I have a home inspection appointment today at 2:00 p.m. I expect it won't be over before 5:00, and possibly later. In attendance will be me as the Buyer's Agent, the Buyer and the Home Inspector.
The buyer needs to bring a means to pay the home inspector, and not much else. Though this is a great time for the buyer to take any measurements he may want before the home closes.
The fee today is $400. We are using a home inspector who is very good, but whom I haven't used for a very long time. I'm looking forward to seeing him again.
Apr. 22, 2006 - Top Ten - David Letterman Style - Viewing Houses For Sale
In David Letterman style, let’s list the top ten things that make a buyer say “let’s get out of here!!”, when I am showing a house.
NUMBER TEN:DEAD BUGS LYING AROUND!That being said, I have to admit that not only have I sold properties with dead bugs lying around, I have bought them myself. Often people will exterminate a home after moving furniture out and then put in new light carpet and put it on the market vacant. Afterexterminating a home, dead bugs can appear for weeks afterward, and with no one living in the house, you find the dead spiders lying on the brand new light carpet. “I said light, bright and airy NOT light, bright and buggy!”
NUMBER NINE:SKEEVY CREEPIES!You know, those things that make you just a tad nauseous. Like when you open the shower curtain and there’s black gunk in the corners of the tub and along the caulk line, or in the grout spaces. Or that thick, heavy layer of soap scum on the shower door.
NUMBER EIGHT: MAJOR FLOOR SQUEAKS!I once had a buyer who loved to stand on these and rock back and forth like he was playing an accordian. If I was in another part of the house talking with his wife, he would rock back and forth until it annoyed us so much we had to acknowledge where the noise was coming from. These are usually fixable. If it is squeaking under a rug, there are screws to put in right through the rug to resecure the subfloor to the joist. The screw has a “break off” head that is removed once the base of it is screwed in.
NUMBER SEVEN:THE NEIGHBOR!Good luck with that one. I have found no cures for a neighbor’s dog who barks incessantly. The neighbor with 8 junk cars parked on his front lawn. The neighbor who has eight buddies drinking beers out front and lining up the empty bottles on the shared fence. It’s not a good sign when I’m showing a house and the neighbor is whistling and saying “Hey Baby, Whatcha Doin’?”
NUMBER SIX: PILES OF DIRTY CLOTHES! I saw a really odd one tonight. The house was completely empty until I got upstairs into one of the bedrooms. One of the main features on the flyer was “remodeled master bath”. When I got up to the master bathroom, the new jacuzzi tub was filled with dirty clothes, as was the floor of that bathroom and the closet and the bedroom. Big piles of dirty clothes and towels. Pretty weird for a vacant house. Dirty clothes lying on chairs, on beds, on floors…once someone’s seen your dirty underwear, they don’t seem to be interested in buyng your house.
NUMBER FIVE:BIG DOG BARKING!You ring the bell and no one answers except the dog. He’s barking and growling on the other side of the door as if he’s saying “Do you feel lucky today?”
NUMBER FOUR:DIRTY ROOF!Huge piles of pine needles all over the roof or big mounds of moss growing on the roof and into the gutters. Gutters jam full of pine needles. If you live in one of those great places like Bridle Trails Bellevue with big tall pine trees everywhere, get out the blower and round up those pine needles!
NUMBER THREE:BUYER STEPPED IN DOG POOP! I know it’s been winter in Seattle and you haven’t been out in the yard for awhile. In fact it was raining so much you just opened the back door to let Fido do his business, instead of taking him out for a walk. And you haven’t wanted to go out in the rain to clean up after him. But nothing says, I’m not buying this house! like the would be buyer stepping in mounds of dog poop in the yard. Especially when you made him take his shoes off at the front door so he wouldn’t dirty your carpet, and now he’s got dog poop all over his socks and can’t put his shoes back on.
NUMBER TWO:PICTURES ON THE WALLSPictures, Pictures everywhere! I know it looked great in that Pottery Barn catalogue when they took a whole wall and covered it with all different sized pictures in black frames. Long ones, tall ones, short ones and wide ones. Do you know what people see when they look at these pictures? The holes that will be left in the wall when you take them all with you when you move.
NUMBER ONE: ODORS!In my experience, this applies toall smells, both good and bad. If you open the door and there isa strong smell of ANY kind, it is a problem. That doesn’t just apply to pet odors and smoke or mustiness, but also bleach, pine cleaners, rose and floral scents, carpet fresheners or wall plug in room fresheners. I can only think of one time in 16 years where I have sold the house, when I had to walk outside to get a gulp of fresh air after viewing each room. If I feel like I am going to pass out before I make it up the stairs to the second floor, the buyers and I are usually out of there before making it through the entire house. Often these homes are vacant, and the owners or listing agents haven’t been inside the house, since they installed “plug-ins” in every single room outlet, to mask some other foul odors.
