Snitchin
Tired of the daily grind and endless, unattainable influencer posts? Welcome to Snitchin, the podcast for the everyday woman. Take a break from your day and join two best friends as they get real about life, learn about new things, laugh, and build a community where everyone has a story to share. Reach out to us at snitchinpod@gmail.com - we would love to hear from you!
Snitchin
Episode 58: The One Where We Talk Real Estate With Owen
On this episode we are joined by our friend and realtor Owen, as he walks us through the first steps to buying a home, unpacks mortgages and PMI payments, and breaks down new Massachusetts rules on commissions and inspections. Owen explains what to watch for on inspections, how to prep a house to sell, and why paint beats flash.
• Why pre-approval matters before house hunting
• How agents, lenders and attorneys fit together
• What goes into monthly payments and escrow
• PMI trade-offs and first-time buyer programs
• Massachusetts changes on commissions and mandatory inspections
• Red flags to look out for with home inspections
• Selling timing and simple upgrades that pay
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Ready? Ready? Hey everyone. Welcome back to the latest episode of Snitchen. It's your host, Kristen. And Brittany, get ready for the best part of your day. And if you could see us right now, we're cheesing because we have with us our friend Owen here. Owen is married to our bestie Heather, who has a friend of the pod. Come on a couple of times. Owen, I feel like, um, are you liking hearing our intro live here?
SPEAKER_04:I honestly thought it was pre-recorded each intro. So like I was just I was dying. I was trying not to laugh that that intro because I was like, I was expecting because it's so consistent, which is great. Um, but I was expecting it to be pre-recorded, and then you went into your topic you were discussing. So so that was great to hear. That was like uh it was like watching uh your favorite player play baseball or something. I might have yeah, you guys are professionals. Like uh it's I couldn't do that.
SPEAKER_03:What can we say?
SPEAKER_02:I mean, what can we say? Oh my god, starting off so well. Um, but yeah, so Owen, when did you and Heather when did you guys get together? I feel like I'm gonna I'm gonna think it's shorter than it was.
SPEAKER_04:Yep. So I have to get this right, otherwise Heather, because Heather's gonna work, you got that wrong. Um so uh June, June 13th was our first June 13th, 2015 was our first date. Um and we got married October 2019? October, yep, October 12th, 2019. It's been great. We just had our six-year anniversary, so yeah.
SPEAKER_02:My favorite wedding weekend. Top wedding weekend ever. I remember that we had rented like the bridal party, and friends had a couple of houses next to each other. Everyone was just in the best mood. I remember running downstairs and finding Brittany and being like, Brittany, you have to get upstairs right now. It is 2012 upstairs.
SPEAKER_03:We need to get up there now. Yeah, I just remember me and Gina being like at like 9:30, like, we gotta go, like we have to get up early to get ready and stuff tomorrow. And we're like, come on, Kristen, come on. We're like corralling her out, and then she gets to the front step and we're like walking out the door, and she's like, uh, I think I'm gonna stay.
SPEAKER_04:Ended up being late to getting ready, but I I remember yeah, walking through like it was I was I had to go to bed early, obviously. And I remember walking through and it was just straight up house party from college. I was like, This is this is ridiculous. It was fun, and it was everyone I knew, of course. And um, yeah, I just thought it was a really, really fun, fun night before. I well, I was jealous too. I wanted to be like Kristen and stay. Kristen paid for it, but oh my god. There's other stories. I don't know if we could tell them, but there's other stories about about Kristen that happened.
SPEAKER_02:I was just having too much fun. I literally, like when you said, I got to the door and I just was like, no, I'm not leaving here. It's just having too too good of a time. So yeah, but definitely paid for it. But um, lovely wedding, lovely wedding weekend, and yeah, we happy anniversary, happy believeted anniversary. Oh, yeah. But the real reason that we have Owen here today is because Owen is a realtor here. He has worked with both Brittany and I to sell us our homes. And it was just like the best intro to for me at least, Britney, I'm sure you agree, um, into home buying to have someone who is a trusted friend helping us every step of the process. So we have Owen here. Everyone's favorite realtor. Everyone's favorite realtor. Oh my god, Owen, that should be like your tagline. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:That's too corny.
SPEAKER_02:Snitch's favorite realtor.
SPEAKER_04:Okay. All right, I'll take that. I'll put that right on my business card.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. Also, we should say that Owen is one of the main creators of our name.
SPEAKER_04:I don't know if it was you or Bill. Well, yeah, I think it yeah, it was a combination of of a few of us, but yeah. Bill, you gotta get Bill on. We were the ones who kind of gave you guys the name of snitches and then you guys ran with it.
SPEAKER_02:We sure did. And now it's full circle because we're here with the snitches, favorite realtor. I hope you're listening, Bill. You can come on. I mean, I feel like this is making it into the chat. I hope. But yeah, no, you guys did name us snitches. I never actually really knew the origin, but good to know. That doesn't surprise me that there's the two of you. But we are here to just pick Owen's brain a little bit about real estate, real estate in this market. Um, you know, for people who might be interested in buying their first home, tips for first-time home buyers. So we're gonna get into all of it, and we're so excited to have you here. Brett, do you want to kick things off?
