Choosing a home inspector

Years ago, before I became a realtor, I purchased my first home. At the time, everything I read said "don't use the home inspector your realtor recommends ! They just want the deal to go through and will recommend a poor inspector !!"

Since I became a realtor I have had the opportunity to see this scenario from both sides.

Yes, if you ask, I will recommend an inspector to you. You are free to use him, or use any of your choosing. But please don't feel like I don't have your best interest in mind.

In Massachusetts (and now New Hampshire) home inspectors have to be licensed by the state, and go through rigorous education and testing. Of course, with any profession, there are bad eggs, but for the most part they are well equipped to inspect a property.

Contrary to what people think, the home inspection is not just an inspector looking through the home and telling you what's wrong. It's an educational process where the inspector explains how things work, how to properly maintain your new home, and what to keep an eye on in the future. It's essential for new homeowners to be present for the inspection and pay attention to what is going on.

Here is an example of two home inspections I attended, both in the same week.

Inspection #1. My buyer was a first time buyer who told the inspector he had never owned a home, and had never had a garage. While we were all in the basement, the inspector disappeared, went into the garage quickly, then came back and said to my buyer "you need to buy a new garage door opener". He then walked away and continued his inspection while my buyer stood there not knowing what to say. When we finally chased him down and asked him to explain he stated that the electric eye, the safety device that protected children from being injured, wasn't working.

Inspection #2. My buyer was also a first time buyer. We all went into the garage and the inspector asked him if he had ever had a garage. When buyer said no, the inspector spent approximately 5 minutes explaining how the electric door openers worked, how the electric eye worked and how it can be adjusted if it doesn't work, until the buyer understood everything about it.

Can you guess which home inspector I continue to recommend, and which one the buyer found on his own because he didn't trust my recommendation?

Why I do it

As Realtors, we accompany our clients lots of places. But nothing is more important than going with a buyer to their closing.

If you have closed on a home, then you know that a closing can be deadly boring. It's called "passing papers" because you spend about an hour passing papers back and forth.

Unfortunately when you attend enough closings, they become commonplace, and as a realtor you may tend to consider it "just another day at the office".

Until one closing made me see it in a whole other light.

My buyers were a great young couple that were buying their first home. I had spent considerable time with them, looking at homes, going through the home inspection and financing process. As we sat at the closing table, they silently signed all of the paperwork, completed everything that was asked of them, until the pile of papers grew smaller and smaller. And then we were done.

The man and woman sat back and stared deeply at each other. She had tears in her eyes and quietly said "We have a house...."

I realized this wasn't just and excited to be a part of it.

The dream of owning a home is still a wonderful dream that can come true.

A shocking story about your property tax assessment

Recently a good friend of mine was telling me how high his property taxes were. Of course, I thought, you live in a pretty high end neighborhood. Even though his home is modest, I justified it by looking at the expensive homes nearby.

Now since my friend still lives in the dark ages and doesn't have a computer, I decided to go line and see how the assessment was broken down.

Remember I said his home was modest? It's a one story, 2-bedroom cape style, with an unfinished walk-up attic.

Or is it ??

Now, according to the town assessment this home has a fully finished second story. Not only that, it's signed off by the inspector saying that he personally visited the home and verified the information. Scary stuff.

After telling my friend what I found he went to his local town hall and spoke with the assessor's office. They were shocked and assigned someone to come out and visit his home and verifiy that the second story was not finished, and had never been finished. Once done, he went back to see about getting his tax bill adjusted. Only problem was, this happened in February and the bill had already gone out in January. The bills cannot be changed once they are issued, so he would have to pay another full year of incorrect taxes despite the fact that it was proven to be an error on their part.

Once I learned about this, I immediately pulled up my assessment - and found out that it says I have two full bathrooms. Actually, I only have 1 full bathroom and 1 half bath.

Since almost every community now publishes access to assessments, it's important to check yours to make sure there are no errors - your tax bill is based on this !