Apr. 22, 2006 - HOW MANY EMAILS DOES IT TAKE TO BUY/SELL A HOUSE?
I belong to an agent oriented forum with 17,000 “participants”, many “lurkers”, from all over the Country and Canada. I have been “speaking” there since 1998. At least once a year a newer agent there asks the question: “What is the average number of emails per transaction?”.
Of course it is possible to go from start to finish with no emails at all, I guess. Hasn’t been my experience, but I’m sure it is still humanly possible for that to happen. Last year I had one that took close to 400 emails AFTER the transaction closed, to solve an after sale problem. None of the emails were from the other agent in the transaction , though I did copy him on every email response to his client. I was the seller’s agent. I also had many, many phone calls and meetings, in addition to the 400 emails, and all turned out “well”.
“Rule” is I can never contact someone else’s client in the transaction, but I must answer honestly, if that client calls me. Usually I do tell them I will respond to their agent and their agent needs to be the one speaking with them. But when they say their agent isn’t responding to them, I am left with no choice but to handle both sides until the matter is resolved. I apply the same rule to email, usually. I never email the other agent’s client in the transaction, nor do I copy the other agent’s client during the course of a transaction. But if someone else’s client emails me directly, I respond directly, with a copy to their agent. When you consider that those 400 emails were often directed to at least 6 people, that is 6 times 400 communications or 2,400 communications!
In my experience, the “average” transaction takes between 150 and 200 emails. This is only my side of the transaction, so if the other agent in the transaction has the same experience, that would be 400 per transaction. Many of these copy multiple parties and only count as 1 email to 4 people. Emailing escrow with copies to the other agent and my client, for example. This does include emails from the day I meet a potential client until the day they close on the property, and afterward if and as needed. It does NOT include emailing property to them from the mls, as those emails do not show in my Outlook data.
Blogging is trimming down the number of emails needed to complete a transaction! Since 1/1/2006, when I began blogging, I have noticed that many of my clients already know a lot more than they ever did in the past. They already understand more about various transaction details, having read my blog before they contacted me. I find they also read it during the transaction, and sometimes I direct a blog post to a specific issue at hand in a generic way. This way I not only help my client to understand what is happening in the transaction, but the general public at large at the same time.
That being said, everyone, agents and consumers both, need to undersand that an email is “in writing”. There are still times when I need to pick up the phone to say something that I am not willing to put in writing. A good agent needs to know when to send a letter or a card by snail mail, when to email and when to pick up the phone. Each of these communication mediums have their place in the transaction, and it is an art to know which to use when.
Apr. 14, 2006 - The YES, NO, MAYBE tour for relocating buyers
I invented this back when I was doing a lot of relocation work for Coldwell Banker on the East Coast. It comes in very handy when you are touring a lot of homes the first day in a new area.
It’s pretty simple. You each have three little cards (kind of like Richard Simmons’ Deal a Meal - yes, it was that long ago when I came up with this.) One card says YES, one says NO and the other says MAYBE. You can only use ONE card in each house.
At each house you are not allowed to say a word to one another until you make your selection from the three cards. If you are touring homes with an agent, you hand her one of the cards as soon as you know your answer, not how you think your spouse will feel about the house. Since there is a MAYBE card, this should be a fairly quick procedure for most people. If the agent gets handed two NO cards as soon as they walk in the front door, you can all get back in the car. Unless the owner is home, in which case you do a “pity” pass through. Easier than saying we already know we hate this house.
If you have all NO cards played at the end of the day, what you don’t like is your price range, and you may have to go back to your new employer and say, “what you offered to pay me is not enough to live here”. If you have three YES houses where you both said YES, you may as well toss out the MAYBE houses and go back at the end of the day to the three YES houses and spend more time in them. I usually ask people to rank their YES choices as they go. First YES, no ranking. Second YES, you have to label one #1 and the other #2. This way if you have 7 yes houses at the end, you can go back to #1, #2 and #3.
Why did I feel the need to invent this system? Can’t people know if they like a house without a little card?
Here’s why.
1) Sometimes the relocated spouse feels guilty about making the family move and says “Whatever my sweetie wants will be fine with me” until it is time to sign the contract and wants to offer 80% of asking price. That’s called saying yes and meaning no. It’s a passive/aggressive thing some people do
2) The wife walks in first and starts saying things like, “well, we could take this wall down over here and we could add a master bathroom…”, take it from experience, that’s a NO. Before they start arguing over how they are going to afford the time and money to do all of that stuff…get a NO card and GET OUT! Otherwise they will be crying and fighting before you get to house number 4.
