35K
Other Dan, You are entitled to your opinions, as we all are. I took offense to the statemtn in the post that referred to me and my friends. You might think back to the time when those houses in Florida were 35K and less and also figure out what the average wage was then. Because the cost of a home has a lot to do with the cost of building it and that includes materials (which are manufactured by good working people) and the cost to put it together (which is done by good working people). There is a lot that the average person does not understand about development. You referenced them scraping the whole thing off. Most soil engineers out here require that we scarify the property prior to construction. That removes all biologics (grass, weeds, etc.) that might mix with compacted soil and ultimately cause the soil and supported structures to fail. To the untrained eye, it looks pretty bad. I can't speak to Florida politics when it comes to land use, but where I live, you can't process a new application every two months. You have to wait at least one year after denial to reapply. They also have some pretty strict rules about when you can apply for changes to the general plan (don't know if you have those back there). My point is, if you don't like the process, work to change the rules, run for office, work on a campaign, go to meetings. Building these projects is a very expensive and requires substantial capital to make it happen. When I used to build small apartments and one or two homes at a time there was little risk that one bad project would bring it all down. Once we started doing small subdivisions (for us that was 12-36 units) each project put the families (we had a small family company) entire capital and livelihood at stake. I always tell people that if developers were gamblers they would be high stakes craps players. Thats because just about everytime you roll the dice theres a chance you will loose it all. Like around here, I suppose there are not to many "local" developers that might have the few million it would take in equity to start the average smaller subdivision these days. And its going to get more corporate as time goes by for that reason alone. You can agree with Paul, but don't lump me into the "fast buck" crowd. I'm not even sure you should complain much about them given your limited understanding of the process. Now, can we get this back to a discussion about condo conversion marinas or whatever the topic was and off generalizations that denegrate people who have spent a career making sure people had a place to live. I may need to buy a slip for my boat in the next year or two and I am curious if anyone has some inforamtion on how it compares to renting over the longer term. Dan Jonas (S/V Feije II)
Other Dan, You are entitled to your opinions, as we all are. I took offense to the statemtn in the post that referred to me and my friends. You might think back to the time when those houses in Florida were 35K and less and also figure out what the average wage was then. Because the cost of a home has a lot to do with the cost of building it and that includes materials (which are manufactured by good working people) and the cost to put it together (which is done by good working people). There is a lot that the average person does not understand about development. You referenced them scraping the whole thing off. Most soil engineers out here require that we scarify the property prior to construction. That removes all biologics (grass, weeds, etc.) that might mix with compacted soil and ultimately cause the soil and supported structures to fail. To the untrained eye, it looks pretty bad. I can't speak to Florida politics when it comes to land use, but where I live, you can't process a new application every two months. You have to wait at least one year after denial to reapply. They also have some pretty strict rules about when you can apply for changes to the general plan (don't know if you have those back there). My point is, if you don't like the process, work to change the rules, run for office, work on a campaign, go to meetings. Building these projects is a very expensive and requires substantial capital to make it happen. When I used to build small apartments and one or two homes at a time there was little risk that one bad project would bring it all down. Once we started doing small subdivisions (for us that was 12-36 units) each project put the families (we had a small family company) entire capital and livelihood at stake. I always tell people that if developers were gamblers they would be high stakes craps players. Thats because just about everytime you roll the dice theres a chance you will loose it all. Like around here, I suppose there are not to many "local" developers that might have the few million it would take in equity to start the average smaller subdivision these days. And its going to get more corporate as time goes by for that reason alone. You can agree with Paul, but don't lump me into the "fast buck" crowd. I'm not even sure you should complain much about them given your limited understanding of the process. Now, can we get this back to a discussion about condo conversion marinas or whatever the topic was and off generalizations that denegrate people who have spent a career making sure people had a place to live. I may need to buy a slip for my boat in the next year or two and I am curious if anyone has some inforamtion on how it compares to renting over the longer term. Dan Jonas (S/V Feije II)
sorry to run on!