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Well, then stay in one lane at a time please.
Home Purchases
- Thread starter Shamrock
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Herb Tarlick?....Herb, is it really you? 
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On the issue of Home Inspectors:
In Canada, there is yet to be a national governing and regulatory body that oversees Home Inspectors. They have at best, associations that attempt to provide continuing education to its members. This industry is trying to gain control of its own licensing and membership and is making small inroads to achieving that goal. As it stands right now, anyone with or without adequate experience can say they are a home inspector, they only have to satisfy the local business licensing rules to set up shop.
So back to my earlier post where I suggested that a potential home buyer learn what they need to know about home construction and relative legislation. A home inspector (if you managed to get a good one), will point out visible flaws, defects and deficiencies of a home and give you an average opinion of the home's condition based on what one would expect to see of a similar home of a similar age and construction. In other words, if the entire subdivision was built by a crappy builder but all the other homes similar to the one you were purchasing came in line with the each other in their conditions, you'd get a mid-range opinion. The key phrase to watch for is, "In a home of similar construction, age and maintenance level you would expect this..." It doesn't mean the home to ticketyboo, it means compared to the same type of home, it's either better, the same, or worse and that doesn't mean that the initial construction was great or worse. The HI isn't comparing your purchase to the general construction field, just to a similar home.
The part I love the best about a HI is the limited or zero warranty on their opinion of the house. In other words. if they told you the house was fine, and it ends up being a white elephant and money pit, you can't go back to the HI and sue them. If we as a consumer, were to buy any other product or service and be told, "I'm not going to be liable if my opinion is wrong or the product sucks", we'd be running in the opposite direction from that product or provider YET, when it comes to a buying a house, we take everything about the house AT FACE VALUE!
HI will not look beyond the obvious, or tear down anything get into the nitty-gritty of a home. They will provide the potential purchaser an idea of what systems are being used in the home, and how to operate them, what to look out for as far as maintenance is concerned and potential visible problems or blatant building code violations. (we'll talk about those later)
Now to be fair to the HI who go further and attain some licensing and accreditation in certain areas such as WETT or who have registered with their respective associations, they are marginally better equipped to check out a house (they will bear an RHI behind their name). There is a little rivalry going on between HI and engineers as to who provides the better service. Engineers are licensed. They are registered. They can give an opinion based on more than a visual take. And if they screw up, you CAN sue them. HI, like to say that an engineer is too expensive and you can guess what the engineers say about the HI industry. Bottom line is, if you as a home purchaser, haven't got a clue about home construction, systems and maintenance, nothing from either profession is going to mean diddly squat to you if you didn't do your research.
Ok, so some things to think about: If you are unsure about the structural integrity of the home (because you did your research and saw some things that set off alarm bells), hire an engineer. If you aren't sure about the price/value of the home, bring in a house appraiser. Then ask yourself if the above two scenarios are occurring, should you even be going ahead with the offer or just moving along to the next home (that's where the learning to say No comes in handy)?
In Canada, there is yet to be a national governing and regulatory body that oversees Home Inspectors. They have at best, associations that attempt to provide continuing education to its members. This industry is trying to gain control of its own licensing and membership and is making small inroads to achieving that goal. As it stands right now, anyone with or without adequate experience can say they are a home inspector, they only have to satisfy the local business licensing rules to set up shop.
So back to my earlier post where I suggested that a potential home buyer learn what they need to know about home construction and relative legislation. A home inspector (if you managed to get a good one), will point out visible flaws, defects and deficiencies of a home and give you an average opinion of the home's condition based on what one would expect to see of a similar home of a similar age and construction. In other words, if the entire subdivision was built by a crappy builder but all the other homes similar to the one you were purchasing came in line with the each other in their conditions, you'd get a mid-range opinion. The key phrase to watch for is, "In a home of similar construction, age and maintenance level you would expect this..." It doesn't mean the home to ticketyboo, it means compared to the same type of home, it's either better, the same, or worse and that doesn't mean that the initial construction was great or worse. The HI isn't comparing your purchase to the general construction field, just to a similar home.
The part I love the best about a HI is the limited or zero warranty on their opinion of the house. In other words. if they told you the house was fine, and it ends up being a white elephant and money pit, you can't go back to the HI and sue them. If we as a consumer, were to buy any other product or service and be told, "I'm not going to be liable if my opinion is wrong or the product sucks", we'd be running in the opposite direction from that product or provider YET, when it comes to a buying a house, we take everything about the house AT FACE VALUE!
