Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Listen and learn how some stand out from competition and gain market share. Information helpful to agents and buyers. Conversations with professionals and entrepreneurs regarding their stories and what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain competitive advantages. Listen to stories from Ohio real estate agents and related businesses to help you know how to improve and who to consider using for yourself or friends. Created by the owners of a highly rated home inspection company in Ohio and the Winners of Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest https://homeinspectionsinohio.com/
Standing Out in Ohio Podcast
Mastering Real Estate Transactions: Managing Expectations and Preparing for Home Inspections
What if navigating the complexities of real estate transactions could be as straightforward as brewing your morning coffee? This episode promises to equip you with the essential skills to manage expectations effectively, whether you’re a buyer or a seller dealing with home inspections. Through engaging anecdotes, we illuminate how unrealistic expectations—like a buyer yearning for the perfect, defect-free home—can throw a wrench in the deal. We also emphasize the importance of buyers thoroughly understanding the home inspection process to sidestep unnecessary letdowns. On the flip side, we stress the pivotal role of seller cooperation during inspections, addressing the bumps that occur when sellers dig their heels in or are unavailable. By the end of this conversation, you'll appreciate how clear communication and setting realistic expectations can smooth out the often bumpy road of real estate transactions.
Moving beyond buyer expectations, we shine a light on preparing sellers for home inspections, particularly in today's market conditions where utility shut-offs and financial hiccups are increasingly common. Personal stories highlight the importance of transparency and readiness, helping sellers avoid rushed inspections that might otherwise raise red flags for potential buyers. We share practical tips, from accommodating longer tests like mold and radon checks to offering resources that guide sellers and agents through the pre-inspection process. Wrapping up, we take a moment to celebrate our recent accolades, such as the Best of Midwest and Consumer Choice Award, and invite our listeners to stay engaged through our social media platforms and podcast subscriptions for more enlightening discussions.
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Two-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
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For home buyers: What to expect from a home inspection. YT video for home buyers
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If you would like to be a guest on the podcast contact us and let us know. You can visit Home (jimtroth.com) and go to the podcast page or message Habitation Investigation.
Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast, where we discuss topics, upcoming events, news and predictions with real estate professionals and entrepreneurs. Listen and learn what makes their companies and themselves stand out and gain advantages over the competition and gain market share. Subscribe for the latest news and discussion on what it takes to stand out from the crowd. Now here's your host, jim.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to the Standing Out Loud podcast. I'm here with Laura, the office goddess, and she has on her lap Hex the cat, a very cute, chubby black cat with the ear severely docked because she's been spayed twice.
Speaker 3:Was she spayed twice.
Speaker 2:Yes, they tried to do her a second time and they got in and go oh, female cats. They docked, they nipped the ear as a sign indication that the cat's been fixed. That's why her ears dock quite a bit more, because they did not notice it before. It was very small and they go no.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, they're here, which is cool. So, anyway, we talk about expectations. How the bears need to have proper expectations, everybody needs to have proper expectations of what's going on for them. Sellers, though, lately seem to be a little bit more clueless or harder to get scheduled. Maybe less cooperative is the better word. That's what we're going to talk about, but first let's listen to this habitation investigation is the way to go for a home inspection in ohio.
Speaker 4:Trusted, licensed home inspectors for your needs. From radon to mold to warranties for a great home inspection, you really can't go wrong. Visit HomeInspectionsInOhiocom.
Speaker 2:Okay, expectations. We've talked many times how, if your buyer of a house does not have proper expectations for the home inspection or the condition of the house, that might ruin the deal, not because of the inspection report, it's because their expectations did not match the actual reality of the house. Right, and my best example that I like giving is I had an agent tell the buyer in front of me that I would not find anything wrong with this house because this house is perfect. And that's such a bold-faced error to say that, because no house is perfect no, not even new builds, and I remember the house.
Speaker 2:I've been anything major. But if this buyer was only one perfect house and expected perfect, the agent blew that out of the water.
Speaker 3:Well, and remember the one agent that told me that she got the report for the inspection and when she was talking to her client to set up the meeting to go over the report, to make their request to remedy that's how long ago this was that the client said well, I don't want the house, there shouldn't have been a report.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that client had no clue.
