, we
are having a great show today.We sipped skipped right over our stats section,
which we'll get back to, butnormally Senya does that for us.
(12:50):
But we have a great guest.And it's not Brian. It's Byron.
I must have said Brian five timesalready, but it is Brian. Brian.
God, it was a long dayto day Answerry Cloudy. I think
it's that solar store. Actually hearabout this thing. It's been at the
Aurora. You could see the Aurorain Florida this week. It was crazy.
I didn't hear that. Yep,yeah, I got pictures from up
north anyway. Byron Anderson, theCEO of SEI, you were talking just
(13:16):
a second ago about some new newlegislation. I guess that's changed. The
statute of repose, which you wereexplaining to everybody, is the timeframe it
tell me. I'm saying this right, it's the timeframe from when the builder
finishes the property, whether it's atemporary CEO or the final CEO. They
had ten We as consumers, hadten years if something went wrong, if
(13:39):
we found Chinese drywall, if therewas bad construction, things like that,
ten years we could go after them. And they just changed it to seven.
Now, that's correct. So thisis terrible for consumers. It is
bad for consumers, right, Yes, how do you think this happened?
Well, I think the Florida HomebuildersAssociation has a very powerful lobbying group.
(14:00):
Politics. It's politics, man,I mean, it's definitely not in the
consumer's best interest, right, No, because you know, as we were
talking about before the break is thefirst few years you're not going to notice
a problem, right, So you'renot going to have a problem. You
know, you're lucky if before ifyou notice these problems within the first ten
years, right, And so takingtaking three years off is a big deal.
(14:22):
I don't know that it's huge.I think it is too. I
think people got it. You justhave to be. I mean, well,
okay, Byron, what can whatcan a consumer do to protect themselves?
Well, I think the consumer needsto be if you're a homeowner or
a property owner, you really needto be hyper sensitive as to the condition
(14:46):
of your property, and you reallyneed to kind of educate yourself on some
basic or fundamental inspection techniques that Iwould use. One of these would be
whenever you first purchased the propert,go around with a high definition camera and
video every square inch of the property. Really it takes like fifteen to twenty
(15:07):
minutes, because now you have arecord going forward. I thought I should
tell me, like the camera pickedup something that we wouldn't see there,
realized like what does that do well? Because because really what we're looking for
is if we're going to diagnose aproblem with the building, we're trying to
find some sort of a demarcation ora benchmark of what is the baseline condition.
(15:30):
And so as soon as you're assoon as the property is purchased,
go around and take that get thatbenchmark. This is exactly what it looks
like right right, And they arealso taking the time then to note any
imperfections or problems associated with the building, and then moving forward, I would
say, once a quarter walk aroundthe building, get a flashlight. You
(15:52):
know, people make the mistakes ofwhen they're inspecting on the inside of a
building of turning all the lights on. That's actually the worst thing to do
because the lights kind of drowned outsome of the some of the imperfections or
problems. Uh. And then andthen you use a flashlight, and that
picks up on everything. Well.With the flashlight, you can change,
(16:12):
Uh, you can changle the angleof the light. I know exactly what
he's saying. It's like seeing drywallissues. If you want to see sure
where we're drywall is bulging or tapeis bulging or something like that. I
never knew that. Yeah, somebodyshowed me that a long time ago.
That's a genius tip. Right,Well, don't don't. When you guys
show houses, don't you go internallight? Absolutely great. Rosa invites random
(16:40):
she put on Facebook. I'm atthe house alone. I had the electricity
doesn't work. Sorry. We justhad like an FBI course recently about what
realtors do wrong, and one ofthem like literally is like, what do
I turn on all the lights everywhere? You're like Okay, Well, I
remember doing a pre purchase suspecsion ayear or so ago, and I walk
(17:03):
in the house and all the lightsare turned on, so I go I
start turning the lights off and gettingmy flashlight out, and the realtors walking
behind me. You're like, hey, dude, you know I'm not crazy.
I'm like actually doing this. Therea reason. Well, that's for
a house you were buying or helpingsomebody I was. I was get the
(17:25):
flash light perfection. So speaking ofthat, I was going to ask you
what can buyers do then when theyare building homes? Can they hire you
or would what would you recommend?Well, see that I want to bounce
on what she's saying too, likeshould they be doing this for new construction?
That's that's not whatever goes through yourmind, Like I didn't think about
(17:45):
it. Do people get home inspectionsfor new construction? Recommend yes? Never
forego home inspection? Yeah, Iwould say, never forego a home inspection.
Wow, do you gu inspections?By the way, we we do
what we call quality insurance sspections,so we will most of the type of
work that we do on that natureis during construction, so you know,
(18:07):
we come out in like the majorphases, the foundation inspection prior to the
importing the foundation, uh do wallwall and framing inspections for the mastream frame,
and then final inspections as well.You know. Really the critical elements
that I think about are the majorstructural components, but also the building envelope
(18:32):
aspects of it, because the buildingenvelope is where we see a lot of
problems in the construction defect realm startto develop. What does that mean?
I was gonna see who's gonna askthat question? First? Well, the
building envelope. Think of the buildingenvelope as the protective skin of the building,
the stucco, well, the stucco, the windows, the roofing,
(18:55):
everything that everything that pretty much everythingfrom the outside. What's going to make
the structure waterproof? For water tight? Okay, and what we see a
lot of times in particular with stucco, as you said, there is you
know, and we combined that withstucco over wood frame construction, which is
very prevalent in a lot of areasin the state. Right. Well,
(19:18):
if we just think about that systemfor a second, that wood framing is
somewhat flexible, it's going to movea little bit right. The stucco is
not it's brittle, and so weknow that that stucco, if it's put
on and too large of an area, it has the potential to crack.
(19:40):
Is it because that weight that's pullingon the wood, Well, it's from
the weight, but also from justchanges in temperature and humidity over time.
So you know, we we wereoutside earlier today dealing with this with this
great May thunderstorm, which God blesswe need it. Right yesterday yesterday it
was yeah, great, Sorry,Byron, I'm listening to everything you say
(20:02):
and busted our break. We're goingto take a break here on the Business
Happier. We'll be back in justa minute with Byron Anderson, Sei Engineer
se A CEO. Be back ina minute. Welcome to the Business Happy
Hour radio show with your host Frankthe bank Kodo, president of Lincoln Lending
Group and eight one three Mortgage fortwenty years right here in Tampa Bay and
(20:25):
joined by his incredible co host Roseof Vahiti and Senia Akishana, top producing
real estate agents with Mahara and Associates. These three bring nearly five decades of
experience in the local real estate market. If you're looking for real estate or
business advice, no matter what yourexperience level, the Business Happy Hour team
has been there for you for almosta decade right here on news radio WFLA.
(20:47):
Now, sit back, relax,and get ready for some serious real
estate and business talk with three ofTampa Bay's top experts. Here's Frank the
Bank. Hey, Tampa Bay,welcome back to the Real Business Happy Hour
over here. You can find usas the podcast on iHeartRadio, or you
can tune in every Tuesday twelve toone. I am getting better, Ladies.
It is a very gloomy day todayand I've been a little off my
(21:10):
game. You know what I thinkit is. I think we started the
show out of sequence today and maybemy brain just cannot handle it something.
