Palos Verdes Real Estate

May 2017 Newsletter

Dear Neighbor:

The real estate market this year has not experienced the frenetic activity in the first half of the year that it has seen in the past 3 years.  Prices in Palos Verdes are still right around the all-time high of late 2007, having recovered from the sizeable dip they took from 2008 thru 2010.

Let me take just a moment to brag:  the results for 2016 are in, and your humble correspondent was the #3 agent out of over 250 Berkshire Hathaway agents, and the #6 agent in Palos Verdes overall for number of listings sold.  While all the other top agents have assistants, sub-agents, transaction coordinators, etc, one of the things that has made me successful in this business is that I do everything myself.  You get my 32+ years of experience applied 100% to your transaction, which increases the likelihood that your escrow will go more smoothly and close.

Out here in the trenches I hear all sorts of stuff, including bad advice given either on TV shows or by others, such as attorneys.  It seems as tho the air of authority and knowledge lends credence some of this stuff.  One that I used to hear only on those HGTV shows, but have heard lately from attorneys, is the notion that a seller should get a home inspection before going on the market.  Someone must be holding seminars where they give them this advice.  At first blush it may seem logical – head off all buyer objections at the pass, maybe even fix everything on the report, etc.  While this is not the most inadvisable thing a seller could ever do, it’s on the list.  It is important to understand that the buyer has a roughly 2 week period at the beginning of escrow to inspect your house to his heart’s content.  It is also important for all parties to understand that the inspection report only deals with defects and the standard is generally perfection; it is the rare inspector who says anything positive about your house in the written report.  And the written inspection report itself nearly always looks worse than reality, because a) the buyer wasn’t there to hear the inspector’s more accurate verbal summary, and b) because there is all sorts of language in there designed to protect the inspector from liability (mold, asbestos, radon, insert panic du jour here) that can easily look as if it pertains to the property in question. 

And now that you are the proud possessor of your inspection report, you are legally obligated to give it to the buyer.  Despite that, he is not likely to believe it, may even suspect that you and the inspector were in cahoots, and he’ll have his own inspection anyway.  So now you have 2 inspection reports, which always have in them slightly different findings, and different points of emphasis.  Even if you have already fixed everything in your report as some of these TV shows recommend, or even ¼ of the things, the buyer is going to take those for granted and have another list for you.  I have an article on my website www.DanaGraham.com entitled “Potential Buyers Will Not Take a Shower in Your House” in which I get into the reasons you do not want to fix everything before going on the market.  But if anyone, and I mean anyone, advises you to have a house inspection prior to going on the market, take Nancy Reagan’s advice and “just say no”.

There are innumerable issues that you confront when selling your house.  It is important to have a seasoned, professional Realtor in your corner – one who has been thru it many times before and can recommend the best way to handle whatever comes up.  If you’d like to talk, give me a call at 310 613-1076 or email at [email protected].

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 9th, 2017 at 7:51 am and is filed under Buyers, Everything I've Written, Palos Verdes Information, Real Estate General Info, Sellers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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