SPEAKER_00:Sure.
SPEAKER_03:Let's do it. So, yeah, hopefully we can give you guys some good education. Or and by we, I mean Owen. Um, maybe just tell us a little bit about like how long you've been a realtor, where you work, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_04:Sure. I actually everyone's shocked to hear this, but I got my real estate license in June of 2011. So I got my license when I was 20 years old. I was still in college. Um, but I was just kind of doing doing it on the side. And then um I graduated and you know, I kind of went full-time into real estate after that. The reason why I got in, because my mother's a real estate agent, and um, it was just sort of an easy transition. I tell this to everyone that thinks about getting into real estate. It's hard to get your foot in the door. You know, you take the real estate exam and then you know, you're just you pass and then you're thrown to the wolves, essentially. There's no there's no training. The the real estate exam has no training involved, it's just legal stuff that you have to know. Basically stuff to know that so you don't get sued. Um then you pass your license, and then you're you know, you have you have to sign sign up with a brokerage, you can't just work on your own. Um, but then there's no guidelines like how to get business, how to, you know, sell a house. There's nothing you don't know anything. So, you know, my mother was my teacher, and and luckily she was patient because you know, a lot of the time when I was 23, 24 years old, I didn't want to work weekends, which is a lot of our our job. It requires a lot of working on the weekends. But yeah, I uh it's it was it was great because she was the one who got me in into real estate. And luckily I've enjoyed it enough to stay with it. And so I'd been licensed since uh, if you do the math 14 years or or so, yeah. I work mostly in Belmont, which is outside of Boston, Cambridge area. And um, it's been fun, it's been rewarding, it's a lot of work, but there's freedom to being your own boss. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I feel like that's something people kind of forget about with real estate. There's so much you have to do as a real estate agent, like just creating your book of business. I feel like that's something I've always thought you do a good job of doing, Owen, between mailers and like getting referrals and like the follow-up and the promptness and just being able, like, you know, there's so much that goes into it throughout to get clients, retain clients, you know what I mean? But they think about available all the time, yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and like like a lot of people, like a lot of our friends, like they'll joke with me, they're like, Oh, you just have to like hold open the door and like yeah, so like and like I lay lean into them, like, yeah, like it's it seems simple. Like, honestly, listing the house is the easiest part, it's everything beforehand and everything after is is is hard. And uh, like Kristen said, a lot of it's follow up. A lot of, you know, Kristen was in sales. But the thing is, like, I don't consider myself a salesman, which I should let me step back. The best, the best real estate agents I've I've met have been teachers in their past life because there's so much, like, especially whether it's seller or buyer, you're you're constantly teaching people the process, and you're using your experience and passing that experience on to the buyer or seller, whoever you're working with. I feel like it translates perfectly. There's people plenty of people that were accountants and this and that, and they look at it from like a numbers figure, but the teachers are the best, in my opinion, are some of the best real estate agents. So that's that's my philosophy.
SPEAKER_03:My grandmother was a teacher and a realtor.
SPEAKER_04:Oh good to know.
SPEAKER_02:I can see why it's like it takes a lot of the interpersonal skills. You're kind of be meeting people at one of their major life events, so like being trusted, being able to be comforting, offer guidance. I can see why that would be so important.
SPEAKER_03:The stakes are definitely higher when it's like you're dealing with someone's personal life, you know, totally for sure.
SPEAKER_04:And it's you know, the biggest purchase of their life, most likely. Right.
SPEAKER_03:Um, so so more than opening the door.
SPEAKER_04:That's right. Yes. That's right.
SPEAKER_03:Well, speaking of education, maybe we can talk a little bit about like for people that haven't bought a home, like first-time homebuyers. What's the first step? What are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so that's a good question. Everyone thinks it's like, oh, I need to find out where I want to live or you know what type of house I want. The first, the first step is to get pre-approved or to figure out how you're gonna purchase the house. You need to get uh a pre-approval letter from whether you go to a bank, whether you go to a mortgage lender. The most important thing is to get pre-approved. That way you, if you see a house, you can you can put an offer in and you would be taken seriously. Um, but not only that, you want to know how much you can spend. Um, so a lender will be able to calculate that. You know, they have their own methods of calculating what what you're what you'd be able to purchase a house for. Um, but you don't want to go start looking at$700,000 houses when you can only afford$600,000 houses and then you know, don't know until you you're ready to put in an offer and just wasted a whole lot of time. So yeah, pre-approval is the first thing.
SPEAKER_03:And you can get pre-approved pretty quickly, right?
SPEAKER_04:If you see a house you like and you're not especially if you're like a W-2 worker um and you have like a steady income, it's very easy to get you can get pre-approved in a day. Um, if you're self-employed, it's a little harder, but you know, within a few, two, three, four days, depending on how fast you get the paperwork to the lender, um, you can get pre-approved pretty quickly. But you still, again, you don't want to like wait till the last minute and then not know what what you can afford.