So with that said, we havea great guest. We've been learning a
lot. Actually, this is probablyone of the most educational shows I've been
on a long time, because Ithink all three of us been in real
estate for a long time and we'reall learning terms and words and laws and
(21:32):
stuff that we had no idea.The envelope of the house. I'm gonna
go, We're I know, I'mgonna walk up and be like, dude,
your envelope is jack you're making Yeah, They're be like, what are
you some sort of engineer? No, but I met one today. We
know. Yeah, we day onholiday and express last night. No.
So I'm gonna I'm gonna back usup a little bit because we're going into
(21:52):
our third segment here. I wantto make sure we're going to do our
stats right. From a fresh frommahar And Associates, my awesome co hosts
Year Rosa and Senia. Rosa hasbeen gone for a couple of weeks.
Have she's been flying around the worldselling like chateaus in France and stuff like
that, And can you save somefor the rest of us, Rosa?
Maybe maybe I'll take you on atrip with me next time. Guys,
(22:15):
I mean, for real, who'sgoing to be here. That's a good
point Byron. You got this coveredright absolutely. Senny and I did an
amazing event with Bruce Parkman. TravisHorn invited us to this event. We
did it at the US Victory Shipin Change. I think they call it.
Is it the Victory Ship? Isn'tthat what they call it? Or
it's a victory ship American American victoryor something like that. Anyway, we
(22:37):
got some really cool pictures of ussitting on the big old guns. Did
you did you see? No,just a better model. You're funny.
It wasn't even a machine gun andI made those noises. But anyway,
it was awesome. Bruce Parkman ishaving that brain seminar for subcncut of trauma.
(23:00):
I think we're going to try tomake it to that, so we
will definitely mention that. I'll lookit up before in the next break.
But I want to go real quickto our stats from Sinia from Mahara and
Associates. Every week she brings usthe real estate stats, and I know
she's got some exciting things for ustoday. And this is your favorite part
of the show people, so listenup. Well, I don't know about
exciting, Frank, but I mean, but because we have Byron here and
(23:23):
there are some questions, I wantedto ask them about condos. Normally,
when we do our stats, wereally just do it for single family homes.
Yes, correct, but I wentahead and looked at the ones for
condos and town homes. Okay,so these again are year over year,
and we are down thirteen percent inclose sales. Oh, my lo we
(23:45):
are up fifty percent technical difficult day. We're cutting off now it's the end
of the update. Now eighty fivepercent increase in inventory, which is eighty
five I mean you're you're to date, so from I mean these are so
from last March. That seems prettypositive. Well, I mean, there's
just more people that want to sellcondos, and I think this will kind
(24:07):
of go into you know the reasonwhy. On the bright side, though,
the median sales price, just likewith all of our regular real estate,
that did not decrease. That actuallyincreased almost five percent. So that's
the bright side there. This iscrazy that these are such weird stats though,
isn't it? So less condo sales, more inventory prices up price?
(24:30):
Is that is that for a specificcounty. This is so our Tampa MSA.
So that includes like Hernando Pasco Panelason hillsbro Okay, gosh, and
if I remember correctly, as oflast week, Maharan Associates had over one
hundred and sixty million dollars and sales. Guys, that is no joke,
one hundred and sixty million dollars.So there's activity out there right now.
(24:52):
I have to I have to remindeverybody it is the right market right now,
Marry the house, date the rate. Matter of fact, we're thinking
about doing a link lending T shirt. I should pull everybody on this.
We like to do slightly offensive Tshirts, so this one isn't quite offensive
enough for me. But we're lookingfor offensive slogans that are mortgage really not
like piss people off. But getattention, Rose. I know what you're
(25:14):
thinking. This is get attention,Rosa, not like you know. Anyway,
we do need some fun shirt ideas, so we're going to do marry
the house, date the rate maybebecause that really you like? That one
is Me and Rosa are actually doinglike a little campaign too. Are you
telling me about it? Yeah?Well, I just want to do a
picture of a house with the littlebrides veil on it. But I did
tell Maurice about it, and hewas like his first thought was the other
(25:37):
thing that rhymes with that, LikeI said, date the rate. But
now like, all right, maybewe want to come up with her.
I don't know, you know,I think it's a great idea. I
mean I do too, and youknow what our inspector actually he texted us
like the other day and he waslike, oh, I heard this from
you know, a guy I know, he's an Illinois realtor. I'm like,
(26:00):
I'm like, that's been like ouryou know phrase now for a while.
So okay, So that's why Iwant to do it because they feel,
Yeah, the general consumer doesn't hear, you know, our little lingo
on the day to day. Sono, I think it's a great day.
Okay, So we're gonna go forit and I'll get shirts for you.
I'll get you one too, Byron, don't worry, but I want
to. I got it. Ifeel like I still have to think of
something like a little riskue to likego with it, you know what I
(26:22):
mean, Like maybe we throw inlike something some divorce line or something like
that, you know, marry thehouse, date the rate, you know,
divorce the ugly one later or somethinglike that, or always do things
about marriage and how it's only goodfor public. The one who brought it
up. Okay, you three areall married. Yeah, I'm like close
to you. I'm eighteen, buttwenty eight together, so like, I
(26:45):
know exactly what you're talking about.How the house, you know, you
got to figure things out, yes, yes, take care of it.
Maintenance on it. Absolutely engineer istoo marriage counselor as house is too condo,
please and go. But okay,so guys on that topic though.
No, the reason I wanted toask, and this was relatively new for
(27:06):
us. Yeah, so, Imean, we always have things that come
up in real estate, you know, that are kind of make things challenging,
right, so this came up welllike a couple of years ago where
they required that we now do orcondo buildings of a certain height do the
milestone inspections and then the structural integrityreserve studies. Yeah, I'm made.
This has made like condo sales complicated. Can you tell us kind of the
(27:29):
gist of all that? And oh, so you know what I mean that
this is why the condo sales havebeen a little bit I think. I
think in general condos have gotten veryexpensive because the condo fees include the insurance,
and insurance is really skyrocketed for condos. And I do think this is
part of the reason why. SoI own two condos, I'll preface this
with I have two condos out onthe beach, right and are we have
(27:52):
not only has insurance gone up,but even worse than insurance is the hoas
the association fees, and I thinkthis is all due to what's being discovered
in these insects and these inspections.We had to have a structural engineer come
out and check all the balconies andthe stairwells and the landings and all this.
Take it away by and you're goingto tell this stuff we've never heard.
Sure, So what we're talking abouthere is a change that occurred about
(28:15):
a year and a half to twoyears ago in legislation in Florida where they
started requiring condominium buildings over three storiesand or three stories and over and also
within certain areas of the state haveto have mandatory milestone inspections, and with
that they also have to have whatwe call a structural integrity reserve study.
(28:38):
This structural integrity reserve studies. Structuralintegrity reserve study is okay, this is
no pun intended fallout from the surfside collapse, right, is that what
was identified as one of the causationof the surfside collapse was long term deferred
(29:03):
maintenance. It wasn't you know,people knew that there was a problem with
these buildings. I don't think theyknew that the extent of the problem was
going to cause a collapse or obviouslypeople would have made different decisions, but
they knew there were problems with thesebuildings. The homeowners association had not adequately
(29:26):
funded their reserves to deal with thesesignificant structural problems. So historically, in
Florida and a condominium association, ifyou have a majority of either the board
or the members vote to partially fundreserves, then you can partially fund reserves.
