Chapter 5

The offer made on the apartment building was contingent on many things, one being a favorable property inspection. Dan had phoned Casey Bergoles, a property inspector Dan had used before and gave him the assignment to inspect the building. Casey had done quality proper inspections for Dan in the past on buildings Dan had purchased and there was no reason to think the quality of his work would be any different on this assignment.

After having breakfast and checking his calendar, Dan waited till eleven before he headed out to do some shopping. Even if the deal on this building didn’t go through he knew he needed to purchase a laser printer-fax-scanner-copier for his condo. He found what he was looking for at Best Buy that was on sale and along with two reams of paper and an extra toner cartridge made the purchase.

After stopping at a Chinese buffet for lunch Dan was back at his condo setting up the laser printer next to a desk in his second bedroom. He wanted to make sure the printer worked. Dan would be using this bedroom as an office and he now saw that he needed to purchase a two drawer file cabinet. Dan knew he had to wait for Casey’s inspection report before he could do anything more on this pending property purchase.

Golfing the next day was at a semi-private golf course. Dan had signed up for the morning shotgun start and was paired with three fellows who were around his age and whose golf handicaps were similar to his. They and Dan posted scores golf scores that were in line with their golf handicaps. Dan had a good time playing with these men. One of the fellows, Glen Carpenter who was a semi-retired pharmacist from Buffalo, New York said his wife was in another foursome playing with three other women.

After golf Dan’s foursome was in the clubhouse having a beer when Glen’s wife Cathy came to the table and Glen introduced her to the group. She was an attractive lady and appeared to be at least ten years younger than Glen and maybe more. Dan thought because of her age, looks and long blond hair, she would fall into the trophy wife category. She seemed like a pleasant person and said she just stopped by to say hello. Cathy after asking how it went with golf today left to go back to her lady friends.

Back at his condo after golf Dan listened to a phone message from Casey who said he had completed his inspection. Casey said he would come over tomorrow morning at nine and discuss his report with Dan unless there was an objection from Dan. Casey said Dan should phone him if the time wasn’t convenient.

Casey arrived right on time and gave his report. There was only one major problem he found and that was with the air conditioning units. The compressors were on their last legs as their readings were bordering the minimum acceptable range and needed to be replaced. Casey had checked with the company who serviced these units. They said they had told the owner about this problem and had provided him with an estimate as to the repair amount. Casey had secured a copy of that estimate and attached it to his report.

Dan thanked Casey for doing another excellent job and paid him for the inspection. He faxed a copy of Casey’s report to Bill with a note to him saying that after he reads the report to phone Dan.

Bill phoned Dan later in the day and they discussed the report. Dan said that he or Casey were not the kind to inflate an inspection report listing items that would never be done but this air conditioning issue was a deal breaker. If Bill didn’t reduce the price on the property they had tentatively agreed on by the amount of the repair estimate Dan would no longer be a buyer. Since Bill was previously made aware of the problem and hadn’t disclosed it on his property condition statement, he agreed to the price reduction. It was a done deal on Dan purchasing the property.

Dan phoned Jason Leonard, a mortgage broker he had dealt with in the past to get a loan for the purchase of the property. Current rules to get a mortgage required that Dan put twenty percent down which did not present a problem for him to provide that amount.

Later in the day after some thought on what he needed to do Dan phoned Sue and asked her to make recommendations of insurance brokers since she saw what the premiums were for the buildings she handled. He wanted to get quotes on insurance for the building as the mortgage company required that there be an insurance policy in effect on the day of purchase. He also asked Sue for the names and addresses of the tenants in that building as well as copies of the financials from other similar condo buildings she handles in order for him to draft a budget. He needed to determine what to charge the condo owners for the monthly maintenance fee. Sue said she would get this information together and drop it off Monday afternoon. Sue knew Dan was golfing in the morning.

Sue also said she had some diagrams showing the square footage of the various apartments in that building which she thought Dan would need to decide what price he was going to ask on the individual condos. The square footage of each unit would also be needed to apportion the monthly assessments since the assessments would vary by the size of the unit.

Now the preparatory work began for Dan to be able to offer the apartments as condos to the present renters after his purchase was finalized. He started to draft the condo Declarations on his computer for this property. The Declarations were going to be patterned after Declarations he had used on other properties.

One thing Dan was putting in the Declarations, which he had learned the hard way was the provision that a condo unit could not be rented out until the owner had owned the unit for one year. He did this in an effort to keep the building staffed with permanent residents and not just snowbirds or renters. The Board of Directors was a key element of a condo building and renters were not eligible to be members of the Board. Absentee owners normally did not want to serve on the Board. Dan wanted this condominium building to be residential property and not a resort. He knew that this provision did reduce the pool of prospective buyers but at the same time it elevated the quality of the buyer.

The highlight for the weekend Dan thought after doing some shopping was his sending out emails to his three ladies. In the emails he said he missed being with them and told them what was happening in his life. He mentioned his pending property purchase and asked them what was happening in their lives.

Dan was wrong as to his sending of emails being the weekend highlight. The highlight was the response he received on Sunday from Monica. She said in her response that if Dan didn’t have any objection she would catch a flight down to Sarasota and spend the Thanksgiving weekend with Dan. He quickly replied to her telling her that was great news. He asked her for her flight information saying he would pick her up at the airport.

On Monday afternoon after golf Dan had just finished showering and dressing when he heard his doorbell chime. Opening the door he saw Sue standing there with a bundle of papers in her arms. She came in and placed the papers on the dining room table. He listened as she went through the papers explaining to Dan what they were.

Dan had some questions and she answered them as best she could. It didn’t take long for her to explain what she had brought as Dan was generally familiar with the subject matters of the papers.

When they were done discussing the papers Dan asked her, “How are things going?”

“Business is good and things are getting better at home thanks to your advice. That being said it still doesn’t come close to being as good as the time I had with you.

Sue rose and reached out to take Dan’s hand and started to lead him to the bedroom saying, “One time you told me and I think I can quote you, you said “Your cute little butt interests me.” Well if you want it, it’s yours.”