The Homebuyer Podcast with Jennifer Beeston
The one-stop shop for all your homebuying questions, concerns, and curiosities. Jennifer Beeston, a Mortgage Lender with 17 years of experience, provides expert insights that help homebuyers land there first home confidently. Whether you're starting your homebuyer journey or in contract, the Homebuyer Podcast is a place for you.
The Homebuyer Podcast with Jennifer Beeston
What A Realtor WILL NOT Tell You When Buying A Home
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Picture this. You're buying a house, you have four small children, next door is a pedophile. Do you think the real estate agents should have to disclose that to you? You would assume that if a real estate agent knew that there was a pedophile next door, you're moving in with four small children, they would have to disclose it, right? Guys, there's certain states where it's not legal for them to tell you. No joke. So in this video, we're gonna be talking about the three shocking things that real estate agents can't go into detail with you on, but that you need to look up on your own so that you have the data that you need to make an educated decision when you buy a house. If you're new to this channel, I am a mortgage lender. I've been a mortgage lender for 19 years. My team's one of the top purchase teams in America. I talk to buyers all the time, as does my team. And one of the frustrations we hear a lot is why won't my agent tell me the good neighborhoods and the bad neighborhoods? They keep on taking me to these houses and like I'm totally not comfortable with the area. Why won't they just like stop it? They can't. An agent cannot tell you this is a good neighborhood or this is a bad neighborhood. It's prohibited. There's a rule against it. The rule was created to stop steering because back in the day they found that agents would put certain ethnicities in certain areas. So the whole good neighborhood, bad neighborhood, you can't do it. That's why agents don't do it. Recently, April 2026, a new rule came out where agents can, they may give you crime stats and school grades. They don't have to, they just are now allowed to. And you're like, you're kidding me, right, Jen? Like they weren't allowed to give people crime stats of where they were looking at buying a house. No. They weren't allowed to tell people, oh, that school's better or this one's this great. No. No, this is this is legit a rule coming out in April 2026. And look, I talked to a couple agents about this because I'm like, how are you gonna handle this? Like, are you gonna like be like this good neighborhood, bad neighborhood? No. They're not they're not going near that with a hundred-foot pull. Okay, well, are you gonna give crime stats? Are you gonna give the school grades? No, we're gonna tell people what websites to check out and have them look at the websites. The reason's this, because you're like, oh, they're just being lazy. No, it's liability. And it's like, look, it's not just liability from the consumer, it's also with the government. You never want to get in their crosshairs. The fact that it's been such a hard and fast rule for so long that agents can't even give out crime stats, like it's just, you know, they don't want to play with it. So they're gonna recommend the sites. Here's the deal: let's talk about crime. Everybody has a different level of crime they're comfortable with. And that's the other thing to this is like, for example, if I'm your real estate agent, remember I'm not one, but if I'm helping you find a house based on what I think is safe, you're living in a 55 and over community. That's it. That's it. We're not going anywhere else. I don't care if you're 46, you're gonna have to fake it. I have no risk tolerance. I like a safe, safe, safe area. And that's why these rules were created as well, is because one person's level of safety is not another's. You know, I've had clients where we've looked up um, you know, the house, like we're just talking. I'm like, oh, cool, like let me just Google the house. This is one of the things I like to do. And we're trying to figure out why it hadn't sold. So I was like Googling the house and the word murder, because that's the thing too. You're like, wait, don't they have to disclose if someone's murdered in the house? No, no. There's like a couple states where I think you do, but there's a lot where it's prohibited, or if someone was murdered and it's over a year, they don't have to tell you, like, if that's a concern, look up your state's rules. So we were trying to figure out why the house wasn't selling. So I Googled that and I'm like, oh, you know, here you go. Like this, I how do you feel about this? And basically it was an area where there had been a bunch of shootings, and the shootings happened like right in front of this house. And the client, he goes, Oh, yeah, I don't care about that. That's easy. I don't care about that. I'm like, okay, cool. Like, great, you're gonna get a great deal on that house because you have other people where that's not within their crime comfort level. So it really depends on what you're comfortable with. Um, the two big sites for crime are neighborhood scout and the FBI has a site. They do. I'm gonna go down the rabbit hole with that one tonight and I'll do a full video on it later this month. But the FBI has a website on crime as well. So I would recommend, you know, paying attention, type in the addresses of where you guys are looking and see if the crime in that area is what you're comfortable with. There's stuff that's surprising too. When we were