So if you have a bunch offixed income people living in a condominium
(29:49):
and you sent out a questionnaire,do you want to fully fund our reserves?
If so, five thousand dollars thisyear? Do you want to partially
fund our reserves? If so fivehundred dollars this year? What do you
think? What do they think they'regoing to do? And that's what they
do every single year. Byron,that's what they do every single year.
(30:10):
And so you have this systemic problemwith condominium associations not being adequately funded.
And so with the milestone inspection requirement, which is somebody like myself, which
we do milestone inspections and seers,they have to come out and inspect the
structure and determine if there's any significantstructural damage that has occurred to the building,
(30:37):
and if so, it has tobe fixed. But also they now
have mandatory funding of the reserves,and the mandatory funding of the reserves are
not for things like paving the parkinglot. It's not for you pool,
it's not for the pool, it'snot for landscaping it. There's ten items
in the Structural Integrity Reserve study thathave to be funded, and in essence,
(31:02):
those items are the building envelope components, roofing the envelope, the envelope,
roofing windows, and also major structuralsystems such as exterior walls and beams
and columns. They are basically I'vebeen through this. They are basically for
everything that does not directly benefit theowner. Well except for the fact your
(31:25):
building's not going to fall down.Yeah, they they can't see. I
guess it's for all the stuff thatyou somewhat don't care about, but you
should, right. But the problemis is we've let this go for so
long. And the one that Ibought like ten years ago, I got
on the board and I told themfrom day one, we need to fund
this. But I was saying it, I wasn't thinking structurals before surf side.
(31:45):
I was saying just for financing purposes, because if you don't have your
reserves funded, you can't get conventionalfinancing, which in reality lowers the value
of your condominium because now you cannotsell it to over half of the buyers
in the freaking country. All right, on that note, we're going to
take another break because I'm not goingto miss it this time. Guys.
By the third segment, he getsit right. We got Rosavihita Theahiti,
(32:07):
Sandia Akisha I was close, andwe got Byron Anderson over here from Sei
Engineering. Would be back in justa minute with Frank the Bank on the
Business Happy Hour. Now we're backwith some serious real estate and business talk
with three of Tampa Bay's top experts. And now you're a host of the
Business Happy Hour. Here's Frank theBank, Rosevahiti and Senia Akishana. Hey,
(32:29):
Tampa Bay, welcome back to theReal Biz Happy Hour here on nine
to seventy WFLA. By the way, if you need real estate advice,
there is a real website that youcan go to. You can find out
about houses for sale. You canfind outbout all these condominiums that are listed,
these townhouses. You can find outhow they sold one hundred and sixty
million dollars of real estate by goingto the Real Deal Tampa dot com.
(32:50):
It's job Roth. Oh, Imean she was fast today? There you
you was, or you can callus at eight one, three, seven
five reel. I love it.The Real Deal Tampa dot com, super
easy webside. Of course, contactFrank thebank dot com is always all dot
com. It's always there for yourreal estate stuff. I want to make
sure I mention that Byron does notonly work for real estate professionals. He
works for you guys. You guyscan give him a call. Anything he's
(33:13):
talking about today. You need moreinformation. Maybe that house, that house
you bought on your marriage is startingto fall apart, but the marriage is
wonderful and you need help. You'regoing to go to Sei Sei Florida dot
com. That's Sei Florida dot com. Make sure you call them before your
house creates a problem in your marriage. Sei Florida dot com. He gave
(33:35):
me that one that's could be ashirt right there. Anyway, Rosa,
you had a question that we missedin the second segment, So what are
for buyers when they're building new constructionhomes, what are some signs that they
should be looking for pre build.Well, one of the things that we
were kind of going down the pathwaystalking about is the building envelope and the
structure are really the major components ofthe building because if we if we don't
(34:00):
have the building that's watertight, waterstarts to get in. And what's happening
now is we use the analogy ifyou go to Ebor City and you look
at a house that was built innineteen twenty stuck go over frame. If
water gets in there doesn't really matter. The water is going to dry out
right, because there's so much airinfiltration that's occurring in modern construction. We
(34:23):
have very tight building envelopes from anair infiltration perspective, from an energy efficiency
perspective. So now once moisture getsinto the building envelope, there's no way
there's no mechanism to drive drying thatback out, so it really sets there
and starts to cause damage. Sothe things that we're looking for cracks in
(34:45):
the exterior finish of the building thatmay allow water to get in, gaps
and sealants or cracking of sealants reallylooking. As I said before, if
you're a building owner, you needto become familiar with and you need to
take the time every quarter to walkaround the inside and outside of your building.
(35:05):
Get a flashlight and look for newcracks that have formed, cracks that
may be letting water get into thebuilding, celant that is failing, calk,
things of that nature, complicated words. You're looking to see if you
sprinklers are aren't blowing water on yourbuilding? Are trees rubbing on your roof?
(35:27):
Right? All those things are arerelatively easy to fix if you catch
them in we look for. Ilove the flashlight trick, guys, that
that is a wonderful idea that Byrongave you. You know, turn off
the lights, use that flashlight,change the angles you can. You'll see
when drywall is failing, when thejoints are popping, all kinds of little
things. Because speaking of I hadthat problem with Davis anyway, I want
(35:49):
to deviate real quick to sinkholes.We've only got about three and a half
minutes left in our show. Andfull disclosure, guys, I have a
listing thirteen ninety five Davis Road,and like it's disclosed in my listing,
like it should be. The houseis a repaired sinkhole house. Now,
albeit this is from twenty years agoand we've yet to have an engineer on
the show. So I would youknow, I would just like you to
(36:10):
tell me, like, is itis it better if a house has you
know, is it a bad thing? I don't even know how to ask
you the question. Sure it hasa repair sinkhole? Sure, well,
I would say, first of all, there's a good chance that the repair
to the house was not because ofan actual sinkhole to begin with. I've
heard this right is because of theway. We're talking a lot about legislation
(36:32):
here today, but historically, theway the legislation was written in Florida is
that as a geotechnical engineer, ifI am investigating a property, I have
to eliminate sinkle activity as a causeof damage. That's a very high bar
to be able to say that Ican completely eliminate it. Yeah, And
so what we oftentimes look for whatwe call indicators of sinkle activity in our
(36:57):
testing. And just because I findan indicator doesn't mean I necessarily have a
sinkhole, but it needs I can'teliminate it. And so therefore a lot
of times properties would be repaired forthese indicators of sinkle activity, which isn't
actually a sinkhole. The thing thatI would look for more than anything else
(37:17):
is on public record. Was thehouse stabilized or was there a foundation repair
that was done, because those aretwo different things, okay, And what
happens is that really the tried andtrue right way of repairing a true sinkhole
(37:40):
is to use what's called compaction grouting. And basically what you're doing is you're
drilling pipes down into the surface ofthe limestone and you're injecting simonititious grout into
the ground to fill up voids,densify the soil, sell off the limestone.