HI will not look beyond the obvious, or tear down anything get into the nitty-gritty of a home. They will provide the potential purchaser an idea of what systems are being used in the home, and how to operate them, what to look out for as far as maintenance is concerned and potential visible problems or blatant building code violations. (we'll talk about those later)
Now to be fair to the HI who go further and attain some licensing and accreditation in certain areas such as WETT or who have registered with their respective associations, they are marginally better equipped to check out a house (they will bear an RHI behind their name). There is a little rivalry going on between HI and engineers as to who provides the better service. Engineers are licensed. They are registered. They can give an opinion based on more than a visual take. And if they screw up, you CAN sue them. HI, like to say that an engineer is too expensive and you can guess what the engineers say about the HI industry. Bottom line is, if you as a home purchaser, haven't got a clue about home construction, systems and maintenance, nothing from either profession is going to mean diddly squat to you if you didn't do your research.
Ok, so some things to think about: If you are unsure about the structural integrity of the home (because you did your research and saw some things that set off alarm bells), hire an engineer. If you aren't sure about the price/value of the home, bring in a house appraiser. Then ask yourself if the above two scenarios are occurring, should you even be going ahead with the offer or just moving along to the next home (that's where the learning to say No comes in handy)?
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I am a little skeptical of an appraiser. I am of the opinion that market value is determined by the market. An appraiser will not value a 25 year old bungalow in Petwawa at 190000 but that is its market value. The market is what it is. This has gotten a little off topic. I was wondering how the original poster determioned that there wasn't a second offer and if he has had any success with this.
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We decided we weren't happy with this place and contacted a realtor about maybe shopping around. He did some looking for us, asked why we changed our offer and then told us that he could find no indication or record of another offer. Given the length the home had been on the market and the amount of showings, he felt it was highly unlikely two offers would have come in within hours of each other.
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Unnecessary Update:
We listed the house yesterday and had three showings today resulting in two offers (we checked, they're real offers). The third showing came after the first two offers had been tabled; they were interested in placing an offer but the showing realtor steered them, as first time buyers, from getting into a bidding war. All told we'll break even after all the costs of improvements and closing costs.
We're looking at buying a newer home, one built in the last few years. Braebury homes in Kingston has quick possession on a former showhome. Does anyone have any experience with these places and/or a built home?
We listed the house yesterday and had three showings today resulting in two offers (we checked, they're real offers). The third showing came after the first two offers had been tabled; they were interested in placing an offer but the showing realtor steered them, as first time buyers, from getting into a bidding war. All told we'll break even after all the costs of improvements and closing costs.
We're looking at buying a newer home, one built in the last few years. Braebury homes in Kingston has quick possession on a former showhome. Does anyone have any experience with these places and/or a built home?
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Edited to remove informational sites. I trust then that the same caveat will appear anytime anyone suggests an outside link to information?
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niner domestic said:
Ahem: you forgot to disclaim that army.ca takes no responsibility for any reliance upon the contents of those sites or the results of any services obtained through those sites.
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OHHH, I love when you 'types' talk all legal-like.... :-*
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Bruce Monkhouse said:
Grrrrr.... %$#%^@!!! How come we don't have a middle finger icon? Now you have to buy the beer at Roxy's.
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Oh, oh. Lawyers AND real estate agents in one thread!!! Two of the main ingredients. I see a new political party evolving ;D
Lawyers AND real estate agents in one thread!!! Two of the main ingredients. I see a new political party evolving ;D
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recceguy said:Oh, oh.
Oh gee look, a bystander with nothing to contribute to the topic... isn't there already a party for you to belong to? The NDP?
As for the appraiser, for CF members IRP is pretty much set on their use and require the member to have their home appraised prior to listing. But as you suggest, the market sets the actual price. However, I tend to be a little skeptical on how much that market is actually driven by the Realtor community as opposed to the buyer/vendor. But as I said, if a buyer has got to the point where they are questioning the price/value of a home, either use an appraiser or walk away and move on to the next house.
Having just bought and sold a home for an upcoming posting, we watched the market quite intensely in both locations. While it may be just a some micro-bubble of a market trend right now, we found that the homes listed privately were actually selling at a higher market price than the ones listed by agents. Which of course has pushed the market up. We were a little dismayed to discover that the entire RE board in our area has determined that a particular physical characteristic of all the homes will devalue it, and when questioned on it, they claim it's just a quirk for the area. This so called quirk, affects quite a wide area of the city and number of homes as well as having a monetary penalty attached for the vendor in the pricing of the their home. It was quite amusing to watch our buyer ignore that quirk, and actually praise the fact we had it. (they were from out of area). We ignored the agents that insisted it was a negative selling point and kept the 10 grand in the price. We sold in less than 12 hours, and got above asking. So again, do your homework.
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niner domestic said:
I guess even with the smileys, the sarcasm was lost on you. Nothing wrong with a little levity here and there. Not every discussion has to be dominated by thesis type postings.
