Why We Ask About the Homestead
Because on a long-held Florida homestead, the accumulated Save Our Homes differential can be worth more than the difference between every offer you receive, and rebuilding within the square footage threshold preserves it entirely.
An owner in that position has a genuine alternative to selling that has nothing to do with the construction numbers. An owner who bought recently, or whose property was a rental, does not. Those are different situations and they deserve different conversations.
We ask early because the answer changes whether we should be quoting at all, and because a deal that collapses in week five when somebody finally mentions the tax position costs us more than an honest first call does.
Are You Asking So You Know How Much Room You Have?
What We Buy
Fire-damaged residential property across the Orlando metro, in any condition from smoke to bare slab. Homestead and non-homestead. City-permitted and county-permitted. Older stock and newer subdivisions. Claims open, settled, denied and uninsured. Owner-occupied, tenanted, vacant and inherited.
Where we decline it is geography. The surrounding counties and cities each run their own departments, and beyond the nearer metro we are the wrong buyer and will say so rather than take the enquiry and waste your fortnight.
How the Number Is Built
Finished value of a house on that parcel, or the parcel's value where the location supports more, less the cost of getting there, less carrying cost, less the documentary stamps, less margin.
Two lines make Orlando offers differ, and both are local rather than clever. Whether the buyer has established which department permits the address, and whether they have priced the slab or guessed at it. This market draws a great deal of out-of-state capital that has done neither.
Why Is the Spread Between Offers So Wide Here?
Where Our Interests Diverge From Yours
We are the buyer. Not an adviser, not neutral. We benefit if you accept less and decide quickly.
The homestead point above is the honest exception and it serves us as well as you, which is why you can rely on it rather than because we are generous. Everything else is checkable: the Florida Statutes for the calamity provision, your county property appraiser for what it means on your parcel, the comptroller's official records for what we have actually bought.
We are also not brokers, not public adjusters, not contractors, not contract assigners, not lawyers and not tax advisers. That last one matters here, because the provisions that may decide your answer are tax provisions and the property appraiser is the right free source on them.
When a Different Buyer Is the Right One
Nobody — rebuild it. On a long-held homestead where rebuilding within the threshold preserves the cap, that ongoing benefit is not something a cash offer replaces. This is the commonest right answer on older owner-occupied property here.
A lot buyer, close to the centre or on a large parcel. Where the land supports more than what burned, they price the dirt and will beat us.
A rehabber, where the fire was contained and the slab came through. Restoring is their business and they can pay closer to finished value than a buyer pricing a rebuild.
Why Point Me Away From a Sale?
Reaching Us
Send an address through any form on this site. Before you deal with us, call your county property appraiser and read the questions on our page about how to tell local cash buyers apart, then check what applies on our page covering homestead, rebuild limits and portability.