You're actually repairing the sinkle. Whathappened a lot of times in the
(38:02):
past is that there would be arecommendation to do grouting, and then an
owner would reach a settlement with theirinsurance company and they would come in with
a different repair that was just doingunderpinning of the structure. So now they're
driving pipes down and attaching to themto the foundation. They've done nothing to
(38:22):
stabilize the ground. That's the differencebetween a ground stabilization program and a foundation
repair program. Does one means there'sa sink hole and the other means one
means that there's potentially an unrepaired sinkhole, which is these which is the foundation
repair. At the end of theday, the best thing to do would
(38:43):
be, if it's a repaired sinkle, contact somebody like myself. You're gonna
have to pay me a little bitof money, of course, which is
and what I'm gonna do is I'mgonna pull all public records. Nobody has
a magic wand out there that cango and say, yes, this is
repaired. You're gonna research it,and you're going to figure out what I'm
going to research it. I knowI've been doing single remediation work since two
(39:07):
thousand in the state, and I'vebeen involved in tens of thousands of remediation
projects. I can tell you justby looking at the players involved. Ah,
whether it's legit or not, Ilove it. I love it.
Okay, So guys, that prettymuch wraps up the show. On that
note, I want to make surethat if you need any information or any
(39:29):
help with anything related to structural engineeringinspections, maybe you're not sure who to
call, So I would actually recommendthat you go to Sei Florida dot com
because why not start at the top. Why not hire the guys who are
really going to figure out the situation, and then you can go down from
there instead of starting and wasting abunch of money with these random people.
Let's go to Sei Florida dot com. And how about that real estate stuff?
(39:51):
What's that website, Rosa, TheReal Deal Tampa dot com. I
love it, The Real Deal Tampadot com. Anything listen, what's so
educational? Byron? Thank you veryvery much for joining us here today.
We waited a little for it.You're busy, guys, so I appreciate
you making the time. We valueyour time. And you said think and
your expertise. I mean, welearned so much. You know. I
would love to come back. Yep, And you know what, we will
(40:13):
have you back, as I guaranteeyou we're going to have more things to
talk about related engineering right here inthe state of Florida. Thank you for
listening to the Business Happy Hour.We'll see you guys next week.
Welcome to the Business Happy Hour radioshow with your host, Frank the Bank
Kodo, President of Lincoln Lending Groupand eight Won three mortgage for twenty years
right here in Tampa Bay and joinedby his incredible co host Roseavahiti and Senia
Akishana, top producing real estate agentswith Mahara and Associates. These three bring
nearly five decades of experience into localreal estate market. If you're looking for
(00:25):
real estate or business advice, nomatter what your experience level, the Business
Happy Hour team has been there foryou for almost a decade right here on
news radio WFLA. Now sit back, relax, and get ready for some
serious real estate and business talk withthree of Tampa Bay's top experts. Here's
Frank the Bank. Hey, TampaBay, welcome back to the Business Happy
(00:46):
Hour, your number one show forall things business and entrepreneurial, right here
on news radio WFLA and live onFacebook. And yes, we are in
landscape today and it's all Frank's fault, so hopefully you guys think it looks
good. It actually does look prettygood on the Facebook screen. I don't
know if you ladies can see iton there, but I think we look
wonderful, weird still ak great?Am I in? I am all like
(01:08):
sideways. So I'm just trying notto look at my part of the screen.
Just you, I'm gonna show youlook awesome. Look at that,
Oh Rosa, you are literally onthe screen. No, it's okay.
We thank you guys for listening today. We'd like to have a lot of
fun. By the way, ifyou're listening on Sunday mornings and you ever
want to catch the show, there'sa couple of ways that you guys can
(01:30):
do that. One, we area podcast. You can go to the
iHeart Media website, iHeartRadio, iHeartMediawhatever they call it these days. You
can go over there and you canlook a look up the business Happy Hour
under the podcast section, and youcan check us out anytime. But you
don't get to see our faces.That's why we do the old Facebook.
You get to watch us live atnoon every Tuesday on the Facebook. Hey,
(01:52):
by the way, good to seeOh dang it, Jim. Jim
is telling me I have no audioagain. Why does he always tell me
that? So there we go,Jim, I'm gonna turn that audio on
hopefully that you can hear me.You just appreciate that Gem is always joining
us. You're the best. Jimshould be like our like pseudo producer or
something. He should be our Facebookproducer or something like that, because yeah,
I don't even understand how I haveno audio. And then Jim's well,
(02:15):
you're muted on my so why don'tyou I mute yours? I think
all of us usually you know muteso there's no echo. But you got
to unmute yours. Somehow. We'regonna have to figure out how to unmute
here on Facebook. And you know, Frank never knows what to do up,
Well, there goes something. DidFrank just do that? I think
I did? Did I just unmute? I think it's sorry radio listeners,
(02:35):
you guys all think that I'm crazy. But where the heck is that coming
from? I have no idea.Anyway. What I was saying is you
can download our podcast that totally worked. Whatever you did. I can download
our podcast on iHeartRadio, or youcan watch us on the Facebook live at
noon every Tuesday, and we alsoshare it on there, so you can
catch it if you happen to missit. It's a great way to tune
(02:57):
into us. You can also messageus if you have any questions or anything
on the Facebook Live and we'd loveto hear from you guys. But it
does look does look like we finallyare making some noise over here and having
a great show. And speaking ofgreat shows, we've got a great guest
on the show. Would you liketo introduce our guest or would you like
me to? Absolutely? Yeah.So we've actually we've been working with Byron
(03:19):
for a while. He's, youknow, a really valuable resource for us
at Maharan Associates and it's Byron Andersonwith SCI which is structural engineering and Inspections.
That's great, Okay, Yeah,thanks for coming on the show,
Byron. Yeah, thank you somuch. You're you were going to get
hit with all kinds of questions thatyou did not expect today. Good.
Well, can I just throw outthe promo of SCI Florida dot com?
You absolutely you know what all doyou guys do? Tell everybody what you
(03:44):
well, if you want to findout everything we do, go to SCI
Florida dot com. That's SCI Floridaspelled out dot com. I love it,
and we are a full service consultingengineering firm. I like to tell
people that we will do anything that'slegal and we can make money at From
a consulting perspective as it relates tobuildings, we have been a business since
(04:08):
two thousand and two. Originally westarted out designing buildings for large developers such
as US Home, Lenar, KBHome, things of that nature. Most
recently, over the years, we'vereally have been focused on diagnosing problems with
buildings. You know, if somethingis going wrong with the building, we've
(04:30):
been involved with it and we're ableto diagnose that and come up with what
a solution is for it. Soit could be anything from hey, a
car ran through the front door ofmy house or garage to turn my damage,
water intrusion, water damage, wind, hell fire, basically anything that
(04:50):
can go wrong with the building,we've investigated it. And so when does
somebody call your company? You know, I know, obviously like you were
mentioned a whole bunch of things assound like insurance claim issues. Are are
they getting you getting involved in those? Or what's when's the typical client going
to call you? Guys? Typicallya client is going to call us.
Another thing that kind of a matraof ours is if it's easy, we're
(05:14):
not going to be involved. Sotypically we're getting the call when when everybody
else has tried to resolve an issueor solve a problem with a building and
they can't figure it out. Ohgosh, you're like the guy of last
resort. Is that what I mean? Kind of? Yeah, kind of.
And a lot of our clients,probably forty percent or so of our
(05:35):
business is related to property insurance claimsin some form or fashion. Again,
could be wind damage. We've donea lot of work over the past few
years thanks to Hurricane Irma and Ian, and also just other types of perils.