SPEAKER_02:And isn't it true that pre-approvals only last for like they're only valid for a certain amount of time and they ding your credit score? So you don't want to do it like a year in advance, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So so you there's there's also other things like you can get pre-qualified, which they don't do a credit check on. Um so that way you can still like figure out what you're gonna, you know, what you can spend. Um, but it's it's not as strong like when you go to submit an offer, you would submit your your pre-approval letter. If you submit a pre-qualification letter, it's it's not as strong. It's it's basically saying, you know, we've we haven't verified their income recently, we haven't run their credit recently, um, where a pre-approval letter is has has their verified income, it has the their recent credit score, um, and it expires every 60 days. So you have a 60 day 60 to 90 days. So you have a 60 to 90 day window that the pre-approval is good for. They can always rerun it. Some companies don't have to do a hard check every time, they can do a soft check. Um, so that way it won't ding your credit too bad. And credit score does affect how much you can afford. So you want to you know keep a high credit score, make sure you're paying all your bills. I have a story about Heather. I won't I won't embarrass her, but when we purchased, there was an issue with with Heather's credit score, but it was it was corrected quickly. So it didn't it didn't affect the sale.
SPEAKER_02:Would you say that's like the biggest factor?
SPEAKER_04:Like no, no, not the credit score is definitely not the biggest factor, it's more of like your income and your debt, debt to income ratio. Um that's probably your biggest factor, but credit score does play a big role as well. So you want to make sure your your credit is is is good before you before you get pre-approved. If you have to improve your credit, that's that would that would be something you want to work on like six months ahead of time.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I have a quick follow-up to that. Um, I know you're saying first step is the pre-approval. That makes total sense to me. Do you know it can you just do that online anywhere? Do you normally want to have a realtor that like has somewhere that they recommend you get the pre-approval?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you you can you can go like anywhere, like, but if you're if you're planning on working with a real estate agent, um, it might be smarter to go with them first and then they can direct you towards uh like a handful of lenders. I always try to give people three of everything. So like three lenders, three attorneys, like so that way it's someone that they've worked with before. You're not just using Joe Schmoe, because it just like real estate agents, anyone can kind of be a lender or mortgage agent, a mortgage broker. So you want to make sure you know it's someone you trust. So if you trust a real estate agent, you know, you should trust them to point you in the right direction to someone that that's gonna make sure if there's any snags in the deal, they'll they'll handle it. The the bar for entry for real estate is and like mortgage lending is pretty low. And I think experience plays a big role in in how good these people are. So you wanna you wanna use someone that has has some experience. They don't have to be a 20-year vet, but at least have have you know a few years under their belt and know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_03:Makes sense. That's actually a good point, though. I feel like I didn't know that when I bought my first place. Like, so you have the realtor you work with, but then you also have the lender, and then you also have the attorneys, right? So, like maybe just talk about like what each person does.
SPEAKER_04:Yes. So the your real estate agent's kind of like he's like the all or she is all in one. They're gonna show houses to you, they're gonna answer your questions. If you're a buyer, they're gonna be writing the offers for you. Um, and uh they're gonna be pretty much pushing the deal along once you do get an offer accepted. You know, home inspections, other contingencies that may come up. But so, so your your real estate agent's kind of like the all-around. Uh the lenders strictly on the finance side, they only handle um uh your financing. So if you're borrowing money to to to buy the house, they're only working on that in any aspects with that. And then your attorney is is also very important. They uh so if you're buying, they're gonna be uh reviewing the per in mat where Massachusetts, every state's different, but um in Massachusetts, they uh review the purchase and sale. And a purchase and sale is basically a longer form document of your offer form. So when you submit an offer, it's like three, four, five pages. And after it's accepted, uh about 15 days later, you sign what's called a purchase and sale. Purchase and sale is then uh like a 30-page document, which outlines the whole entire sale. Uh and it's very lengthy. It's written by another attorney, usually by the seller's attorney. So because it's such a long document, you want to make sure you're represented correctly. So you have a buyer's agent that is looking out for your best, or excuse me, uh a buyer's attorney that's looking out for your best interest and uh, you know, making sure there's nothing predatory in the purchase and sale because it is such a lengthy document. The attorney also, depending on on what how you do it, the attorney can also represent the bank because the lender also needs an attorney, but he can he or she can work with both the lender and uh yourself and represent both sides independently. So it's it will save you a little bit of money, but that's again, it's getting a little too in the weeds with that.
SPEAKER_03:So um, I guess that's a good segue. Like, I maybe you can just give us like a general rundown of how a mortgage works. I'm gonna tell a story because I, when I bought my first place, I remember calling my mom and being like, I have like a$200,000 education. I have no fucking clue how a mortgage works.
SPEAKER_01:Totally.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it you know, it is it is true. So, like the the mortgage, there's different parts to it. You have to pay, you pay the principal, which is paying back what you're borrowing, um, and then you're paying interest. You're not just getting a free loan. You know, the bank has to make money somehow. So you're paying interest to the bank. Um, it's usually broken down when you every month when you pay. Um, but those are the two big factors. Um, depending on what you do, most people do, I do it myself. They roll in their their um insurance payment and their property taxes into the mortgage payment, their monthly mortgage payment. I just saw Kristen roll her eyes.
