Good reason.....to properly insure them. That means you will have to have them "scheduled" as fine art.....and depending on what sort of policy you have, will need an appraisal and to pay extra premium. I did that for a lot of years....then decided to just to take my chances with the value of my household furnishings. Before you commit to having stuff appraised, check with your insurance carrier. I believe you insurance will pay a percentage of the value of your house on the contents. Some carriers will allow "appraisal after the fact"....that is you need to carefully document what you have, not necessarily with dollar amounts, but with good descriptions and pictures and file that in your safe deposit box. If you suffer a loss, take the pictures and descriptions and make a claim. They employ experts to determine worth. so even if you had it appraised, they would double check before paying.....exceptions of course are things like jewelry and gem stones. But check the cost of the insurance before you pay for an appraisal. Linda C

We went with a local credit union bc we have had great experience with them in the past, and we have good hx with them (2 paid off car loans, and a refinanced mortgage on our current house). In fact, when they appraised (different appraiser though) our current house last year, they assessed it at $25K higher than we paid 2 yrs prior to buy it. We have put a few improvements in, but no where near that amt. We did appeal the initial appraisal bc the comps they used we felt were not even close to our new build. AND they did not do ANY comparisons to new builds. There is actually a new build right around the corner from us, but he is using private funds and insurance money, as his previous house burned down. So even though he is building upwards of a 750K home (much higher than our proposal), they did not take that into consideration. Most of the recently solds were on less than 1/2 acre in a tract, whereas ours is 2 full wooded acres in a substantially more upscale "development." (Not really a true development, but a large area that used to be undeveloped and farm land that is slowly being parcelled off and built, all by various contractors. None of the comps had higher than standard 8ft ceilings. None had wood stained trim or upgraded windows. All were vinyl siding. None had any built-ins....we have several throughout. Ours has increased insulation (closed cell foam and blown in versus mainly fiberglass), high quality windows, 2x6 construction, stone around the entire foundation, etc. I found several recent sales in the $140/sq ft range but they said they "comped" the same, and really did not seem to take the price per square footage into consideration. They only gave us $17/sq foot for our 1590 sq ft basement, even though we pointed out that we were roughing that in now and finishing it (probably ourselves) within the year to include a media room and in-law suite. I was also very confused by several adjustments they made to the comps prices. For instances adding $2200 to the value of one bc it was on a 0.9 acre tract, when ours is 2 acres. ADDING $32000 to the same one bc it was 7 years old and not new?? Adding $44,650 to it bc it was 3 bed, 2.5 baths and 30000sq ft where ours is 5bes 4 baths and 3893 sq ft. Very confusing. We did find one comp that is still for sale in a price range close to our cost to build (actually a bit higher) and similar in upgrades, etc they had this response: "The above listing is a perfect example of an atypical over improvement for the area. The marketability is greatly affected. Price is discounted, marketing time is abnormal." The house has only been on the market for 30 days, so not sure how that is abnormal. Yes, the price is about $100K higher than the assessed price, but I thought the assessed price was very low for the upgrades they had done, and wonder if they did it on the "down-low" - i.e. not pulling permits, etc and never had it reassessed. While the real estate market IS slow here (where is it not) there are still a fair amt of sales, and definitely NO WHERE near 50% of them being bank owned or short sales. Here is a direct quote from the appraiser in response to our appeal with higher comps and pointing out all of our upgrades: "The proposed construction is an over improvement for the area (super adequacy). It suffers from regression being the most expensive home in an area without a high degree of conformity to support the value. The cost approach may support the construction price, however due to the area and lack of supporting sales, the sales comparison approach will not support the construction cost." The bank liason actually seemed quite surprised with the initial appraisal AND appeal. He also said due to industry regulations, they are no longer even allowed to order a 2nd appraisal. I think part of the issue (why we are building in the first place) is that we have such specific needs and have found NOTHING existing that would satisfy those. We have NO plans of selling this house any time in the near (and by that I mean at least 15-20 years) future. But of course, the bank doesn't care about that. So, we are looking into how we can redesign our dream plans into a cheaper design. I will definitely post the plans here for input. I have posted them piecemeal up until now, but never the entire project. The original design had a steep A frame roof which we knew was a large chunk of the cost, so simply redesigning that would help, though not $100K of help. We are also going to sit down with our builder and find out what he suggests. Thanks for your input so far.

Jane, I think you are smart to worry about unpermitted work. Be sure to pull the public records and make sure it matches any work that's ever been done on the house. This is an insurance issue, because your insurance company will probably not cover anything that wasn't permitted. It does not sound like a new roof - just new shingles. Hopefully they put in the wind mitigation straps when they put the new shingles on, but your roof inspector should be able to tell you. It will be important whatever the roof guy says about how much life it left in the roof structure. Another crappy insurance issue is sinkhole. I don't know if Manatee falls under the new sinkhole rules, but you need to check with your new insurance company to see if they require a sinkhole inspection. They are now required in Pinellas, where we've not had any problems that I know of (most sinkholes are in Polk and Citrus, far to the north). Sinkhole mitigation is the new nightmare now that most of the Chinese drywall has been fettered out - and don't forget that if any work was done in at 2005-2007 timeframe, then you need to be slightly concerned about that, too. Be sure to get the pool inspected. Leaks are a huge nightmare and I'm not really sure what they do to check for those, except they might pressure check the plumbing. If the pool has an autofiller, it can hide a problem like that. Also, if you will have any toddlers (grandkids?) around your house, please install the pool alarms that have undoubtedly been removed. We just had another tragedy just two days ago in the local area with a 9-mo old baby. I'm sorry that I can't help more, but I'm just not smart on Manatee county. If you will consider homes across the Skyway, I'd be happy to help! Waterfront is my specialty! You know, my DH commutes to Sarasota and it's a super-easy drive because we live just minutes from the Skyway...lots of salt water here! Sorry that your agent is too busy for you - that bums me out to hear that. At least you are smart on all this stuff or you wouldn't be on this forum. Keep asking questions, doubt everything until you're satisfied. If I think of anything else, I'll post again.

Thanks jeff. I will be making some cash. i was lucky enough to purchase the last day of 1999 New Year's eve closing. lol for $120,000. Two neighbors recently sold their houses for $400,000+. Idon't know if we'll get that because they are different types of houses, but we did totally rehab the house and of course put more money into it while doing so. I guess the final numbers will allow us to figure if we want to get into a bigger home. This one is 1500sf. (ouch) and Possibly a better neighborhood. When rehabbing, we knew we wouldn't get our money back for the improvements, but I'm not one to not give myself what I want in the meantime. We didn't know how long we'd stay ther, so we built it comfortably and customized for us. Little things like central vac, Upgraded insulation, whole house audio video, intercom system throughout the house,underfloor radiant heating, custom other things. Those were for us and not for any resale reasons. No one has these things around us. I don't expect anything in return in terms of a higher price, but I will take an easier time selling it for comparable prices. I'm sure something would be easier for those upgrades. Whether it's price or ease of selling.We have thoroughly enjoyed the house and don't mind to keep doing it. I believe if more people did that, there wouldn't be such a panic for most people. but anyway... I would just like to know my options and possibly build from the ground up next time around, and a little bigger.