Like I said earlier, so ifa car runs through a building something
(05:59):
of that nature, now, now, well, we're going to ask you
a lot of questions today. Sure. And then also a good percentage,
probably another forty percent, is relatedto what we call construction defect claims,
where somebody has constructed something a house, a condo, a building, a
barn, doesn't really matter, butit's not performing as it was originally intended.
(06:24):
And so we're getting in and diagnosingwhat the problem with the performance is,
how it's going to need to berepaired right, and also what the
cost associated with and maybe who's liablefor the repair that that to me.
I'm as a consumer. That soundsto me like the most important thing you're
really trying to find out is youknow, especially if I bought. Matter
(06:44):
of fact, you said something inour in our pre show interview that we
might as well just go into rightnow, Well we'll jump ahead, if
that's all right, because you broughtsomething up I think it was Senya where
we're talking about there's this statute statuteof repose. Yeah, go ahead,
Well you to repose. I don'tknow what that is. Well, so
I was going to ask you aboutit, and so the new construction,
(07:05):
especially, I think a lot ofconsumers are that is something that they should
know about. So you were mentioningthat it was ten years and now it's
seven years to repose. That's correct. So there's a if I may make
a distinction, and I'm not anattorney, so we'll go with that caveat.
The difference between a statute of limitationsand a statue to repose is that
(07:29):
a statute of limitation starts to runonce somebody knows or should have known,
that there's a problem. Okay,that's interesting. Should have known yes,
no new or should have known solike so when something happens, something goes
wrong, Something goes wrong. Youknow, you're you're ceiling in your garage
collapses. Okay, there you go, good example. So I don't know
(07:53):
until it collapses that there's something wrong, right, But once it collapses,
now you have a certain period oftime, typically like three years to bring
suit against the builder the developers.So what happens if you're outside of the
statue of repose? If you're outsideof the statue to repose, which is
it was originally ten years, right, This is the big news guys,
(08:15):
by the way, that the wholeten year and now it is down to
seven years, so they've taken threeyears off of it. Okay, if
you're outside of the statue to repose, there is no going back to the
builder. And the real concern withthis is that most people do not know
that they have a problem with theirbuilding within the first few years. Right.
(08:37):
I use the analogy earlier. It'slike getting married. When you're getting
married every morning is ex benedict forthe first few months or first few years,
right, a few months, butover time, you know, things
start to kind of wear out alittle bit. And I've been married for
twenty years, so I'm not tryingto say that her much. But the
(09:05):
reality is, when you first buya house, everything is rosy and everything's
rosa, and everything's rosy. Youdon't realize that there's a problem. And
even if you do start to discovera problem, it's typically a few years
after the original construction is done.It takes time for water to migrate into
(09:26):
the building envelope and start to becomenoticeable. And then the next thing that
happens is you go back to thebuilder the developer and you say, hey,
I'd like to make a warranty claimbecause I see a stain on my
ceiling in my garage, right,And then they come out try to address
the problem with warranty, which pushesyou another few years down the road.
(09:48):
And so really seven years is avery small window when you think about from
the time of building is completed.Yeah, because everything's going to be fine,
kind of like you said the marriage, everything's fine for the first few
years. Yes, So what aresome things that buyers should be looking for?
Then? Is there any type ofsigns with new construction? Yes?
(10:09):
Absolutely. And let me just touchon one other thing on the statute change.
Not only did they reduce it fromten years to seven years, but
they also changed the time period inwhich that seven years starts to run,
the start date from issue and certificateof occupancy to substantial completion. Well,
(10:33):
what does substantial completion mean? Itmeans that they can get a temporary CEO,
which is what some builders do now. So they don't even have to
be finished with the building yet,they just have to have it done enough
to be able to get a temporaryCOO for that time period to start to
run. So not only did theyreduce from ten to seven, but they
(10:54):
also took some more time off thefront end. That's probably only typical in
condos though, right, that's notgoing to happen in a house because your
people that can't move in before there'sa CEO. But they don't get these,
do they do? Well? Theyget you can get a temporary CEO
on a house, you have tohave like one finished bathroom, what the
kitchen really and the doors on thebedrooms. I mean, it's going to
differ by the municipality, but there'ssome things that you can do to basically
(11:16):
say the minimum necessary to live inthere. They get the temporary CEO,
that time period starts to run andthen they continue to work on the finishes.
Is this like a scam? Actually, we do have to take a
quick break here. We've had alot longerst segment. We'd have fun on.
When we get back here, weare going to ask Brian Anderson from
SEI Engineering a little bit more aboutthis. I want to keep diving into
(11:37):
this because this is one of thebiggest legislation changes that we've had in a
long time that I think most people, especially not in real estate, they
don't think about this. I didn'tknow about this. I didn't even know
what Statute of repose was, butI think this might be a big deal
going from ten years to seven years. And now Brian's educating on some of
these other little tricks that could shortenthe timeframe. So you could hear this
on the Business Happy Hour with SeniaAkisha and Rosa with three of Tampa Bay's
(12:05):
top experts. And now you're ahost of the Business Happy Hour. Here's
Frank the Bank, Rositi and SeniaAkish. Hey, Tampa Bay, welcome
back to the Business Happy right hereon nine seventy Actually News Radio w f
l A. They have changed thingson me all the time here, but
you'd still find it on nine toseventy. I'm pretty sure. Anyway,
you can find this as a podcast. You can check out our Facebook live.
(12:26):
You can go back to the Facebookif you want to catch that as
well, if you want to seeour pretty faces sans Rosa today. I
know she's been gone for a coupleof weeks. Everybody's wanting to see her
face, but they they believe she'shere. She's here. Anyway, we
are having a great show today.We sipped skipped right over our stats section,
which we'll get back to, butnormally Senya does that for us.
(12:50):
But we have a great guest.And it's not Brian. It's Byron.
I must have said Brian five timesalready, but it is Brian. Brian.
God, it was a long dayto day Answerry Cloudy. I think
it's that solar store. Actually hearabout this thing. It's been at the
Aurora. You could see the Aurorain Florida this week. It was crazy.
I didn't hear that. Yep,yeah, I got pictures from up
north anyway. Byron Anderson, theCEO of SEI, you were talking just
(13:16):
a second ago about some new newlegislation. I guess that's changed. The
statute of repose, which you wereexplaining to everybody, is the timeframe it
tell me. I'm saying this right, it's the timeframe from when the builder
finishes the property, whether it's atemporary CEO or the final CEO. They
had ten We as consumers, hadten years if something went wrong, if
(13:39):
we found Chinese drywall, if therewas bad construction, things like that,
ten years we could go after them. And they just changed it to seven.
Now, that's correct. So thisis terrible for consumers. It is
bad for consumers, right, Yes, how do you think this happened?
Well, I think the Florida HomebuildersAssociation has a very powerful lobbying group.
(14:00):
Politics. It's politics, man,I mean, it's definitely not in the
consumer's best interest, right, No, because you know, as we were
talking about before the break is thefirst few years you're not going to notice
a problem, right, So you'renot going to have a problem. You
know, you're lucky if before ifyou notice these problems within the first ten
years, right, And so takingtaking three years off is a big deal.
(14:22):
I don't know that it's huge.I think it is too. I
think people got it. You justhave to be. I mean, well,
okay, Byron, what can whatcan a consumer do to protect themselves?