Speaker 3:That client had no clue that there's going to be a report that they're you know.
Speaker 2:They may not be, you know big things, but there's always going to be some type of a report and yes, so we have that video that every agent who's working with buyers should send to their buyers, and the video is on uh, what to expect from home inspection. This way, when your buyers, when they get there or they're not going to be surprised by anything on there they'll see like, oh yeah, negative grading, pretty normal. So all that, all these other other reports I saw in that class, and same thing gutters, downspouts, roof issues, a little bit of moisture in the basement crawl space, though, no, that's very common, right, it should not be a deal breaker. It breaks a deal when it doesn't match the expectations and there's disappointment.
Speaker 3:Or the financial limitations that a client may have. Yes, now the other side of the coin is the sellers. Is the sellers? Because their house needs to be ready for the inspection so that it goes smoothly and there aren't any hiccups or people don't have to come back, or you know? Whatever the case may be. But we can go into that here a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Yes, lately there's been a little bit of a hassle getting inspections scheduled because these sellers do not. They're not being cooperative, they're not giving options. Like the one place, the one is done by a certain time, fine, we're going to start this much time and we already had a second inspector on it. Make it go quicker because the the time frame of the one. It was a bigger house, right, so we could justify putting two on there. Then somebody, maybe, as the agent, is like well, why don't you put on a third inspector on there to get it done? But, mike, you obviously do not know the finance, the financial aspect of putting three inspectors on there who all could have their own inspection right, and now we're on just one house to get a quick seller who doesn't have a normal expectation who somehow thinks that, whatever their schedule supersedes the buyer, who has a right for that home inspection in that time frame
Speaker 2:I remember doing, doing a well, one of our guys were doing an inspection. I was setting the radar monitor and the seller she was convinced that she'd be she, she shouldn't be allowed to leave a window open for her test To the test. I'm like no, you can't. She's like, well, I'll just leave it just a little bit. Like you do that, and I was getting into it. Like you do that, and I was getting here to her, like you do that I'll have to come back and I'll have to charge you for additional tests, leave it all closed and then shut up about it. But like, listen, we have state regulations that we have to follow. You're going to break it? Break it. Well, that's going to be your problem with it. But the seller yesterday or day before, what? This is not the only person.
Speaker 3:also, they wanted only two hours for an inspection on a 5,000 square foot house because they had small beds and they wanted to come like well then let us do it in the morning. Oh no, that wasn't good enough. There was like I tried to be very accommodating. I said I've got two people on it to make it go faster.
Speaker 2:but they're ancillaries, they're you know the client has the right to attend.
Speaker 3:And I'm sure they're going to have questions. This is over a million dollar investment for the client they're going to have.
Speaker 2:they have that right to be there and to not be rushed yeah, I know I've had buyers like hey, like sellers were not very accommodating, they didn't even have the home inspection and the buyers told me they thought they were hiding something. I want you to really look close in this area because I think they're hiding something down here, because they didn't want you to do. Or the sellers kept something closed off and immediately they're like oh, there's a mold issue in that attic because it's all sealed up. We've had all kinds of thoughts from the buyers' minds.
Speaker 3:We had that one years ago where I called to get approval for it and they're like oh yeah, you can go, you can do anything you want, just you can't go into that room. Okay, I'll let the client know. Client's like no, cancel the inspection, unless I can get into every room in that house, I'm not buying it. Two weeks later we get into that room when we do the full inspection, because it took them two weeks. The guy raised snakes and instead of saying hey, I raised snakes, I don't want you coming in and out of this room because there's a potential for the temperatures to plummet and kill my snakes. They just were very, you know, sneaky. And what you can't get into that room, it's locked, you you know well, of course, somebody's gonna think the worst of it yeah, there was no information.
Speaker 3:Like we, we literally did not know that he raised snakes until we did the inspection and walked into that room. That was how we found out.
Speaker 2:So communication and I know when we send email, confirmation emails regarding hey, this special schedule, this time one goes to the listening agent and on it hey, send this to your bot, your sellers I mean to your sellers in what area we're going to get into and what we need, right? Which means not anything blocked, things unblocked, we get access.