3) When they both hand me a YES card and find out that the other party agrees, they can move through the house really evaluating whether or not they should actually buy it, instead of discussing whether or not the other likes it. And you will be amazed at how happy they both are when you tell them they both said YES. Sometimes one spouse is afraid to say they like the house because they don’t want the other spouse to buy it just because THEY like it. It is a great moment when they both hand over a YES card.
Of course the client that keeps handing me all three cards at every house drives me nuts Some people just don’t like to be pinned down.
I just sold another house from an Open House this weekend, and am reminded of all of the articles about how Open Houses do not sell houses. Sometimes I think the articles are sponsored by agents who don't want to spend their Sundays working .
I have changed a few things that I do based on technological advances, like pricing the home straight on $350,000 for double hits, instead of $349,899 to be first to show in the mls book. But listing and selling houses via Open Houses has always been "my thing". I have provided some online training on the subject to agents around the Country, and still there are some agents who can honestly say that they have never sold a house from an Open House. It just boggles my mind.
I have always spent a great deal of time helping the seller get the house ready for weeks beforehand, before it goes on market. Then I usually do open houses the first two weeks back to back. This weekend I listed a property, that I had already spent many hours staging,and put "No showings until the Sat. Open House and Open Sat. and Sun. 1-4 p.m." in the mls remarks. This is less wear and tear on the seller and creates a new listing that opens up with a BANG! Lots of energy! Agents showing and people coming all at the same time. I have 6 Open house signs and those big flags that new construction people use. It's like a big party! Sometimes I even cook Italian food and play Connie Francis and Mario Lanza…and of course FRANK! But that's usually for Broker's Opens. I even had agents dancing once…that's an accomplishment
Anyway, back to this weekend. I had an offer by the time the Open House was over and another from an agent who was begging me to wait for her as she rushed back two hours from wherever she was to write it for the buyers who came without her to the Open House. Turned out I didn't have to do the Open House on Sunday, as it was all tied up by noon on Sunday.
Of course an agent who sits in the living room watching the ball game or playing with his laptop looking bored to tears may never sell a house at an Open House. But if you love doing them, there are plenty of ways to turn an Open House into a SOLD House! I hate to admit it, but I did get a call from my friend Reidi in Florida when she saw American Beauty. When Annete Bening got to the Open House hours early in her work clothes scrubbing it down saying "I am GOING to sell THIS HOUSE TODAY!!, Reidi called me and said "Ardell, they made a movie with YOU in it! LOL I'm not quite that bad…but close.
Whether you are buying or selling real estate, or just trying to decide about your own roof replacement, there are a few things you should know about a roof. As I look out of my window, 95% of the neighbors have a composite shingle roof. So let’s talk about those.
When you are buying or selling a house with a composite shingle, do the math. The house next door to me has a 20 year shingle. The house next door to that one has a 30 year shingle. It is easy to tell a 20 year shingle, because the shingles lay flat, with almost no “definition”. As the shingles get thicker on a 25 year, 30 year, 35 year and up shingle, there is definition and a “layered” look. Even some of the best home inspectors can’t tell a 30 year from a 35 year shingle, so if you are a seller, and know you have a 35 year shingle, it would be good to tell your agent to highlight that feature, and you should also put it on your Seller Disclosure Form.
Sellers: Don’t forget to put GOOD things on the Seller Disclosure form, so it is not merely a highlighting of “bad” things. Add a list of good things, as an attachment if needed, and have the buyers initial the attachment too.
It took me about a week in the real estate business to learn the simple lessons of “roof math”. When I was selling my own home in Cherry Hill NJ, the home inspector went up the ladder to the roof. He came down and told the buyer that the roof was about 18 year’s old and may need to be replaced in 2 years, because it was a 20 year shingle. I said, “The house was built 8 year’s ago. Are you saying they found some 10 year old shingles to put on the roof of a new house?” I really wasn’t trying to be “flip” or nasty, it just popped out of my mouth like that in true “Philly” style.
Everyone should know how to do the simple math of a roof without relying on the inspector. Not because the inspector will be wrong, but because a roof can be just fine and still be “due” for replacement soon. I’m not going to go into second shingles and third shingles, because something tells me these will be obsolete in the future, given most roofs are no longer flat enough to go that way. I will mention roof color briefly. Mr. Cherry Hill Home Inspector was somewhat correct, in that it was a black shingle. Often black shingles will not make it to 20 years, while gray or tan ones can go to 23 or 25. Heat absorption issues. You see very few black roofs in year round sunny climates, like Florida and CA.
