Massachusetts Home Inspections - A Buyer's Must

You've found the home of your dreams, applied for your mortgage and the countdown to home ownership begins. But wait - how do you know that your dream home isn't really a MONEY PIT? This is not the time to call Uncle Harry to ask what he thinks about the house -- it's time to call a professional, the home inspector. Now, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, home inspectors need to be licensed. While an inspector may show you credentials from an association like ASHI (American Society of Home Inspectors), the NAHI (National Association of Home Inspectors) or other organization, this should not be confused with a valid license in good standing. You can verify any inspector's license through the Board of Registration of Home Inspectors at its website or by calling the Board at (617) 727- 4459.

Real estate agents in Massachusetts are not allowed to refer buyers to a home inspector. In many states buyers are unknowingly steered toward inspectors with whom an agent has a relationship, often known as "easy", while avoiding inspectors with a reputation as being "deal busters". When Massachusetts adopted regulations for home inspections in 2001, this practice within the real estate industry was exposed and efforts have been made to inform consumers regarding their rights. A real estate agent can provide you with the list of licensed inspectors, or a link to the board, but must not give you a carefully selected list to a buyer. The exception is if you are represented by a buyer's agent.

It is becoming more popular with home sellers to pay for a "pre-market inspection" to help them learn what issues may come up during their buyer's inspection. Often the seller is willing to share this inspection with a potential buyer, so don't hesitate to ask if a report is available.

In addition to having a home inspection performed, buyers may also want to have other environmental tests/inspections performed at their expense, such as radon, well water, etc. If the seller has a septic system, they must pay for and provide you with a Title V Certification before passing title. The seller usually pays for the pest inspection (termite) however it can be paid for by either the seller or the buyer.

Think that only older homes may have issues? Take a look at the following home inspector's website, showing photos supplied by several home inspectors while viewing new homes. Make sure you consider this before you sign a Purchase and Sale Agreement.

One other thing....as you're walking through the home with your inspector, beware of the inspector pointing out a flaw while telling you "his brother in law is a plumber who could fix that in a jiff." Report him here.

Who Is Looking To Buy A Home In Western Mass?

It certainly feels good to see traffic on MA4salebyowner.com is on the upswing. The holidays are over, and three major snow storms are behind us. A recent Daily Hampshire Gazette article pointed to our local real estate market here in the Pioneer Valley as being stable, and that we've been pretty lucky, compared to the eastern end of the state. It as helped that our major industries center around higher education and health care, not the technology sector.

As buyers begin to come out, sellers need to join the party. April is generally the start of the season, but this year we predict an earlier start due to the length of time it may take to sell. Of course, real estate agents are poised to fight for new listings and do their best to dissuade sellers from striking out on their own. One of the talking points agents use is to tell sellers that they can't get wide exposure when selling by owner. We're here to say they're wrong. Just yesterday we tracked our website visitors for about an hour and wrote down where they came from. Take heed -- Realtor Association of Pioneer Valley!

Here's a sampling of where recent buyers are coming from:

Haverill, MA; Florence, SC; New Bedford, MA; Worcester, MA; Springfield, MA; Boston, MA; Reston, VA; Natick, MA; Northampton, MA; North Andover, MA; Phoenix, AZ; New Bedford, MA; Longmeadow, MA; Frederick, MD; San Diego, CA; Buffalo, NY; Goffstown, NH; Atlanta, GA; Chicopee, MA; and Burlington, VT

It's no accident that buyers find our website. We work hard to improve our search engine optimization so that our home sellers reach buyers naturally.

Compare For Sale By Owner Websites Carefully

A quick Google search on "for sale by owner" this morning returned 5,890,000 possible results. The popularity of for sale by owner, or FSBO, continues to grow, despite what the NAR wants consumers to believe. Its popularity is attracting more than active home buyers and sellers however. Businesses who market to home buyers and sellers are jumping on the FSBO bandwagon in droves. By the late 1990's, websites promoting for sale by owner started springing up overnight. Most sites offered free listings, or charged a very low fee to home sellers who posted an ad. Home sellers didn't seem to question why the advertising fee was so reasonable and were eager to respond, then sat patiently next to their phones, waiting for buyers to call. They got calls, but not from buyers. They heard from mortgage companies, moving companies and real estate agents.

It was during this time that we were approached by Picket Fence Preview, a very successful for sale by owner marketing service based in Burlington, VT, to offer a similar service as theirs in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts. We began researching the FSBO market very carefully as we prepared to open our own business. What we found when noodling around the Internet gave us an eye-opener into the sordid side of real estate and FSBO lead generation. It was then that we began our quest to help consumers avoid the pitfalls of do-it-yourself real estate.

