Up and Close Real Estate

After having spent the last few days reading articles from around the country that comment on the real estate industry, there is still no answer about where the market is going. Everybody’s talking about the real estate buying process. Articles such as “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Home Inspection?”, “When Home Inspections Go Bad” and “Is Your Realtor the Enemy?” have appeared in the Huffington Post, CNN (Money) and Home Inspection USA. Questions like “What’s your interest rate?” and “Could you afford the North Shore?” and “Are thirty year mortgages are thing of the past?” are everywhere. Although I find these topics interesting, my bread and butter is derived from defective homes. Homes that make people sick, homes where people sleep next to water heaters pumping out carbon monoxide, and homes where people sleep the basement even when it has flooded.

Both expensive and inexpensive buildings exhibit problems. I’ll work with anybody who wants to “get at the truth”. That’s what we do at Tomacor. We try our best to identify the most significant life safety issues that will impact both the home’s livability and it’s value. We don’t find everything. After all, it is a visual inspection and it’s never perfect.

After twenty eight years in the business of inspecting home purchases, I have some stories to share, of the terrific as well as the horrific. Some of the ones below reveal the cost of not being prepared, not being savvy, when you enter into the real estate market as a buyer. And most people are not, because they don’t buy new homes every year.

As a way to educate consumers and bring life back to the real estate market, Tomacor has decided to take these stories to you. Stories like the one client who bought a farm in the Rockford area and hired an inspector who turned out to be the real estate agent’s son. Ten days after closing, after having lost several nights of congested sleep, she discovered that her attic was full of mold. Apparently, the inspector hadn’t looked up into the attic. She removed the entire roof structure and rebuilt it.

Another client moved into a house in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago, after hiring another inspector recommended by his agent. The buyer wasn’t present at his inspection, but a large colony of termites was. After the buyers bought and had to strip the building, it became apparent these termites had been active for more than twenty five years. Even the roof rafters were sagging and cracking with the termite damage.

Then there’s the client who moved into a new condominium in Chicago. It didn’t have an electric meter. The common areas were eventually turned over and a Condo Board was created. Still no meter. The developer was able to pass on the ownership of the common area (and its outstanding electrical invoice) to the new owners. The Board and the unit owners had to pay the general contractor’s electric bill. Most buyers were ignorant of the fact that these folks paid for months of electrical usage which should have been paid by the developer.

Finally, a condo owner contacted me two years after his purchase of a new north side condominium complex. No masonry flashings were in place and water had migrated through exterior walls and onto his floor. The Brazilian cherry wood flooring was ruined. Black mold was present along many of the exterior walls in his unit. Sam, not his real name, went to the doctor and found out he had a fungal infection in his lungs. He began to cough up blood. If this wasn’t bad enough, his wife was five months pregnant. They moved in with family and the condo went back to the bank.
Each of these problems was resolved in a different way. Sometimes through legal action, sometimes through paying out big dollars in repair costs.

Do you have a real estate story that would benefit others if shared? Do you know someone else who would like to benefit others by sharing their story? Some of you may even have stories about the crazy things that happened to you when you were selling. We’ll take them. We don’t have any prizes or giveaways. Tomacor’s focus in this process is recruiting people with informative stories that can educate all of us and help restore the integrity to the real estate buying process.

We’re in a recession that has seriously impacted the value of real estate; poor construction detailing resulting in serious deficiencies has devalued our real estate investments as much or more than the mortgage crisis. It seems to me a relevant question for us to ask is: “How did we get here?” and “How do we get out ?” Tomacor is committed to helping develop a new real estate paradigm. We’re hoping to lift the standards of the home inspection industry, by making thorough inspections and accurate, transparent disclosures of building condition the norm.

“In real estate what you don’t know will cost you plenty!”
This has been Tomacor’s motto for the last 28 years. You as consumers can help this become the industry-wide standard by insisting on a tough, thorough, independent home inspection industry and a well-educated home-buying public interested in homes – not just as good investments, but as places to safely raise their families. Thanks in advance for your collaboration!
Tom Corbett
The Home Reckoner©

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