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I Love Palm Beach
I Love Palm Beach
Insurance Savings with the "My Safe Florida Home" Program: Preparing for Hurricanes
Brace yourselves as we unpack the bounty of resources offered by the My Safe Florida Home program to fortify your homes against hurricanes. We're thrilled to have Mark Wahl from Waypoint Home Inspections on board to illuminate how this Florida Governor-funded initiative extends free wind mitigation inspections and grants up to $10,000 to homeowners. Mark will decode the application process, the selection of proficient vendors, and the expected timeline for this safety-enhancing endeavor. He also elucidates that homeowners have the liberty to choose from the recommended improvements, making this program a flexible fit for varying needs and financial capabilities.
Adding to this fruitful discussion, we introduce the services offered by Waypoint Home Inspections, including their unique pre-inspection product and a 12-month interest-free loan for homeowners who've wrapped up repairs but face challenges in closing the sale. Tune in to gather these valuable insights and more!
Hi, welcome to. I Love Palm Beach. Today we have Mark Wall from Waypoint Home Inspections. Of course we have my partner, stephanie Co. We're going to talk to Mark about this really amazing program that State of Florida has put into place and it's going to help everybody with their insurance rates, help pay for some improvements to your home and it's called my Safe Florida Home. But first of all, mark, introduce yourself and let's talk about Waypoint, the inspection company first.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Rebecca and Stephanie. As you said, my name is Mark Wall. I'm one of the four owners of Waypoint Property Inspection and Waypoint Pest Services. We opened Waypoint in 2006 after moving down here from New Jersey, just like three quarters of the rest of.
Speaker 1:Palm.
Speaker 2:Beach County, I had a corporate job in insurance risk management and decided to start a business on the side, which then, surviving through the 2008 collapse, caused us to grow because of our reputation. Company now basically covers half of the Florida Peninsula, as we have an office in Tampa. We also have an office in Orlando with 23 home inspectors and 22 support staff, including five global members in the Philippines, which is amazing because you would never know they were there. They are just so good at what they do. We started to participate again this year in my Safe Florida Home program, which is a grant program issued by I don't know if it was specifically by Department of Insurance, but the governor has signed off and at last I'm aware of another $100 million in grant money for Florida homeowners. Basically, somebody would go to the my Safe Florida Home website and registered. They would be contacted by one of and in this area I believe it's three providers. One would be Internachi, one would be company named Thomas Engineering or Don Myler the schedule of free wind mitigation inspection. Once that inspection is completed, one of those three companies would then submit it to the state, who would then come back with the report and their recommendations to harden your house against hurricanes.
Speaker 2:Now, what a lot of people don't understand is they think, well, I have hurricane panels and they're going to grant money to code to shutters. They're providing this grant for roofs that did not meet current code, which started in 2002, or if you do not have hurricane shutters or you do not have impact windows or doors or garage doors. So you need to apply for the grant, be approved for the grant and then use one of their vendors to get the work done that they're recommending. Whatever you choose, you would then request a final inspection through my Safe Florida Home. Once that's completed, you would then make the final request to receive the grant monies. So you need to spend the money to get it back.
Speaker 2:Okay, it is $10,000, so you need to spend $10,000 to get $10,000. The good point is, a lot of people don't have the money to necessarily do $15,000, $20,000 worth of work on their house, depending on what they're doing. However, if you know, ultimately you're going to get money back based on their recommendations, maybe that $15,000 or $20,000 is ultimately nets out five or $10,000. I mean, I self personally. We filed for the grand monies and we're currently putting a roof on our house. The roof originally was $36,000, so now it's going to cost me $26,000, which still, while it's a lot of money, makes it a little bit easier to swallow.
Speaker 1:Absolutely the vendors that are being used. Their prices are good and fair, so nobody has to worry about that issue.