looking originally, we looked at Miami Beach because that's where we were living, and I was shocked at where it was because I was always walking around, feeling safe, feeling comfortable. So it's important to note that sometimes you'll see a very high crime level, but it may be an area that you personally feel comfortable in. I did. So, I mean, I didn't go out past eight, but that could be a thing. Schools, you're like, wait, they can't tell me good, nope, nope, not good school, bad school. They can give you scores. And you're like, well, won't they do that? What if they give you scores from one website, but then there's another white website that scores differently and you prefer the scores? Too much liability. It's just like with the crime. What if they use one website, but then a different website has different data and you feel like they misled you? They can't win with that. So the sites that you choose for this need to be sites you're comfortable with. The website that was recommended on that one for me was gradeschools.org. Um, but it was noted to me to tell people like, look, pay attention to how they score because sometimes a school will get a lower score, not because scholastically it's not good, but because it may not have enough diversity. So you do want to understand the scoring model that the school uh websites are using. But once again, this is on you. If schools are important to you, this is on you. One agent was telling me that, you know, generally if the schools are rated really high, it's gonna be in a better neighborhood, right? I don't think that's accurate across the country. And the reason I say that is that where I raised my son, the schools were terrible, guys, terrible. California, like honestly, truly, there's a lot of areas where the schools are just terrible, but they're actually very safe, nice areas. They just have horrific schools. So I don't think the schools tell you how safe an area is. I think that the schools you need to look at independently just as the crime stats. Okay. Finally, I started off this video talking about the fact like, isn't it crazy that if a real estate agent knows there's a pedophile next door, you're buying the house with your four sweet babies, that they don't tell you. And that in certain states they're prohibited to tell you. Yeah, so two things to know. First of all, there's a national database of pedophiles, but also at a state state level, there's many states, like for example, example, again, on California, they have Megan's Law, which covers pedophiles as well as people who've committed sexual assaults. So the rapists, they're all, you know, it has pictures, it has where they live, it has what the offense was, how long the offense was how long ago the offense was. Um, Megan's Law has actually had me, I've made two big decisions in my life because of Megan's Law. Um, number one, when my son was born, I went on Megan's Law and I was like, oh my God. This was before I was in mortgages. I just like read an article about it. It was like an explosion of dots, right? And look, I don't want a bunch of pedophiles around my kid. That terrifies me. Like, what do you do? Like, you're not gonna feel comfortable with them in the backyard. You know, everyone has their own feelings of comfortability, but for me, I was like, uh-uh, we sold the house, we moved. We moved to an area where the town at the time, there were nine in total. We knew exactly where they were, they were miles out, and you know, I was okay with that. The second time um Megan's law made a huge impact in our life is that my son was going to this at-home daycare, and he'd only gone once, and I was like, I better just check because there's laws where you can't have a daycare next to a pedophile. And I went on and I looked up and I was like, oh my god, the neighbor like has this like 40-year history of just like horrible, horrible things against children, and there's a daycare next door? What? Like, what? And I brought it up to them. Are you ready for what they said to me, guys? They said he's really old and he's bedbound. I'm like, yeah, still not comfortable. I pulled my son out that day, right? Because you're assuming, oh, well, wait, isn't that illegal to have a daycare by a um? You would think, you would think, right? So these websites can be very helpful. Um look, ultimately, what you decide to do is your decision on all of this with the schools, with the uh, you know, the pedophile sexual assaulter list with the crime stats. What you decide to do with that information is up to you. The key is that you know you need to be looking at that information. As your lender, I'm never gonna say that's a good neighborhood, that's a bad neighborhood. Oh, you know, I heard Bobby down the street's a pedto. No, I'm not like we can't do that, right? We can just point you towards the sites and say, hey, go get the information and see what you're comfortable with. So quicker video, but it's one of those things where I think buyers are constantly like, I can't believe they didn't tell me, and it's like they can't, you know. And with this new rule, I don't think we'll see a lot change. There's a lot of data online for you guys to look at. So I strongly recommend if any of these three things are considerations for you, you definitely are doing your deep dive into data. I will have a list of some of these sites. There are more. If there's websites you guys are looking at that you think are great that will help other home buyers, drop them in the comments. We are a community, we are all here to help each other. Thanks for watching, guys.