Speaker 3:And please, for the love of God, make sure the utilities are on. I cannot tell you how many times, just in the past two weeks, we have gone out to do an inspection and they're like oh yeah, are on, no, they're not which reminds me we have not had that for a while and it's happening again it's happening again, which makes me wonder are people like getting financially strapped so they're cutting off utilities to save a few bucks?
Speaker 2:so because they're struggling a little bit, I don don't know. We have not had that problem like last year or so. We have not had that, and it's just popped up and now we're also in like three in the past week, yeah, or like gas sticks off or maybe both.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Water was off and the one place like I think there were tenants there weren't there and they had the gas off that I don't, oh baby I, I'm so like I've done that before.
Speaker 2:I've been at before like a ameri-4 place I was checking out and one of the units people live there no gas, they just didn't you, they just want to heat their water up. It was summertime, they didn. They didn't need hot water. I mean they didn't need heat, Right. So they shut the gas off because they didn't need hot water. It wasn't a big important thing to them. Like, all right, I get it. I was a college student. I tried to save my plastic on the windows all the time to get the wind out. But yeah, the sellers need first, they need to be cooperative and know there's going to be an inspection that's going to take about two and a half to three hours.
Speaker 3:For an average size house.
Speaker 2:If you have a bigger house and if the buyers want, say, radon termite, maybe they want gas line sh or they want mold testing, mold testing that's going to add a little bit of extra time.
Speaker 3:Mold testing in and of itself adds almost an hour by the time you, because, as you're doing the inspection, you're looking for potential areas.
Speaker 2:Here's how I'm doing. When I'm doing the inspection, I'm looking for mold, wet areas that may be a good place to test. So then, when I'm getting toward the end doing the test, I know so I'm not looking. And then I'm doing the inspection. I'm doing the inspection and looking.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're doing the inspection and looking at the same time.
Speaker 2:I'm doing this shit by 20. You're not, I'm a patient. You 20 years.
Speaker 4:You're not. I'm efficient.
Speaker 3:You're. You're a rarity, Not everybody does that that way.
Speaker 2:I don't which I don't get.
Speaker 3:I don't either, but a mole test can add time. Radon adds time especially depending on how, depending on how detailed that freaking map is that you have, I hate that one.
Speaker 2:If you're an agent, you don't't know. When we do a radon test, we have to draw a of the floor, of the level which is typically the is the basement area. We need to draw a sketch of that area and identify the windows floor drain. That is so the state knows that we did.
Speaker 3:we put the radar monitor Burners, sump pump pits.
Speaker 2:That is so. The state knows that we did not put the radar monitor in an inappropriate location Put it right next to the window Right next to the sump pump right above the floor drain. So those things they take extra time right on 30 minutes. Mold tests say 30 minutes.
Speaker 3:I don't make that much extra time you're doing that as you do the inspection if it's a house that has a lot of moisture issues.
Speaker 2:I couldn't get everywhere, so I crawl space up in that floor level above that. I'm going to be taking an extra 10 minutes looking just extra areas because it was hard to see. It's a finished basement.
Speaker 3:We test, like every so many feet around the base of it.
Speaker 2:Or moisture, or moisture issues. Yeah, so the house is on all sorts of things, but anyway, the bottom line is the seller's gonna go all right. This is gonna take like just say, three hours and just plan on having to be out of the house and I'd be working home we don't care we don't care, we can work around around you. If you're in that one room, that's cool.
Speaker 3:We'll do everything else, uh if you have small kids and they have a schedule, you can either let us do the majority of the inspection and then just come back and put your kids in the bedroom. Let us know which bedroom you want us to look at first, so that's not a problem on this episode we have a document on sellers how to get their house ready.
Speaker 2:Yes, so in the show notes on this one a link to that document. Yes, if you are a listing agent.
Speaker 3:Download that Send it.
Speaker 2:Send that information. It's in the email we send you, send it to them, or copy this one and copy the link and then send it to them If you're a home buyer's agent.
Speaker 2:We have one of those get that link and send it to the agent to get it to those buyers. It's in everybody's best interest. Well, yeah, some of the sellers everybody's best interest to have everything like open and we have a good time frame because that place recently, if I was that buyer and that seller I'm not I was trying to force us to hurry up and not get enough time to do it. I'm going to be like you know what, what?