Well, I think the consumer needsto be if you're a homeowner or
a property owner, you really needto be hyper sensitive as to the condition
(14:46):
of your property, and you reallyneed to kind of educate yourself on some
basic or fundamental inspection techniques that Iwould use. One of these would be
whenever you first purchased the propert,go around with a high definition camera and
video every square inch of the property. Really it takes like fifteen to twenty
(15:07):
minutes, because now you have arecord going forward. I thought I should
tell me, like the camera pickedup something that we wouldn't see there,
realized like what does that do well? Because because really what we're looking for
is if we're going to diagnose aproblem with the building, we're trying to
find some sort of a demarcation ora benchmark of what is the baseline condition.
(15:30):
And so as soon as you're assoon as the property is purchased,
go around and take that get thatbenchmark. This is exactly what it looks
like right right, And they arealso taking the time then to note any
imperfections or problems associated with the building, and then moving forward, I would
say, once a quarter walk aroundthe building, get a flashlight. You
(15:52):
know, people make the mistakes ofwhen they're inspecting on the inside of a
building of turning all the lights on. That's actually the worst thing to do
because the lights kind of drowned outsome of the some of the imperfections or
problems. Uh. And then andthen you use a flashlight, and that
picks up on everything. Well.With the flashlight, you can change,
(16:12):
Uh, you can changle the angleof the light. I know exactly what
he's saying. It's like seeing drywallissues. If you want to see sure
where we're drywall is bulging or tapeis bulging or something like that. I
never knew that. Yeah, somebodyshowed me that a long time ago.
That's a genius tip. Right,Well, don't don't. When you guys
show houses, don't you go internallight? Absolutely great. Rosa invites random
(16:40):
she put on Facebook. I'm atthe house alone. I had the electricity
doesn't work. Sorry. We justhad like an FBI course recently about what
realtors do wrong, and one ofthem like literally is like, what do
I turn on all the lights everywhere? You're like Okay, Well, I
remember doing a pre purchase suspecsion ayear or so ago, and I walk
(17:03):
in the house and all the lightsare turned on, so I go I
start turning the lights off and gettingmy flashlight out, and the realtors walking
behind me. You're like, hey, dude, you know I'm not crazy.
I'm like actually doing this. Therea reason. Well, that's for
a house you were buying or helpingsomebody I was. I was get the
(17:25):
flash light perfection. So speaking ofthat, I was going to ask you
what can buyers do then when theyare building homes? Can they hire you
or would what would you recommend?Well, see that I want to bounce
on what she's saying too, likeshould they be doing this for new construction?
That's that's not whatever goes through yourmind, Like I didn't think about
(17:45):
it. Do people get home inspectionsfor new construction? Recommend yes? Never
forego home inspection? Yeah, Iwould say, never forego a home inspection.
Wow, do you gu inspections?By the way, we we do
what we call quality insurance sspections,so we will most of the type of
work that we do on that natureis during construction, so you know,
(18:07):
we come out in like the majorphases, the foundation inspection prior to the
importing the foundation, uh do wallwall and framing inspections for the mastream frame,
and then final inspections as well.You know. Really the critical elements
that I think about are the majorstructural components, but also the building envelope
(18:32):
aspects of it, because the buildingenvelope is where we see a lot of
problems in the construction defect realm startto develop. What does that mean?
I was gonna see who's gonna askthat question? First? Well, the
building envelope. Think of the buildingenvelope as the protective skin of the building,
the stucco, well, the stucco, the windows, the roofing,
(18:55):
everything that everything that pretty much everythingfrom the outside. What's going to make
the structure waterproof? For water tight? Okay, and what we see a
lot of times in particular with stucco, as you said, there is you
know, and we combined that withstucco over wood frame construction, which is
very prevalent in a lot of areasin the state. Right. Well,
(19:18):
if we just think about that systemfor a second, that wood framing is
somewhat flexible, it's going to movea little bit right. The stucco is
not it's brittle, and so weknow that that stucco, if it's put
on and too large of an area, it has the potential to crack.
(19:40):
Is it because that weight that's pullingon the wood, Well, it's from
the weight, but also from justchanges in temperature and humidity over time.
So you know, we we wereoutside earlier today dealing with this with this
great May thunderstorm, which God blesswe need it. Right yesterday yesterday it
was yeah, great, Sorry,Byron, I'm listening to everything you say
(20:02):
and busted our break. We're goingto take a break here on the Business
Happier. We'll be back in justa minute with Byron Anderson, Sei Engineer
se A CEO. Be back ina minute. Welcome to the Business Happy
Hour radio show with your host Frankthe bank Kodo, president of Lincoln Lending
Group and eight one three Mortgage fortwenty years right here in Tampa Bay and
(20:25):
joined by his incredible co host Roseof Vahiti and Senia Akishana, top producing
real estate agents with Mahara and Associates. These three bring nearly five decades of
experience in the local real estate market. If you're looking for real estate or
business advice, no matter what yourexperience level, the Business Happy Hour team
has been there for you for almosta decade right here on news radio WFLA.
(20:47):
Now, sit back, relax,and get ready for some serious real
estate and business talk with three ofTampa Bay's top experts. Here's Frank the
Bank. Hey, Tampa Bay,welcome back to the Real Business Happy Hour
over here. You can find usas the podcast on iHeartRadio, or you
can tune in every Tuesday twelve toone. I am getting better, Ladies.
It is a very gloomy day todayand I've been a little off my
(21:10):
game. You know what I thinkit is. I think we started the
show out of sequence today and maybemy brain just cannot handle it something.
So with that said, we havea great guest. We've been learning a
lot. Actually, this is probablyone of the most educational shows I've been
on a long time, because Ithink all three of us been in real
estate for a long time and we'reall learning terms and words and laws and
(21:32):
stuff that we had no idea.The envelope of the house. I'm gonna
go, We're I know, I'mgonna walk up and be like, dude,
your envelope is jack you're making Yeah, They're be like, what are
you some sort of engineer? No, but I met one today. We
know. Yeah, we day onholiday and express last night. No.
So I'm gonna I'm gonna back usup a little bit because we're going into
(21:52):
our third segment here. I wantto make sure we're going to do our
stats right. From a fresh frommahar And Associates, my awesome co hosts
Year Rosa and Senia. Rosa hasbeen gone for a couple of weeks.
Have she's been flying around the worldselling like chateaus in France and stuff like
that, And can you save somefor the rest of us, Rosa?
Maybe maybe I'll take you on atrip with me next time. Guys,
(22:15):
I mean, for real, who'sgoing to be here. That's a good
point Byron. You got this coveredright absolutely. Senny and I did an
amazing event with Bruce Parkman. TravisHorn invited us to this event. We
did it at the US Victory Shipin Change. I think they call it.
Is it the Victory Ship? Isn'tthat what they call it? Or
it's a victory ship American American victoryor something like that. Anyway, we
(22:37):
got some really cool pictures of ussitting on the big old guns. Did
you did you see? No,just a better model. You're funny.
It wasn't even a machine gun andI made those noises. But anyway,
it was awesome. Bruce Parkman ishaving that brain seminar for subcncut of trauma.
(23:00):
I think we're going to try tomake it to that, so we
will definitely mention that. I'll lookit up before in the next break.
