by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com). Join us on Facebook.
Buying new? Don’t think you need a home inspection?
I just wrote a post for our company site at St. Augustine Team Realty: If you don’t get a home inspection on new construction YOU ARE CRAZY! I hope you enjoy the post!
by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com). Follow us on Facebook.
Are you a gullible buyer?
I just did a post on our St. Augustine Team Realty site with two easy tips for not ending up with less home for more money. I hope it saves you some money!
by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com). Follow us on Facebook.
I just did a post on the company website this morning: banks are hunting down “buy and bail” sellers as part of the short sale process in order to pursue deficiency judgments after the fact. You heard it here first.
by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com). Follow us on Facebook.
I got an e-mail chain letter last week that basically said some new law would require you to completely retrofit your home for energy efficiency before you sold it. As with most e-mail chain letters, it was complete and utter horsesh*t. I’ll quote directly from an article by Erica Christoffer and Robert Freedman in this month’s Realtor magazine:
“[This] e-mail chain is spreading misinformation about pending legislation, National Association of Realtors says. It claims that the energy bill that’s working its way through Congress would require home sellers to obtain an energy audit or make energy retrofits before they can sell their home. In reality, the bill includes a provision that requires new construction to be energy-labeled but prohibits states from requiring new ratings when the house is resold.”
by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com). Follow us on Facebook.
Should my Realtor hold an open house?
To answer your question I’ll quote Dirty Harry: “The question is, do you feel lucky?”
The chances of your home selling from an open house is generally cited at less than 2%. And these days (due to higher inventories) most of the time you don’t get any traffic at all. I mean nothing, nada.
But Realtors still do open houses because, if there is any traffic, it’s a great way to meet buyers in the market.
So if you want to take that 2% shot, by all means ask your Realtor to hold an open house. But understand that if your Realtor hooks up with a buyer at the open house, the agent is going to be obligated to that buyer for the forseeable future, and won’t be able to spend time marketing your house.
Not only that the buyer will be will be working hard to find and buy your competition.
Getting back to Dirty Harry, “Do you feel lucky?”
Well do you, punk?
by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com). Follow us on Facebook.
I just did a post on the company website about how some sneaky brokers add an extra commission to the sale of the home. Even worse, the listing and selling agents don’t see any of this money (commission is the driving force behind an agent’s motivation to get the job done), so it doesn’t help the sale of your home. Follow the link and enjoy the post!
by Sean Hess (www.SeanHess.com), Broker and Manager for St. Augustine Team Realty (www.StAugustineTeamRealty.com). Follow us on Facebook.
We recently had an issue with the age of a roof in one of our transactions.
Though the roof was keeping the home safe and dry, the home inspector thought the roof only had a few years left of life.
This could be problematic in trying to get a lender to make a loan on a house. VA and FHA loans especially, if an appraiser doesn’t feel there are 3-5 years of roof life left. And good luck getting a roofer to bet his license on certifying the life expectancy of a roof he didn’t do.
Anecdotally we were pretty sure the roof had been re-done after 2001, but the last documented change to this roof was in the 1990s. So we were out of luck.
When you re-do your roof I highly recommend purchasing the shingles yourself, after the roofer tells you how much he needs. Besides avoiding the mechanics lein that the roofing supply company will put on your home until the shingles are paid for (since you will be paying for them at time of purchase), you will have all the documentation relating to the life expectancy of the shingles.
So, when you go to sell 15 years down the road and some appraiser questions the roof life, you can whip out the receipt for 30-year architectural shingles and go to closing without incident.