Home Wars

Kind of unusual that I'd post twice in one day, but saw this article in the Toronto Star yesterday and had to comment.

For the record, if I was the Selling agent and discovered through my clients' home inspection that a house had evidence of termites, I would inform the Listing Agent immediately.

What the Listing Agent does with that information is up to him/her. If he/she has any ethics, they'd tell the owners.

In the story linked above, the inspection turned up painted over termite tunnels. The clients told their agent, the selling agent about them and she decided not to tell anyone as she felt "why ruin it for everyone?". As a result, the sellers got more than list price for a home in which they probably knew had termites.

There's another lesson here - ALWAYS get a home inspection. Whereas some things can (and do) miss an Inspectors eye - a $400 dollar investment is great insurance when you're purchasing something in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Especially in todays market, where "bidding wars" are common.

And speaking of Bidding Wars, the newly elected President of the Toronto Real Estate Board seems to think that the current "system" (if you can call it that) is adequate and "transparent". Bullplop. When Agents say there are 4 offers on a property and you find out afterwards that there were probably only 3, when there is no system of checks and balances to ensure that 3 offers were "registered", and when there is no across the board system of Registering an Offer that everyone practices - theres a problem.

Currently, there is nothing preventing me (aside from my ethics) to say that I have 1, 2, or more offers registered on a property in order to increase the frenzy to get a higher-than-list price for a home for sale.

There are Agents in Toronto that have a reputation for pulling this stuff. How do we know? Well when you register an offer, and are told that "theres another offer coming in by fax", so you withdraw - and the house sits unsold for weeks afterwards, you sort of get the feeling that somethings not right. Either both parties pulled out, the other offer was refused or insufficient or something else happened. Just doesn't smell right.