Real estate agents have incorporated many lead generation devices over the years, using companies like Warnocks, now LandVoice, and others. Mortgage companies are now realizing that there's big money in for sale by owner and have tried their hand at technology which uses sellers to attract buyers as in websites such as IsoldMHouse.com, ZeroBrokerFees.com and others. Leads are channeled by requiring buyers to register (opening the door to pre-qualifying) and blocking buyers from contacting sellers directly. Allied Home Mortgage pitches its website, The Yellow Sign, to FSBOs by giving them a free listing AND a free yard sign. Using call-capture technology, the unsuspecting home seller whose buyer calls are rerouted to a mortgage company is once again sitting next to his silent phone.

HouseValues, a real estate marketing and lead generation company based in Kirkland, Washington, agreed to pay $51,000 in costs and attorney fees recently to settle a case alleging the company's real estate lead generation services violated the state of Washington's consumer protection laws. The ruling found that the company was selling made up leads while boasting that 20% of its leads would turn into sales for real estate agents. See full story by the Seattle Post Intelligencer here.

It's like your Mom always said, there are no free lunches.

Why My Dog Is So Smart

I have a Golden Retriever named Haley who spends the day at my office under my desk. The great thing about dogs is that they live in the moment. They don't worry about the economy, the "real estate bubble", whether foreclosures are on the rise in Western Massachusetts, whether now is a bad time to buy or sell, or whether interest rates will go up or down. No, Haley doesn't fret about what happened yesterday, the day she opened up the door under the sink and tipped over the trash can. She doesn't worry about what will happen tomorrow either. You see, Haley doesn't read the paper, listen to TV or the radio, and doesn't look online. It's a good thing, because if she did, she'd probably not want to buy a house right now.

Buyers, on the other hand, seem to be listening to the gloom and doom media who can't get enough of making sure we're all miserable. I don't get it. We bought our first home in 1987, when interest rates were 13.5%. Should we have waited until they came down to around 5% in order to buy? Hard to think so.

For the first time in many years we have an abundance of homes for buyers to weigh carefully. Rates are really very low and as long as your credit is good, loans can be written. As long as buyers are careful to stay within their means, home ownership is not out of the question.

Maybe buyers should turn off the TV for a while, stop reading the headlines and go to a few open houses. Sellers will be happy to see them again.

Haley is patiently waiting to go for a walk. I guess I'd better go!

Dualing Agents

Little understood, yet frequently common in Massachusetts is the use of "dual agency". Years ago, agents represented sellers in the real estate transaction. Buyers kind of thought that the agent that showed them a property was "their agent" -- at least the all too friendly voice that cheerfully called them periodically seemed like their agent. In reality, the agent was working for the seller and showed properties as a "courtesy". Anything the buyer said could be carried back to the seller. Enter the buyer's agent -- a new breed of real estate agent that popped up in response to a growing concern over the fact that buyers were not really represented at all in the real estate transaction. Now we had two distinct third parties involved in the process - the buyer's agent and the seller's agent. However, in many transactions the seller's agent was also the one to show property to a buyer which posed a problem. The solution was to have both the buyer and the seller sign a piece of paper saying that they understood that the agent couldn't satisfy both parties so instead would really do nothing. Questions that a buyer might ask the agent would go unanswered. Neither could the seller have questions answered for fear of a conflict of interest arising. What really is confounding is why either party (the buyer or seller) would be willing to pay a commission to someone that did nothing to help them. Before you say that a buyer doesn't pay a commission, you're wrong. A commission is part of the cost of buying a home as the listing fee is figured into the seller's asking price. We have often heard consumers have an "aha" moment when dual agency is explained to them. Now they know why the agent appeared uncooperative. She was merely performing her role on the way to collecting her commission.

Seller Seminars Have Begun

We are excited to announce our 2008 schedule of educational seminars. This year the theme is "How To Sell Your Own Home In Today's Market". We will focus on ways to beat the competition and sell faster than agent-listed properties. You will learn ways to price your property that will result in a successful closing, to prepare your home to reach the most buyers and how to market and advertise using traditional methods blended with Web 2.0 technology. You will meet the experts and be able to ask questions. Our panel of speakers includes real estate attorneys, professional appraisers, licensed home inspectors, home stagers and marketing experts.

If you are thinking about selling in 2008, attending one of our home seller seminars could be one of the smartest financial moves you will make this year. For details and registration, link here.

Will Agents Become Obsolete?

The increased ability of buyers to take the lead in their house hunting quest along with the downturn in the Massachusetts real estate market has begun to produce some fallout. Recently, the Boston Globe reported that GMAC Real Estate announced that it was closing 15 offices in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. I was surprised that Brett Weinberg, a spokesperson for GMAC attributed the closings "to the growth of the online housing marketplace and other technology changes than to the state's housing slump." I wonder what the NAR (National Association of Realtors) will have to say about the comment as it certainly seems to undermine years of work the association has done to promote the necessity of its members. Today over 80% of buyers are using the Internet as the primary resource to look for real estate, feeling comfortable with technology and their ability to research data. During the real estate boom years the lure of making big money attracted many to the industry. It was easy to make a commission in an inventory-starved environment. Now that the tables have turned, it's not as easy to convince sellers that an agent's marketing skills are all that important to the sale.