SPEAKER_02:Well, you know what's so funny about this? Okay, so my father, when I was away traveling, he's like, Have you taken care of your taxes? He's like, You got something from you, have you paid this? I'm like, in my mind, I'm like, oh my God, I have not paid this in three years. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, totally haven't taken care of. Meanwhile, I'm like, am I like owing like thousands of dollars and taxes that I haven't paid? Like, what's going on? And um, yeah, sure enough, once I actually looked into it, I forgot that that's how it was set up. And um, part of the payment that I make towards like my overall mortgage, they take out a portion of that set aside, set it aside to pay automatically my taxes every quarter. Something I had no idea was happening, and I felt very dumb when I realized I didn't know I was paying my taxes, but then but relieved, but yeah, that's the bigger.
SPEAKER_04:Well, I guess I guess I failed. I should have told you that.
SPEAKER_02:No, you definitely did, and I definitely forgot.
SPEAKER_04:So yeah. So most most of the time, especially if you're a first-time home buyer, they they just roll all that in for you. So you just have one payment, you're not paying your insurance separately, you're not paying your taxes separately, everything's kind of included in one. Um, so it just makes it easy. And what they what the the mortgage company does is they they they take the extra money and they put it in an escrow, and then they pay it. Like most taxes are paid quarterly, so then they pay it every quarter. And then if there's if there's excess, which there never is, um, they eat they either send you a check or they can roll it into the next next payment. If you're short on property taxes, they may send you a note and say, We need we need a check for 2,000 to be even. So um, yeah, that's kind of what goes into your mortgage payment. I think this will lead to the next point, which is PMI, uh, private mortgage insurance. So if you're going through a lender, uh, which is a private mortgage company, there's something called private mortgage insurance, which is a monthly payment. It doesn't go towards anything, it's just an just like any type of you know, normal type of insurance, except you don't really get anything out of it. You're insuring the mortgage company, or it there's some this it goes further than that, but you you're basically insuring someone else. The way you get out of paying that is either go to uh a local bank. The local bank will not have private mortgage insurance. They usually do portfolio loans, which means they're using their own money to back the loan rather than using a note. Uh, or if you go to a lender, you just have to put at least 20% down to avoid private mortgage insurance. By putting 20% down, it shows that you're, you know, you're putting down a a good chunk of money, and uh it's more of a safer loan, I guess. The the banks look at it. Whoever sets, I don't know who sets the PMI or the threshold. I don't know, goes beyond me, but um, it's important because you know it could be$300 a month, and that goes to absolutely nothing. So if you can get to that threshold, that's great. Um, if not, there's other options like like private banks or or local banks. If you say if you put 10% down, they may waive that private mortgage insurance, but your interest rate may be higher. So there's there's trade-offs. You it's you, you know, you can always shop around to different lenders and and especially if you're first-time home buyer, there's there's a lot of first-time home buyer programs out there. So again, I don't want to get too far into that, but um, it's first-time home buyers have have a little bit more leeway uh than uh say a second-time home buyer or someone that's buying a second home or an investor.
SPEAKER_02:So just to kind of like recap what you were saying. So basically in your monthly mortgage payment, you're gonna have your principal, aka you buy a house for$500,000, you put$50,000 down, the principal is that remaining for$50,000. Then your interest rate, which just depending on what you're pre-approved for, right? And like also just the time that you buy, that's gonna be a factor. PMI, some people pay it, some people don't. And then escrow, which is essentially like insurance and taxes. Those are kind of like the components that make up this big number.
SPEAKER_04:Correct. Yep. And in in Massachusetts, home home insurance is mandatory. So you have to pay it. Got it, got it.
SPEAKER_02:I was shocked when I first started making mortgage payments at how much your interest does affect your overall huge. Like that's a huge factor. So I guess like what you've seen, you know, with the market changing, just trends, anything along those lines about interest rates. I don't know, just kind of an all-encompassing like, what do you think is kind of going on with the market right now?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So like the big thing is you like you said, the interest rates are just a lot higher than they have been in the last five, six, seven years. So they were pretty like before COVID, they were pretty steady around four and a half, five percent. And that was like that was you know a great rate. There was no real conversation about interest rates. It was just kind of so steady that no one really thought about it. And it was they were good. Only conversation was, you know, the boomers would be like, Well, back in my day, my interest rate was 19%. Like, yeah, but you paid like$200,000 for like a two million dollar home. So totally. So, so like that was like the only real conversation about interest rates. But now, you know, what COVID they dropped down to 3%, even lower. I saw people have uh interest rates below 3%, you know, ever since they've been steadily climbing. And now they're they're around, you know, 6.25%, almost double of what they were at at COVID lows. Um, and it's it makes such a big difference on your monthly payment. I mean, it's it makes, you know, you could Heather and I bought our house um and our monthly payment is you know, so and so, let's just say two twenty five hundred dollars. If we bought the same house, you know, right now it would be double, it'd be five thousand dollars. It'd just be, you know, so um it does make it does affect home prices because buyers have to be able to afford the house in order to purchase it. Um so if if houses become more affordable because the interest rates are higher, then it's obviously gonna affect home prices.