Speaker 2:They've been vetted by the state. I know the roofer that we are using actually is also. They get very aggressive pricing in our community because there are about 16 people who are doing their roofs through the program, but I believe they need to. They're not allowed to price couch because I believe the state would then step in and remove them from the program and they're qualified vendors. The roofing company we're using I won't bring his name up, but they do approximately 1,000 roofs a year in Palm Beach County.
Speaker 1:And what is the timeline on getting the work completed?
Speaker 2:Well, if you've applied, you've gotten your inspection and you've applied for your grant. Generally, the grant application takes 12 to 14 weeks for approval. Okay, while that's pending, I mean you have a pretty good idea whether or not you're going to get it. Okay, I would then go on to their contractor list and start shopping contractors and getting estimates, because as soon as the grant is approved, you can begin the work. Okay, if you start it prior to the grant approval, you avoid your availability to get the grant.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's say you need several things done. Do you have to do all of those things? Like, let's say they do the windmill and they're like, well, you need a roof, you need a garage door, you need this, but you can't afford to do everything. So you decide I'm going to do the roof. It's the biggest item. Does it matter that you don't do everything?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Not at all Depending on what you do. Obviously, if you're going to do hurricane shutters or windows, they're going to do all of them so that it encloses the envelope of the house. If you're only going to do the roof, it's going to depend. Obviously, if you've been approved for the grant based on the roof, you're going to get insurance credits for a new roof as well as, obviously, having the new roof based on the current code. I have clients who have just done a garage door Because they've got shutters and they've got a newer roof, but they don't have an impact rated garage door or a rated garage door. So they do that. So you could choose whichever you want. You can't do part. Well, I can't say you can't do partials. If you have three windows that are not protected, you can go and just do those three windows and that then gives you an A rating for all your window protection Got it. So maybe you do your three windows on a garage door.
Speaker 3:Did I hear that correctly, where you said that they would get insurance credits even though they didn't have the qualifying items yet?
Speaker 2:No, after they did the repairs.
Speaker 3:Gotcha, but they wouldn't go into the policy with the repairs already grandfathered into kind of thing. No so they're putting them okay.
Speaker 2:No, you'd need. What happens is with the original windmill that they do. If you are making some of these improvements, once they do the final inspection, they provide you with the new wind mitigation showing the new credit availability.
Speaker 1:Perfect. So I know what everybody's been asking me. Well, I don't want to have all this put in writing and the government's gonna know and they're gonna tell my current insurance company. So there are people that are afraid they're not canceled. They have their insurance but they're afraid if the insurance company finds out what their deficiencies are, they're gonna get canceled. There's no reporting done, as I understand it.
Speaker 2:No, you receive the wind mitigation. If you choose to submit it, that's up to you. It's free. Right, there are criteria changes in the program. Originally it was homes that were valued up to $500,000, single family homes, I think that was it. Now they've changed the value up to, I believe, 700,000. And they're including town homes.
Speaker 1:That was my next question Now with a town home, you only qualify for window protection.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, because generally, the roof, unless you replace it in the roof on the entire building, you will not get new credit. You won't get credit for it, and nine times out of 10, while you may be responsible for the roof on a townhouse, they're the ones who are gonna replace it, not you, right? I understand that, and the interesting thing was, when we started doing these, the people who we're now seeing final inspections for are the people with the money, right, because and they actually and I'm not exactly sure how it works now, but there is also a low income version of this, which I believe is $5,000. But to replace a roof or to do all impact windows or to do hurricane showers, you needed the money to do it, right. So we were only seeing the higher end homes come back to us for final inspections.
Speaker 1:Got it, I understand. So is there anything these people can do or any of these contractors financing it for them until they get the money back, or I don't have an answer to that.
Speaker 2:I believe many of the contractors do offer financing. I know the roof that we're using does offer it. I mean it would be through a bank or through a credit card or whatever, but it would not be. I don't know who is doing it. I mean, I know some people do it through their home equity lines if they're lucky to have one. Unfortunately, most banks aren't writing those anymore.