Buying a condo? Think you don’t need to look at the roof? Not so. A few weeks ago I attended a home inspection of a condo built in 1986. I walked across the street and climbed up on something to see the roof. The inspector and buyer said “What the heck are you doing over there?” I said I’m checking out the roof. The inspector said “Why? That is the condo association’s problem.” By then both the buyer and inspector joined me under my “perch”. I said look, it’s flat, it’s a 20 year shingle, right?” Inspector said yes. I said “This place was built in 1986. 1986 plus 20 equals 2006. When I get the resale certificate, I need to check to see if they have enough money in reserves to replace the roof, or warn the buyer about a possible special assessment. I need to check the Reserve Study for cost of replacement. I need to check the dollar amount currently in reserve for all replacement items. If there is not enough money there for all things, I need to divide the shortfall by the number of units, or prorate per total square footage of complex by unit size, and give a range of possible special assessment amount.
Buyers note: The condo association is YOU. There is no Fairy Godmother, named HOA, with a magic wand.
I’ll end with this “red flag” for both buyers and sellers. I ask the owner or listing agent, “How old is the roof, especially when I can’t do the math well on a 1917 built home…too many roof changes to do simple math. Owner responds: “I just had the roof checked and it’s fine.” Big red flag! That is not the correct answer to “How old is the roof”
Apr. 12, 2006 - Professionalism and the Email Address
How does one acquire the title of “professional”? This is a subject often debated in real estate circles. Are doctors professional? Yes. Are lawyers professional? Yes. Are real estate agents professional? Are mortgage reps professional?
I am prompted to raise this point by the last two comments on a previous post. An “anonymous” commenter asks if anyone is “kicking ass today”. Dustin responds with “?”. Seems to me this same commenter has raised the “kick ass” question before. By following the trail to the source, one can assume that this commenter is in the mortgage business in Southern California. One can also follow the yellow brick road to his email address which is at Yahoo.com
People often ask how they should select a real estate agent and/or mortgage person. Maybe it is not fair to say that those whose email address is yahoo or hotmail or even aol are not “professional”. But doesn’t it seem so? Can it be as simple as that? Often when I am caught in a transaction with a less than professional agent or less than professional mortgage person, I am dealing with someone whose email address is nastyboy69@hotmail.com. So I think I will go out on a limb here and propose that one’s email address IS an indication of who you are dealing with.
If you want to be perceived as a professional, if you want to be viewed as someone whose standards of practice reach the level of “professionalism”, then take the extra step to acquire an email adress with a professional domain name. Conversely, if you choose a real estate agent or lender, or even a lawyer, whose email address is kickass4U@yahoo.com, then don’t complain when they appear to be less than professional when acting on your behalf.
The above link will refer you to a very interesting article on www.msnbc.msn.com regarding interest only loans and a possible decrease in their availability.
One has to wonder, after attending meetings where residents take sides on what new houses should look like, how much we should or should not impose our views on one another. Seems like when we spend less than $200,000 for a house, people have less say in what we build than when we spend millions.
Something seems odd that people who live in homes they bought for $70,000 should dictate to someone who is building a home for $1,500,000. Sometimes I think maybe it makes them feel powerful to tell the wealthy "newcomers" what they can and can't do with all their money.
All of the houses above are certainly wonderful homes. Anyone would be happy to own any one of them. So why aren't we just as happy when our neighbor owns it? :-)
When someone in a position of power says, "I raised my whole family in a 1,300 square foot house!", you have to wonder where the heck they are coming from. What does it matter what you did 40 years ago? How is that relevant to 2006?
That being said, I would like to weigh in and say we should reduce the FAR to 50% across the board detached garages and "air space" should be included in the square footage. There, that should keep my view intact. Can anyone really have a truly objective opinion on this? I doubt it. It's all based on taste and self interest. If people want to buy big square houses with all balcony and no yard...who's to say they can't...the people who can't afford to build them? And someone thinks this is a free country...
ARDELL
DellaLoggia
On Seattle Real Estate including Kirkland, Bellevue, Redmond, Green Lake and most areas around Lake Washington North of Downtown Seattle.
Phone: 206-910-1000 - Mailto:Ardell@RainCityGuide.com
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, though I did copy him on every email response to his client. I was the seller’s agent. I also had many, many phone calls and meetings, in addition to the 400 emails, and all turned out “well”. 