SPEAKER_03:So as interest rates go up, the price of homes will probably go down, vice versa.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So it's you know, it's it's you know, it's you gotta kind of weigh weigh it. So if you know, if you're a buyer, it's great. Your home prices are coming down, but at the same time, you're still paying the same amount essentially, because your interest rates are are much higher. So it's you know there's you know, there's always people are always like, oh, we'll just buy the house and and then refinance later. But you know, there's no no guarantee the rates are gonna come down anytime soon. They will eventually, they will come down probably into the fives. I just don't know when. I every time I guess I'm wrong, so I'm just gonna stop guessing.
SPEAKER_02:But I mean that's a that's a good point because like I'm sure there are people who are listening who don't. I mean, you hear I'll refinance, like people say that, but that's a good thing you touched on. Like, there's people who might still buy homes if the overall price is lower, because even if it's a high interest rate now, there's a chance in like five years that you can renegotiate that interest.
SPEAKER_04:Correct. Yeah, so that's that's yeah, that's a great point. So you can you just because you have like a 30-year mortgage doesn't mean you're locked in for 30 years, you can refinance at any time. So the it is a good point. You like if the home prices start coming down, you know, it might be a good time to jump in and you know try to suck it up for two, three years until the rates come down and refinance when it's a lower rate and then lower your monthly, the home prices will go up and you get all that equity right then and there.
SPEAKER_02:So and then just when you do get your interest rate, which comes when you get your pre approval, right? Like that's when they tell you what you your interest rate might most likely would be.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, most likely. But the the the thing is like when you until you identify a property and like get a contract signed, even beyond that, they've kind of it's called float the rate. So they'll they'll continue shopping for the best rate. And if the rates go down like a lot in one week, they'll they'll re you know, they'll lock you into a new rate. So they they constantly monitor to make sure you're getting the best rate. You know, they're the same as like a real estate agent, they want to do the best job. And if they give you a good rate, then they're you know, they're gonna get referrals too. So they want to make sure they get you a good deal. And uh yeah, you're you're not locked in until I I don't know exactly when, but you not until far along in the process of being under agreement with a property.
SPEAKER_03:But speaking of like what's going on in Massachusetts right now, like what's going on in Massachusetts right now?
SPEAKER_04:It's you know what? I so the first I told you when I first when we first first uh started speaking, I got in the business in 2011. There wasn't one single like industry change at all from 2011 until probably 2023. There wasn't every we did our business business was exactly the same. We didn't change anything. There was maybe small tweaks here and there. Since then, there's been changed to uh commission. So we the way we get paid is we get paid on commission. When we sell a house, we get paid. Uh, we don't some agents they they do other things, but um, in general, agents get paid when a home sells, and and that's the only way they get paid. They changed it so when you list a house, and I was saying I was representing a seller, and they list a house with me. Previously, before the law change, we would outline my commission, we'd outline the buyer's agent commission, and that's what the seller would pay. So they'd pay, they pay half to me, half to the half to the buyer's agent. Um August of 2024, um, they changed the law saying that sellers are no longer obligated to pay the buyer's agent commission. Not obligated, it doesn't mean they don't have to, but there's no they're no longer they no longer legally have to, where legally before they had to. Basically, we there was there was thoughts that okay, the buyer is now gonna have to pay their their buyer's agent commission. Even though they're already buying a house, they're already paying all this money, they're now gonna have to pay a commission on top of it, which could be one, two, three percent of the purchase price, which could be very pricey. And and again, you know, if if it's be if stuff becomes more unaffordable for buyers, home prices are gonna go down. So uh that was the theory of putting that law in, or somewhat of the theory. It was to make things more flexible for for home sellers, and basically everything has sort of stayed the same in that sense. There hasn't been too many deals I've been a part of where a buyer, a buyer has been paying a buyer agent commission, uh, or a seller has refused to pay a buyer agent commission. Because if a buyer now has to pay a commission, they're just gonna take that off the purchase price. So it's it either way, it's it's not gonna benefit the seller. So but the one thing it did do is it it it made it made commission or at least buyer's agent commission uh a negotiating point. So instead of a set point, say, oh, we're gonna pay a buyer's agent this much and and we have it outlined in the contract, we don't have it outlined, and a buyer agent has to request that through the seller. And so then we could say, oh, you know, we don't want to pay, that's too much, we'll pay you this much. And then it's a negotiating tactic. So it's it's changed that a little bit. Um and it hasn't really affected consumers too much, um, besides it being a talking point. Uh, the big thing that just changed was the home inspection law. That just happened a few days ago. And basically it says that a buyer and seller, they there cannot be a waived home inspection on an offer anymore.
SPEAKER_01:No way. Whoa, that's a big update. Breaking news.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So so a seller cannot accept an offer with a waived home inspection, and a buyer cannot waive a home inspection on their offer.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, how much is a home inspection, would you say, on average, or is that a silly question?