Speaker 3:are they hiding?
Speaker 2:I don't need your house, I don't need this hassle. I'm right to get in there and you're making it difficult. You're hiding something. I'm out. Yeah, because trust me, there's other houses around that I can buy.
Speaker 3:Especially at this price point, because they're not moving fast, they're sitting on the market longer.
Speaker 2:Expensive houses are not moving quick. So don't think that just because you're a seller everybody's going to be jumping for your house and jumping through yours.
Speaker 2:This is not two years ago, no, no, that's all gone. Got on this. Just make sure you have ample time. The sellers need prep just as much as the buyers, but you have resources and I'll provide these resources for you. Lauren has created these things. I will have a link to these resources that you need to get to the seller, either yourself, by the other agent, and then, of course, a link for homebuyers, for them to be prepared and know what to expect from a home inspection.
Speaker 3:So key points make sure utilities are on all of the utilities. Make sure that they are aware that we will need a minimum of three hours, that they are aware that we will need a minimum of three hours. Anything over 3,000 square feet, a good guesstimate is to add an additional hour for each 1,000 square feet. It is not accurate, but it's a good guesstimate for them. Just to give their sellers an idea of a timeframe, Not saying-. A lot of variables, a lot of variables, but it's a good guesstimate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but no matter what you tell the seller how much time to be ready for, just tell them to be in three hours if it's faster that cool if it's longer than that. It was the inspection company. We're gonna need an extra hour because they added these three additional services. Just go. Oh okay, I guess I got. I'm gonna go do something else for a little bit.
Speaker 3:Right, that's it. What was it? Relatives the?
Speaker 2:house I was at the other day. It was all the way in Middletown.
Speaker 3:Yeah, near Dayton area.
Speaker 2:Two hours 10 minutes, I was done. Bacon house Buyer did not come there. Nobody was asking questions. This place has really weird stuff going on. It had some issues and I was like that is just weird. One thing, I think the house used to have a flat roof to it and they put a gable roof over the top of it and no access to it. Oh, interesting, except one little hole that may have been. I don't know what it's for, but I could peek out and just see a few rafters.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's odd.
Speaker 2:Maybe an inch clearance between the ceiling to the top of the old flat roof.
Speaker 1:There's no way. No, you couldn't see anything.
Speaker 2:But then it has really weird stuff in the garage and other places as well.
Speaker 3:But anyway, and we just sold our house. Yeah, like we didn't make any requirements or any time frames, like we just said here. You know, gave it to our listing agent and told her to schedule whatever she needed to and called it a day, like we didn't freak out about stuff or try to micromanage things. Called it a day like we didn't freak out about stuff or try to micromanage things. So, you know, just be patient.
Speaker 2:it's like all right if you're dating. They're like high maintenance, everything's just a hassle. Are we gonna put up with that? No, you're not, you shouldn't. No, you're dating the house and you want to do one final check before you close the deal on it. Uh-uh, nope, too many red flags.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:A seller. Being difficult is a red flag. I think that's it for this one.
Speaker 3:Yep Sounds like a plan. Thank you, Bye everyone.
Speaker 2:Make sure you recommend Habitation Investigation. We do excellent work. We're trying not to scare anybody. Some houses are just plain scary Not as scary as being sued because you talked to somebody out getting a homeless vaccine Right or you recommended a crappy homeless vaccine company. I do know people agents have been sued Because of that. They recommended a poor homeless vaccine company 100%.
Speaker 3:We do know agents have been sued for recommending a poor home inspection company and the buyers got strapped with $20,000 to $50,000 worth of repair work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, sometimes more than that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The person who loses, that is the agent. Really the big run there, yeah, so anyway, recommend habitation investigation. We actually won Best of Midwest two years and we recently won. Consumer Choice Award for homeless functions in Columbus area. So awesome news there. So, anyway, we're grateful for your reputation. Take care and bye-bye, bye all.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast. Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Google Podcasts to get new, fresh episodes. For more, please follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook, or visit the website of the best Ohio home inspection company at homeinspectionsinohiocom or jimtroffcom. That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H and click on podcast. Until next time, learn and go do stuff.