Speaker 1:Stephanie, do you have a question? I had another question and it went out of my brain here for a minute.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry, I'm just wrapping my head around the whole topic and everything. When they're doing the improvements you said, because they're giving you the money to work with as you please, you can choose the type of roof that you want. You can upgrade to a tile or a metal roof or something like that, if you wanted to.
Speaker 2:Whatever. Yeah, you can put on whatever you would like. I mean, obviously, I live in a gated community, so we are restricted to the style of roof. However, we are able to change colors. They also changed the color palette in our community when we had a terracotta roof previously, we now have a beige and tiki color looking roof if that's a word there's no restrictions on the program, just obviously check your HOA. Correct, exactly.
Speaker 2:Check with your HOA If you're a single family homeowner on the acreage or green acres and there is no HOA, you can do whatever you want. Obviously it's your house.
Speaker 1:As long as it's going to be a roof, that's going to be hurricane rated.
Speaker 2:Well, anything installed now has to be.
Speaker 3:Okay, go ahead. I was just going to say one last one on the town homes too. You said that the windows are the only thing that qualify, because not the roofs. But what about if they have a garage and a garage door?
Speaker 2:I'm not sure. I mean they would have to check with the program. I do know in the conversations we've had with the vendors we work with who provide the inspections. The comments were window protection, but I would imagine garage door or front door would make sense, right.
Speaker 1:Then how does the $10,000 work? I don't want people thinking they're just going to get $10,000. So is it something like for every $2 you spend, they give you half up to $10,000? Yes, is that how it works, correct? So if you spend to get the full $10,000, you would need to spend $20,000.
Speaker 2:That's the way I understand it.
Speaker 1:yes, Okay, all right, andrea.
Speaker 3:Good Shifting off of this. Obviously we've got hurricane season coming around the corner. What are some of the tips that you would tell homeowners to just keep an eye on whether it's trimming their trees or whatever. It is just good habits before.
Speaker 2:Well, basically anything that you have around the property that's loose small pots or whatever grill covers, propane tanks, you want to secure them or put them in the garage. As far as trees, obviously, as a homeowner, regularly you want everything off your house, just from a pest standpoint and from a damage standpoint. Want to make sure, if you already have hurricane shutters, that you service them and spray them with silicone to make sure that the locks are working and that the hinges work. If you have panels, make sure you can get all the screws out, that the panels are hung on. That's the worst feeling in the world when you're a day and a half out from a category two hurricane and you painted your house three times and you can't find the screws in the wall because you painted over them three times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't get my shutters closed last year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, just go out to Home Depot and buy just pure silicone. Don't use WD-40. So worst thing in the world on the outside because it attracts dirt. You just want pure silicone that attracts nothing. Spray the top of the hinge and it'll drip down in and it'll help to make them work.
Speaker 2:If you have a generator, make sure you have the generator serviced, make sure the oil has been changed, check it and make sure it works. But we have a lot of people who, unfortunately, when they use the generator, do what's called backfeeding to an electric dryer, where they will plug the generator, feed into the dryer and backfeed through the panel. First of all, I don't recommend it. Second of all, it's highly dangerous because when the power comes back on the poor guy out of the pole, if you don't have the main on your house, shutoff gets knocked off the pole when it backfeeds to the transformer. We have a lot of us who own whole house generators. Just maintain them. So it's just common sense with hurricane season, patio furniture, whatever you want to make sure you've got places to store everything.
Speaker 1:What's your prediction for this hurricane season? Are we going to have a visitor?
Speaker 2:You know what? I haven't really looked at it that hard yet this year because obviously in yours and our business it's not something we want to see.
Speaker 2:No it's not. Fortunately it's been quiet. We have the siren dust out there which is knocking things down. There's supposedly an El Nino brewing, which helps more. My only fear is the water down around the quies is about 102 degrees right now. A not only is it killing off coral and fish, but you get something into there and it's like the storm last year it hits Tampa Bay and it's just going to explode. So I'm hoping we've already got what we affectionately call the three-headed hydra in our industry high home prices, high insurance prices and high interest rates. We don't need head number four coming.