SPEAKER_04:No, that's a good question. It's the cost of it is like, I don't know, like around$800, let's just say that's that's probably the average. So it's money well spent because you know it's you get to, you know, you hire a professional, it's an independent person that's not related to me or any any other part of the transaction. They're completely independent. And what they do is they look at the house, all aspects of the house, and give you sort of a report and a rundown. And in a competitive market, like we saw during COVID, people were waiving their inspections. Sometimes they would be getting burned because they'd be waiving their inspection because they wanted the house so bad, and then there was a severe deficiency in the house, like a structural issue or whatever it may be. And so, you know, because of that, I think that's why this law was enacted because so many people were getting burned because of the competitive nature of the market. I when we just listed this house the other day, you know, I'm explaining to the seller that, you know, every offer is now going to have a home inspection. They were like, they couldn't believe it. They're like, really? Like, and I told them, yeah, that's just the law now.
SPEAKER_03:I think that's good.
SPEAKER_04:So yeah, oh, absolutely. It it absolutely is good. And and I think it'll be it'll be better for for the market and for buyers and sellers. I think it's I think it's better for everyone because you know, less liability the better. The one thing is inspectors sometimes they go overboard. Like I had an inspection uh a couple weeks ago, and the house was perfect. It was an immaculate house. I was the I was on the listing side, and the inspector's like looking for stuff, just like trying to find like issues. He like opens the dishwasher and like pulls out the filter. He's like, Oh, it's a dirty filter. So the the buyers came back and was like, Oh, they they I we want the filter cleaned. It's like, okay, let me run it under a sink and put it back.
SPEAKER_03:Like we just buy one on Amazon real quick.
unknown:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:What are we doing?
SPEAKER_04:In my in my opinion, that's not the spirit of a home inspection. The spirit of a home inspection is to make sure the house is is safe, to make sure it's structurally sound, to make sure there's no like any plumbing or electrical stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02:That's really interesting because I feel like COVID times, it was definitely a strategy to waive your inspection to get to the front of the line. Like I feel like that made a really big difference. So now is it is it just basically like what leverage you have is like how quickly you can accept the offer, just in general, like how much cash you can put down and then your general offer.
SPEAKER_04:So there's now there's more factors that like, you know, if you can close quickly, sometimes that's beneficial for the seller. But basically finding out what the seller wants, um, and kind of following their guidelines and say, like, oh, we want to close on this date. And if you, you know, if you have your closing date on that date on your offer, then then you have a better chance. But one thing, going back to home inspection, uh, in your offer, there's a there's a portion of the home inspection paragraph that states basically it's it's called the like the home inspection aggregate, what you're looking to overlook in terms of issues. So, so like say you put in like, oh, I'm willing to overlook$10,000 worth of issues uh in order to you know make the deal happen. That's something you can play around with. You can you can be you know the h higher number if you're saying, oh, I'm willing to look past$50,000 worth of deficiencies, um, you know, your offer is going to be more attractive. Whereas if you're saying, oh, I'm only willing to look past$1,000 worth of issues, then that means you're probably gonna be negotiating after the offer.
SPEAKER_02:Are there any telltale signs in your opinion that maybe a house is a bad investment, or if like there is something on the inspection that comes back that maybe you would give a little pause to be like, let's think about this. Like the roof or something.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah, like so the the biggest thing is like, in my opinion, would be like a structural issue because you don't really know where to start and where to end, and there's no telling how much how much it's gonna cost. The big thing for for me as well is is uh in our area, we have older houses and there's older electrical. Uh some houses have what's called knob and tube knob and tube wiring, and in order to rewire a house, it could be you know thirty thousand dollars. That's something that could be an issue. If you go into, you know, there's there's materials that houses were built out of, or they used, you know, flooring, siding that's called asbestos. Um, that could be very pricey. They used it for instant insulation around heating pipes. Uh, if you have to remediate any any of that, that could be very pricey. Then there's there's smaller, like a roof, Britney said. Like the thing is like it's very cut and dry a roof. If you need a new roof, you need a new roof. And it's usually pretty obvious just by looking at it. You look up at the roof and it's it doesn't look brand new and looks a little shaggy, you know, you most likely have to put a new roof on. Uh, but it's cut and dry. It's like you pay the money, you get the new roof, you're done. And it's usually in and you can shop around for for roof prices. It's not cheap, but at the same time, you know what you're getting into. Uh asbestos, um, structural issues, wiring, you don't really know because a lot of that stuff with asbestos, you it has to be done by a specialist. The wiring, you don't really know because it's all behind the walls. Um, structural issues, you don't really know until you start like digging if if it's a foundation issue, if if it you need to start reframing stuff. Um, it could be really pricey because a lot of that stuff is is hidden just by the nature of it. So um those are those are some big issues. Sometimes mold, depending on how prevalent it is. But I mean, I the mold is treatable and there's previous you can prevent it as well. I try to tell buyers don't let it be a big issue unless unless it is a big issue, unless the inspector says, you know, this is like if it's mold throughout the house, there's mold in the floors, the walls, the at the attic. Um, so those are kind of big, big things. Everything else can be fixed. I mean, if there's a leak, it can be fixed. If there's if there's uh, you know, the kitchen's older, you know, you can redo the kitchen. So it's it's really like the things that you don't know until you start opening walls. That's where it can be very pricey.