But I want to go real quickto our stats from Sinia from Mahara and
Associates. Every week she brings usthe real estate stats, and I know
she's got some exciting things for ustoday. And this is your favorite part
of the show people, so listenup. Well, I don't know about
exciting, Frank, but I mean, but because we have Byron here and
(23:23):
there are some questions, I wantedto ask them about condos. Normally,
when we do our stats, wereally just do it for single family homes.
Yes, correct, but I wentahead and looked at the ones for
condos and town homes. Okay,so these again are year over year,
and we are down thirteen percent inclose sales. Oh, my lo we
(23:45):
are up fifty percent technical difficult day. We're cutting off now it's the end
of the update. Now eighty fivepercent increase in inventory, which is eighty
five I mean you're you're to date, so from I mean these are so
from last March. That seems prettypositive. Well, I mean, there's
just more people that want to sellcondos, and I think this will kind
(24:07):
of go into you know the reasonwhy. On the bright side, though,
the median sales price, just likewith all of our regular real estate,
that did not decrease. That actuallyincreased almost five percent. So that's
the bright side there. This iscrazy that these are such weird stats though,
isn't it? So less condo sales, more inventory prices up price?
(24:30):
Is that is that for a specificcounty. This is so our Tampa MSA.
So that includes like Hernando Pasco Panelason hillsbro Okay, gosh, and
if I remember correctly, as oflast week, Maharan Associates had over one
hundred and sixty million dollars and sales. Guys, that is no joke,
one hundred and sixty million dollars.So there's activity out there right now.
(24:52):
I have to I have to remindeverybody it is the right market right now,
Marry the house, date the rate. Matter of fact, we're thinking
about doing a link lending T shirt. I should pull everybody on this.
We like to do slightly offensive Tshirts, so this one isn't quite offensive
enough for me. But we're lookingfor offensive slogans that are mortgage really not
like piss people off. But getattention, Rose. I know what you're
(25:14):
thinking. This is get attention,Rosa, not like you know. Anyway,
we do need some fun shirt ideas, so we're going to do marry
the house, date the rate maybebecause that really you like? That one
is Me and Rosa are actually doinglike a little campaign too. Are you
telling me about it? Yeah?Well, I just want to do a
picture of a house with the littlebrides veil on it. But I did
tell Maurice about it, and hewas like his first thought was the other
(25:37):
thing that rhymes with that, LikeI said, date the rate. But
now like, all right, maybewe want to come up with her.
I don't know, you know,I think it's a great idea. I
mean I do too, and youknow what our inspector actually he texted us
like the other day and he waslike, oh, I heard this from
you know, a guy I know, he's an Illinois realtor. I'm like,
(26:00):
I'm like, that's been like ouryou know phrase now for a while.
So okay, So that's why Iwant to do it because they feel,
Yeah, the general consumer doesn't hear, you know, our little lingo
on the day to day. Sono, I think it's a great day.
Okay, So we're gonna go forit and I'll get shirts for you.
I'll get you one too, Byron, don't worry, but I want
to. I got it. Ifeel like I still have to think of
something like a little riskue to likego with it, you know what I
(26:22):
mean, Like maybe we throw inlike something some divorce line or something like
that, you know, marry thehouse, date the rate, you know,
divorce the ugly one later or somethinglike that, or always do things
about marriage and how it's only goodfor public. The one who brought it
up. Okay, you three areall married. Yeah, I'm like close
to you. I'm eighteen, buttwenty eight together, so like, I
(26:45):
know exactly what you're talking about.How the house, you know, you
got to figure things out, yes, yes, take care of it.
Maintenance on it. Absolutely engineer istoo marriage counselor as house is too condo,
please and go. But okay,so guys on that topic though.
No, the reason I wanted toask, and this was relatively new for
(27:06):
us. Yeah, so, Imean, we always have things that come
up in real estate, you know, that are kind of make things challenging,
right, so this came up welllike a couple of years ago where
they required that we now do orcondo buildings of a certain height do the
milestone inspections and then the structural integrityreserve studies. Yeah, I'm made.
This has made like condo sales complicated. Can you tell us kind of the
(27:29):
gist of all that? And oh, so you know what I mean that
this is why the condo sales havebeen a little bit I think. I
think in general condos have gotten veryexpensive because the condo fees include the insurance,
and insurance is really skyrocketed for condos. And I do think this is
part of the reason why. SoI own two condos, I'll preface this
with I have two condos out onthe beach, right and are we have
(27:52):
not only has insurance gone up,but even worse than insurance is the hoas
the association fees, and I thinkthis is all due to what's being discovered
in these insects and these inspections.We had to have a structural engineer come
out and check all the balconies andthe stairwells and the landings and all this.
Take it away by and you're goingto tell this stuff we've never heard.
Sure, So what we're talking abouthere is a change that occurred about
(28:15):
a year and a half to twoyears ago in legislation in Florida where they
started requiring condominium buildings over three storiesand or three stories and over and also
within certain areas of the state haveto have mandatory milestone inspections, and with
that they also have to have whatwe call a structural integrity reserve study.
(28:38):
This structural integrity reserve studies. Structuralintegrity reserve study is okay, this is
no pun intended fallout from the surfside collapse, right, is that what
was identified as one of the causationof the surfside collapse was long term deferred
(29:03):
maintenance. It wasn't you know,people knew that there was a problem with
these buildings. I don't think theyknew that the extent of the problem was
going to cause a collapse or obviouslypeople would have made different decisions, but
they knew there were problems with thesebuildings. The homeowners association had not adequately
(29:26):
funded their reserves to deal with thesesignificant structural problems. So historically, in
Florida and a condominium association, ifyou have a majority of either the board
or the members vote to partially fundreserves, then you can partially fund reserves.
So if you have a bunch offixed income people living in a condominium
(29:49):
and you sent out a questionnaire,do you want to fully fund our reserves?
If so, five thousand dollars thisyear? Do you want to partially
fund our reserves? If so fivehundred dollars this year? What do you
think? What do they think they'regoing to do? And that's what they
do every single year. Byron,that's what they do every single year.
(30:10):
And so you have this systemic problemwith condominium associations not being adequately funded.
And so with the milestone inspection requirement, which is somebody like myself, which
we do milestone inspections and seers,they have to come out and inspect the
structure and determine if there's any significantstructural damage that has occurred to the building,
(30:37):
and if so, it has tobe fixed. But also they now
have mandatory funding of the reserves,and the mandatory funding of the reserves are
not for things like paving the parkinglot. It's not for you pool,
it's not for the pool, it'snot for landscaping it. There's ten items
in the Structural Integrity Reserve study thathave to be funded, and in essence,
(31:02):
those items are the building envelope components, roofing the envelope, the envelope,
roofing windows, and also major structuralsystems such as exterior walls and beams
and columns. They are basically I'vebeen through this. They are basically for
everything that does not directly benefit theowner. Well except for the fact your
(31:25):
building's not going to fall down.Yeah, they they can't see. I
guess it's for all the stuff thatyou somewhat don't care about, but you
should, right. But the problemis is we've let this go for so
long. And the one that Ibought like ten years ago, I got
on the board and I told themfrom day one, we need to fund
this. But I was saying it, I wasn't thinking structurals before surf side.
(31:45):
I was saying just for financing purposes, because if you don't have your
reserves funded, you can't get conventionalfinancing, which in reality lowers the value
of your condominium because now you cannotsell it to over half of the buyers
in the freaking country. All right, on that note, we're going to
take another break because I'm not goingto miss it this time. Guys.