Speaker 1:No, we surely don't. And just because I know you love Palm Beach and you live in, work Absolutely, and any tips for agents? I know I just learned something new about your company the other day and that was the pre-inspection. I'm going to let you briefly mention that and we're going to release you.
Speaker 2:Well, we actually have a new product we're going to be onboarding in the next couple of weeks that I'm not specifically allowed to speak of, but if you are doing a pre-listing inspection with us, with Waypoint, we're going to have a product that you're going to get a summary of what we found at the inspection in a separate report provided by a vendor. Okay, that summary is going to show you approximately what we have called out costs of repair in general categories. You then would have the option to purchase the full report through the vendor, and the summary report will say sheetrock, roof, plumbing, electrical, whatever and give you the total for that category Okay. The detail report will then break it down Okay, her item and give about a 98 percent accurate price to repair that item. Okay. What it then enables you to do is they have a national contractor who is capable of making all the repairs at the pricing that has come in.
Speaker 2:Wow, they guarantee that pricing. No money has to be laid out upfront. It will be able to be paid at closing through the HUD. If, for whatever reason, the homeowner doesn't, the sale of the house doesn't go through. What we learned on Friday is there's going to be an option for the homeowner. They're going to get a 12-month interest-free loan. Absolutely, they did all this work to better their house and either they chose not to sell it anymore or the contract didn't go through. They then will have a 12-month loan, interest-free, to pay off the repairs.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful.
Speaker 2:We are going to be one of only a couple of companies in the area that will have this as an option. We've always thought and you just saw the report we did for your listing we always recommend doing them before a house hits the market, because then you have an opportunity to fix those little naggy repairs or the homeowner, if they're in a position to, can make the major repairs Right. If it's an old-air conditioning system, or if there's an active roof leak, or if there's a pest control issue. Even Yet we go up into the attic we find that there's a rodent activity. Well, guess what? Waypoint owns a pest control service. We can help to resolve that problem.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:That's why we've become truly one of the only one-stop shops for everything in the home inspection industry. It's something that we'd love to talk more about. We have coming up in about two and a half weeks and we'll be putting it out through social media. We also offer CE credits to realtors.
Speaker 1:We definitely want to have you come in and do some training with some of our agents for sure.
Speaker 2:That would be great. But this next one, I believe, is actually on Zoom Okay, three-hour new construction class Okay, which you get three CEs, and I know I believe September 30th is the next time everybody's going to have their CEs done.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, so why?
Speaker 2:not get it for free, absolutely. September we're going to have an activity in our office that'll come out. We're doing headshots with a professional photographer for anybody who wants to register. So all of these things we give back to those we work with.
Speaker 1:Well, we're excited. I have some agents that need some headshots, and one could use an update too.
Speaker 2:They're not going to look like Photoshop.
Speaker 1:That's what I need.
Speaker 2:The photographer we use we use for our company. She's a professional real estate photographer and does amazing work.
Speaker 1:Well, I am super excited, Stephanie. Any other questions from Mark?
Speaker 3:I mean you covered a lot here. Obviously, there's so many questions that I have on the line process. There's a million different things that we could ask you. We'll have to do a part two or something, but thank you for the great information. I'm excited to be able to share this program with other people. I think it's going to be a game changer across the board.
Speaker 2:As soon as I have all the marketing information about it, which should be in the next week or two, you'll be the first ones we share it with, because it really is a game changer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really is. I'm super excited about it and I promised you 20 minutes. We are over, that's fine. Let you go eat your lunch. It was wonderful to talk with you and you have to say I love Palm Beach.
Speaker 2:I love Palm Beach. Been here 18 years. Don't play it on going anywhere.
Speaker 1:All right, good, we'll see you soon.
Speaker 2:OK, thank you, have a great afternoon. Thank you, bye.
Speaker 1:Bye, bye.