SPEAKER_02:Um, maybe we should end like on talking about the flip side. If you are selling a house, maybe not buying a house, but is there something that you would suggest to people who might be thinking about putting their home on the market? Anything that they can do to really bring value to a house or any like parts of a house that you think bring the most value?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's I always like I don't know why I always talk about, I feel like I appeal more to to buyers, like especially first-time home buyers. So that was I'm glad you brought this up because I actually like I think the last like seven deals I've done have all been on the seller side. So thank you for bringing this up. Otherwise, I would have never brought this up. Um, in terms of selling, uh, right now is so there's in our area the two good markets or the two good times to sell are the spring. And and the reason being is the spring market is it's a good lead into the next school year. So um if you're a family, right, you want to get settled, buy the house. So you you you put the offer in on May. Typical closing is 45 to 60 days, so May, June, July, you close in July. That way you can get settled, do any work you need to do before the next school year in September, get the kids in school. Uh, that's why the spring market is historically the strongest. Um, but the other good time to sell is the fall because it's anyone who missed out on the spring market that wants a second bite at the apple. Summer is usually slow because people are away on weekends. Uh, and then to answer your second question, what's the best bang for your buck? You know, the sexy things are kitchens, baths, you know, stuff like that. Um, but honestly, like a good paint job, like interior paint job, like like having it freshly painted is the best bang for your buck. You know, a gallon of paint, it used to be 30 bucks, now it's like 70 bucks, but$70 for a gallon of paint. Uh, you can, you know, buy 10 gallons of paint, have a professional painter do it, and and you pay him, you know, two, three thousand dollars and it looks like a brand new house. You know, that's the best investment, 100%. There's like different metrics. Like, I've seen like things, it's like, oh, new garage door, like you get like plus 10,000. It's like, in my opinion, like paint's the best. Having a clean house is really nice. Like, if you walk into open, like you guys remember walking into open houses and like the house smells or it's like dirty or gimpy. Yeah, like immediate turnoff. Yeah, so like having like a nice clean house, fresh paint job, and then of course, you know, kitchens and baths. If you want to get into more of a you know, something that you want to do renovations, those are those are the best bang for your buck. Kitchen kitchen and baths are a hundred percent. Uh surprisingly, new roof does not add a lot of value because you because people expect the roof to be they expect it to work essentially. They expect it to be a roof. So if you go and if you go and you know buy a house, you you're like, okay, we assume this roof has no leaks, but if it's leaking, you're gonna say, okay, I want the seller to fix that. It's expected to work, just like a heating system. A new heating system doesn't add value. Yeah, owner or new buyer expects the heating system to work. So it if that makes sense, they just they just don't look at it as value, they just expect it to be be there and working.
SPEAKER_02:You're not gonna be like, oh, that's a nice roof. Like you're just like, does the roof work?
SPEAKER_01:Like, look at that roof.
SPEAKER_04:It's it's really unfortunate because like I've I've done a lot of sales where we've had to replace the roof before the sale started, and uh, you know, it's you know eighteen thousand dollars and you don't you don't really get that money back. It's just people just want the roof to work, they just want the to prevent the water from going going into the house.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. Don't really care what it looks like. I have a question. Those like Zillow photos, are those rigged? Are they like distorted? I feel like it always makes the houses look huge.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, oh, so yeah. When we when we list properties, we use professional photo and they use like wide angle like lenses and it makes it look a lot bigger. For photographer we use, he's he's like not so crazy with that. Like he'll still use the wide angle so you can see the whole room, but some of them are like fish eye lens, and it's like it looks like the room's huge, and you walk in, you're disappointed. So we when when we list a house, we want people to be surprised, not surprised, but we want people to be like, oh, this looks like the pictures. Whereas I've I've gotten that feedback tons where people like walk in like to other open houses after they saw it on Zillow, they're like, These rooms are tiny or this looks nothing like it, because they touch up the photos like crazy. And that's that's also a real turnout for for buyers because you know their expectations are so high, and then they walk in and they immediately lower their expectations.
SPEAKER_03:So interesting. I could underpromise, overdeliver.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's exactly right.
SPEAKER_02:But that also like speaks to just like how even like the staging business. I feel like staging has become such a whole industry in and of itself in those photos. Like, yeah, you do it even unconsciously care the aesthetics if it looks if it looks nice. And if it doesn't, yeah, you're totally turned off.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah, staging is nice though. Like if you have an empty house, like it if you're the actual furniture, then there's virtual staging, which is like, you know, it it's it's weird, but it's sometimes it's helpful for the buyer to see how the like a living room would be laid out if it's an oddly shaped room. But yeah, like actual real furniture staging is is there is value behind it. Uh it's not cheap, but um, you know, it's depend it's it's property dependent. Some some houses need it, some don't.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Owen, you've taught us so much.
SPEAKER_04:I know. I'm sorry. I probably went way over.
SPEAKER_02:No, oh my great. We I have more time, but I'm trying to reel it in. We can do a part two. I mean, yeah, you can just come back.
SPEAKER_04:If this is the lowest rated podcast, there probably won't be a part two.