By the third segment, he getsit right. We got Rosavihita Theahiti,
(32:07):
Sandia Akisha I was close, andwe got Byron Anderson over here from Sei
Engineering. Would be back in justa minute with Frank the Bank on the
Business Happy Hour. Now we're backwith some serious real estate and business talk
with three of Tampa Bay's top experts. And now you're a host of the
Business Happy Hour. Here's Frank theBank, Rosevahiti and Senia Akishana. Hey,
(32:29):
Tampa Bay, welcome back to theReal Biz Happy Hour here on nine
to seventy WFLA. By the way, if you need real estate advice,
there is a real website that youcan go to. You can find out
about houses for sale. You canfind outbout all these condominiums that are listed,
these townhouses. You can find outhow they sold one hundred and sixty
million dollars of real estate by goingto the Real Deal Tampa dot com.
(32:50):
It's job Roth. Oh, Imean she was fast today? There you
you was, or you can callus at eight one, three, seven
five reel. I love it.The Real Deal Tampa dot com, super
easy webside. Of course, contactFrank thebank dot com is always all dot
com. It's always there for yourreal estate stuff. I want to make
sure I mention that Byron does notonly work for real estate professionals. He
works for you guys. You guyscan give him a call. Anything he's
(33:13):
talking about today. You need moreinformation. Maybe that house, that house
you bought on your marriage is startingto fall apart, but the marriage is
wonderful and you need help. You'regoing to go to Sei Sei Florida dot
com. That's Sei Florida dot com. Make sure you call them before your
house creates a problem in your marriage. Sei Florida dot com. He gave
(33:35):
me that one that's could be ashirt right there. Anyway, Rosa,
you had a question that we missedin the second segment, So what are
for buyers when they're building new constructionhomes, what are some signs that they
should be looking for pre build.Well, one of the things that we
were kind of going down the pathwaystalking about is the building envelope and the
structure are really the major components ofthe building because if we if we don't
(34:00):
have the building that's watertight, waterstarts to get in. And what's happening
now is we use the analogy ifyou go to Ebor City and you look
at a house that was built innineteen twenty stuck go over frame. If
water gets in there doesn't really matter. The water is going to dry out
right, because there's so much airinfiltration that's occurring in modern construction. We
(34:23):
have very tight building envelopes from anair infiltration perspective, from an energy efficiency
perspective. So now once moisture getsinto the building envelope, there's no way
there's no mechanism to drive drying thatback out, so it really sets there
and starts to cause damage. Sothe things that we're looking for cracks in
(34:45):
the exterior finish of the building thatmay allow water to get in, gaps
and sealants or cracking of sealants reallylooking. As I said before, if
you're a building owner, you needto become familiar with and you need to
take the time every quarter to walkaround the inside and outside of your building.
(35:05):
Get a flashlight and look for newcracks that have formed, cracks that
may be letting water get into thebuilding, celant that is failing, calk,
things of that nature, complicated words. You're looking to see if you
sprinklers are aren't blowing water on yourbuilding? Are trees rubbing on your roof?
(35:27):
Right? All those things are arerelatively easy to fix if you catch
them in we look for. Ilove the flashlight trick, guys, that
that is a wonderful idea that Byrongave you. You know, turn off
the lights, use that flashlight,change the angles you can. You'll see
when drywall is failing, when thejoints are popping, all kinds of little
things. Because speaking of I hadthat problem with Davis anyway, I want
(35:49):
to deviate real quick to sinkholes.We've only got about three and a half
minutes left in our show. Andfull disclosure, guys, I have a
listing thirteen ninety five Davis Road,and like it's disclosed in my listing,
like it should be. The houseis a repaired sinkhole house. Now,
albeit this is from twenty years agoand we've yet to have an engineer on
the show. So I would youknow, I would just like you to
(36:10):
tell me, like, is itis it better if a house has you
know, is it a bad thing? I don't even know how to ask
you the question. Sure it hasa repair sinkhole? Sure, well,
I would say, first of all, there's a good chance that the repair
to the house was not because ofan actual sinkhole to begin with. I've
heard this right is because of theway. We're talking a lot about legislation
(36:32):
here today, but historically, theway the legislation was written in Florida is
that as a geotechnical engineer, ifI am investigating a property, I have
to eliminate sinkle activity as a causeof damage. That's a very high bar
to be able to say that Ican completely eliminate it. Yeah, And
so what we oftentimes look for whatwe call indicators of sinkle activity in our
(36:57):
testing. And just because I findan indicator doesn't mean I necessarily have a
sinkhole, but it needs I can'teliminate it. And so therefore a lot
of times properties would be repaired forthese indicators of sinkle activity, which isn't
actually a sinkhole. The thing thatI would look for more than anything else
(37:17):
is on public record. Was thehouse stabilized or was there a foundation repair
that was done, because those aretwo different things, okay, And what
happens is that really the tried andtrue right way of repairing a true sinkhole
(37:40):
is to use what's called compaction grouting. And basically what you're doing is you're
drilling pipes down into the surface ofthe limestone and you're injecting simonititious grout into
the ground to fill up voids,densify the soil, sell off the limestone.
You're actually repairing the sinkle. Whathappened a lot of times in the
(38:02):
past is that there would be arecommendation to do grouting, and then an
owner would reach a settlement with theirinsurance company and they would come in with
a different repair that was just doingunderpinning of the structure. So now they're
driving pipes down and attaching to themto the foundation. They've done nothing to
(38:22):
stabilize the ground. That's the differencebetween a ground stabilization program and a foundation
repair program. Does one means there'sa sink hole and the other means one
means that there's potentially an unrepaired sinkhole, which is these which is the foundation
repair. At the end of theday, the best thing to do would
(38:43):
be, if it's a repaired sinkle, contact somebody like myself. You're gonna
have to pay me a little bitof money, of course, which is
and what I'm gonna do is I'mgonna pull all public records. Nobody has
a magic wand out there that cango and say, yes, this is
repaired. You're gonna research it,and you're going to figure out what I'm
going to research it. I knowI've been doing single remediation work since two
(39:07):
thousand in the state, and I'vebeen involved in tens of thousands of remediation
projects. I can tell you justby looking at the players involved. Ah,
whether it's legit or not, Ilove it. I love it.
Okay, So guys, that prettymuch wraps up the show. On that
note, I want to make surethat if you need any information or any
(39:29):
help with anything related to structural engineeringinspections, maybe you're not sure who to
call, So I would actually recommendthat you go to Sei Florida dot com
because why not start at the top. Why not hire the guys who are
really going to figure out the situation, and then you can go down from
there instead of starting and wasting abunch of money with these random people.
Let's go to Sei Florida dot com. And how about that real estate stuff?
(39:51):
What's that website, Rosa, TheReal Deal Tampa dot com. I
love it, The Real Deal Tampadot com. Anything listen, what's so
educational? Byron? Thank you veryvery much for joining us here today.
We waited a little for it.You're busy, guys, so I appreciate
you making the time. We valueyour time. And you said think and
your expertise. I mean, welearned so much. You know. I
would love to come back. Yep, And you know what, we will
(40:13):
have you back, as I guaranteeyou we're going to have more things to
talk about related engineering right here inthe state of Florida. Thank you for
listening to the Business Happy Hour.We'll see you guys next week.
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