Realtor Association Reports 400% Increase in "Killed Deals"

[James H. Bushart]

Read all about it. Banks and home inspectors, according to them, are among those interfering with recovery of home sales.

[Doug Edwards]

what I am experiencing is I am doing two to three home inspections per customer due to the extremely poor conditions of the homes being shown by the agents. Nervous new buyers are trying to find a bargain and in the foreclosure market homes are piles / money pits in need of extensive and expensive repairs.

[Jeffrey R. Jonas]

Originally Posted by dedwards

what I am experiencing is I am doing two to three home inspections per customer due to the extremely poor conditions of the homes being shown by the agents. Nervous new buyers are trying to find a bargain and in the foreclosure market homes are piles / money pits in need of extensive and expensive repairs.

I agree with you Doug, except around here, it is the Realtors trying to push the crap homes onto the first-time homebuyers. All to often I have clients comment that all the homes they've seen need extensive repairs. I know there are some great homes out there, FOR THE SAME MONEY! I tell them to inform their agent they want to see better homes, or they're fired. A few have done just that, and found fantastic homes at great pricing. They really had no idea how much their agent controlled the process.

[Gary Farnsworth]

Many RE's are presented with "incentives" from banks to move/sell properties that are distressed. The RE's then press the buyers into not getting inspections. Some negotiation periods are down from days to just hours, because it is the banks/lenders actually selling the homes, and are not under any RE association rules. First time home buyers are blind to this, and are the ones that should be hiring home inspectors. Sad that this is not happening due to the shortened contingency periods.

Banks, and the investors behind them, have tightened loan approval parameters to the point that getting a loan is almost impossible. Buyers that get turned down then turn to other mortgage companies for loan approvals, and the mortage app numbers get inflated.

The home inspectors that are working must be doing their jobs, if we are getting blamed for failed transactions. We all know that we are just properly imforming our clients, and it is the buyers who decide to walk; not us. Perhaps they are selling the bad homes first, and not putting the good foreclosures on the market until the POS ones sell, and waiting for the prices to increase. This is probably why you are seeing less inventory on homes for sale (among some other reasons).

IMO, all homes should be inspected in any sales transaction, due to the large number of POS, vacant, and highly defective homes that are out there being sold by the banks themselves.

[James H. Bushart]

Wednesday's client is having me inspect their third house contracted to buy since May. Last week, one of my inspections was for a client from September who had me do an inspection on their second house.

There is a lot of crap out there and, while I don't keep official stats on this, I think I could comfortably say that more than 25% of my 2010 and 2011 inspections have resulted in the client walking away from the house.

Banks should have gotten tougher on loans 15 years ago ... and stuck to it. If they had, we would not be in the mess we are in.

[Erby Crofutt]

Banks were under regulation to fund more "non-deserving" credit scores so more people could buy a house. Guess who pushed for those regulations.
Now we're in **** soup and they're blaming us and the banks.

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[Tim Spargo]

As someone said... Home Inspector's don't kill the deals, we simply write a statement of condition...

Which *can* be it's obituary, by the way.

[William T. Misegades]

"Contract failures are cancellations caused by declined mortgage applications, failures in loan underwriting from appraised values coming in below the negotiated price, or other problems including home inspections and employment losses."

When the NAR chief economist calls a home inspection a "problem" that says it all and how much he values our profession or even his clients... And you wonder why Realtors get a bad rep...
I doubt that our ways of inspecting properties have changed/gotten tougher from 2-3 years ago. The standards haven't changed. But it's always easier to blame someone else when one cannot do his/her job by listening to buyers requests and then closing a deal...

[Russell Spriggs]

Originally Posted by dedwards

what I am experiencing is I am doing two to three home inspections per customer due to the extremely poor conditions of the homes being shown by the agents. Nervous new buyers are trying to find a bargain and in the foreclosure market homes are piles / money pits in need of extensive and expensive repairs.

Yep, this past year has seen a lot of "Lipstick on a pig" inspections.

One beauty had an almost-finished kitchen with cheapo-cardboard "laminate" flooring, just waiting for its first spill. In an area where a cabinet was yet to be installed was 1940's carpeting, stained & moldy.

I went thru that house like Sherman thru GA and yes, the bottom-feeders had to regroup in order to sell it.

That was a good day's work . . .

[Joseph Burkeson, CMI]

I have to side with the Realtors, here in Florida due to extremely short-sighted home inspector licensing legislation we have very unqualified licensed home inspectors who don't know their *** from their elbow going around scaring the **** out of prospective homebuyers... So it goes.

[James H. Bushart]

Originally Posted by jburkeson1

I have to side with the Realtors, here in Florida due to extremely short-sighted home inspector licensing legislation we have very unqualified licensed home inspectors who don't know their *** from their elbow going around scaring the **** out of prospective homebuyers... So it goes.

Since the real estate salesmen were working in tandem with all of the other special interest groups that purchased this law in your state ... should they be pitied or laughted at?

[Joseph Burkeson, CMI]

Originally Posted by jbushart

Since the real estate salesmen were working in tandem with all of the other special interest groups that purchased this law in your state ... should they be pitied or laughted at?

Neither, on the contrary they should be commended for shrewdness in their ability to manipulate our profession for their benefit... This inexperienced inspector 'false flag' they helped to create in Florida is simply a pit stop in the grand scheme for the perfection of our profession through home inspection standardization. Furthermore, I wouldn't be surprised to discover that the other association is aiding and abetting their efforts.

[Gary Farnsworth]

Home inspection laws in any state are a basic, minimum standard. Inspectors (especially the ones of the other association) now write soft, basic, cheap reports, all allowed by law. You can go above the standards, but why would you want to? You will only upset the buyer and the agent, and end up with a poor reputation and no business.

Our profession has been dumbed-down, and virtually worthless to unsuspecting home buyers. Now, agents are saying this to buyers, and our business and profession, thanks to lawmakers, their lobbbyist-campaign funding buddies and their cronies, is no longer reputable.

With news articles, such as this one mentioned in post #1, the goal of getting the honest home inspectors out of business by RE associations is coming. Someday, I hope some attorney will see $$$$$ with this.

[James L. Keilson]

PUBLIC AWARENESS is more important than ever !!! We need to make the public aware of the fact that RE agents are useless especially when it comes to Home Inspections. People must realize that a home inspection is VERY important and they need to choose a home inspector on their own, one that they have researched and feel is the most qualified for their needs. The RE agant referred inspector may not be the best solution and in most cases is not. State attorney generals need to step in and make it illegal for RE agents to even recommend a home inspector. I am telling you the problem does not lie in Licensing, it lies in RE agents and no regulation on the crap they shovel their clients.

If home buyers are to naive to see this then they are in deep doo doo no matter what. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the problems here.

Jim

[ROBERT V. YOUNG]

Originally Posted by jbushart

Read all about it. Banks and home inspectors, according to them, are among those interfering with recovery of home sales.

Firstly; it is called a deal breaker and its the home that broke that deal.
PS False expectations of the value and not showing transparency by anyone within the DEAL also effects the outcome.
Secondly; its time for brokers and or agents that speak that" deal killer " narrative to start selling used cars.
The banks and home inspectors are invested civic minded professionals insuring a stable economy is put back in place when all the conditions are right.
JMO.