SPEAKER_02:No, this one is gonna take up.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah, I'm sure you will be.
SPEAKER_04:I saw him walking by back there. He looked like he was just finishing a work.
SPEAKER_02:He's working out.
SPEAKER_04:Nice.
SPEAKER_02:He has walked by twice. I think he's trying to get us to say hi to him.
SPEAKER_04:He wants he wants to be a part of it so bad.
SPEAKER_02:He wants to be in the pod. Can you see him from where you are, Britt?
SPEAKER_03:Chris? I think he has his headphones in.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, okay. Yeah, I don't want him to steal my shine.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, seriously.
SPEAKER_02:We can invite him. We can invite him. Um, anything left we have, Britt? Or anything, Owen, that you just feel like you should share that we didn't get to? Anything we missed?
SPEAKER_04:Um, oh, how about how about that um that time someone wrote an article about me that I knew that Taylor Swift was moving into Belmont? Oh my god, I forgot about that. I know. Come on, you I can't believe you didn't even bring that up.
SPEAKER_03:I totally forgot.
SPEAKER_04:I forgot a story. Yeah, it's a quick story, so I'm not gonna keep everyone too long. So um there's this guy and he's a towny in Belmont with a town I live in, and he had his own like personal blog. And it he actually had quite a few readers of like local people because at the time there wasn't like a local paper. We were it was it shut down, they were in between getting a new paper, so people were actually reading it. Um, so he every year he does like an April Fool's blog, but this year he or that the year he released this this monthly blog, he released it like 15 days early, like on March 15th. So no one really if you read it, like if you read every story or whatever, then you would know it was April Fool's, like you just could tell. But some people didn't catch on, and so all of a sudden my phone started blowing up. And so the story was um Taylor Swift bought a house in Belmont, it was on you know off the market, no one knows about it, but I confirmed with Owen Tolen, who's a realtor in Belmont, that she bought a house and uh she's moving in in like a few months or whatever. For some, for so all of a sudden my phone starts blowing up. And I I read luckily I read it before like people started calling me, otherwise, I'd be completely lost. So like the first person called me, I don't even know who, I can't even remember who it was, and I like like leaned into it. I was like, Oh yeah, she's like the house I can't say, you know, she's living at she's gonna be moving up to this really nice house, and then um, and then I started getting like more phone calls, and I'm like, oh my god, these people actually believe it. So it came to a point where I was just telling people, I'm like, no, that was that was fake. That was a fake blog. It was an April Fool's blog and explaining it to them. And then high school students started calling me. Like, I I don't have like I've graduated Power of the Swifties. Oh my god. Like, and like I could hear like there was like 10 of them on the call, and they're all they my numbers all over Google, so there's like I could hear they're all like like in a room, like listening into the phone call. This is like probably the 15th phone call, and I'm like, no, I'm sorry, like it was it was an April Fool's blog. Like, I could just hear the disappointment in their voices when I said that. It was like so funny, and then and then it really got even worse because some like radio station picked up the blog up in Maine, and like they and they were talking about it, and then they linked to the article, and like and so then I got even more phone calls.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my god, this is how fake news spreads.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my god, I was like, I I couldn't believe it. So, like, like finally the phone call stopped after probably about a week, but I probably got like 40 40 plus phone calls from that.
SPEAKER_03:Oh my god, that is crazy.
SPEAKER_04:My number wasn't on the blog, like people were like googled my name and then like Google, like found my number and then started calling me. I was like, oh my god, like even real estate agents were calling me. It's like, how are you guys calling for this? Like, I had like probably a dozen real estate agents call me, like local real estate agents. Where's Taylor Swift living? I'm like, oh my god, I'm like, that's it was fake. It was a fake blog. Like, I see I was like, what's why would she move to Belmont out of all places? Like it, yeah, it's a great town, but like not for someone like her.
SPEAKER_01:She has no reason. She has no reason. You never know. You never know. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03:Right, right, right. If that actually ever does happen, you know who you're gonna tell first.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I I I highly doubt it.
SPEAKER_03:Well after this podcast.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, true.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, they're gonna be hitting you up. Yeah, right. You guys need a realtor, we got one, we got one.
SPEAKER_04:That's true.
SPEAKER_02:Uh hit him up. You can find his number online like the rest of the Swifties.
SPEAKER_00:Very easy to do.
SPEAKER_02:You can easily Google his number online. Um, but thank you so much, Owen, for coming on. This was an awesome episode. Um, we so appreciate it. All of your expertise. We hope everyone learns something new. And um, yeah, we'll have to have you back for a part two.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it was great. I I loved having loved being on here and I loved listening to the intro live. That was that was highlight of my week so far. Oh it's early in the week. It's early in the week, but it was highlight so far.
SPEAKER_03:We'll take it. Love that. Uh oh, and make sure to like us, comment, tag us, follow us at Snitch and Pod on TikTok and Instagram. Check out our website, snitchingpodcast.com, and tell everyone you know about us. We'll be back on Friday. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Owen. Bye.
SPEAKER_04:Bye bye.
SPEAKER_03:Bye.