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Cheap Home Repair or Expensive Free advice to home sellers?

Posted on Aug 10, 2013 by in Active Rain | 0 comments

Cheap Home Repair or Expensive Free advice to home sellers?

 I was reading one of our Professional Magazines and I was so surprised at the advice they gave. The Title was Cheap Home Remedies. One of the sections suggested ways how a home seller should treat scratches on their floor. This professional magazine is publishing it as “good advice”.

 

Well let me quote it here and I would like you be the judge: “…for minor scratches, crayons will do the trick. Pick a color that matches the flooring and color in the scratched area. Be sure you stay in the lines: then buff to a shine. A matching permanent marker can camouflage deeper, ugly scratches….

 

Anyway you get the idea. My first reaction was what were they thinking?  The author’s is telling Realtors and their sellers to “hide” defects. The second thing came to my mind that whoever does the editing in this professional magazine needs to be a bit more concerned what is written in their magazine?  How can they allow such advice to be circulated in their publication and on the internet as well?

Advice to home sellers in the Greater Los Angeles area

 

First of all let us look at this from two perspectives. Initially buyers are thrilled to get the property because the “love, like or accept” the house with the visible defects. I personally never lost a transaction because there were scratches on the floor minor or major. Most buyers accepted it that it was caused by children or pets and most buyers tend to like both. Now let us take the scenario where the seller hid the defects and the buyer discovered it during the inspection, now the mindset is “what else is the seller hiding?” or camouflaging?

 

This then could become a potential deal breaker or an opportunity to do further investigations into the house such as sewer lines, roof, electricity, plumbing and structural issues because the buyer lost trust and faith in the seller and this in turn could cause further discoveries of hidden defects.

 

Let’s be realistic the more you look the more faults you will find, this in turn will open up an opportunity for the buyer to either walk away from the property or would want to renegotiate the originally agreed purchase price based on the amount of defects that they discover.

 

Worst case scenario the buyer buys the property and discovers this type of “cheap bubble gum repair” then calls the various inspectors and gets the advice of an attorney…..

 

Need I say more? Anyway my advice is for the Sellers of property in the greater Los Angeles area not to do this i.e.: hide the visible minor defects. We have many sellers’ disclosures, Agent Visual Inspection Disclosures and other disclosures where we must in good faith disclose defects that we are aware of about the property. So clearly this would be a fantastic opportunity for an attorney to turn the Cheap Repair onto an Expensive Repair.

 

If you are considering buying or selling a luxury home, or an ultra luxury home, or luxury investment real estate, or luxury vacation homes, or luxury beach properties in Southern California, Los Angeles, Century City, Westwood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Marina Del Rey, Venice or Malibu. Feel Free to give me a call at 310.486.1002 or email me at homes@endrebarath.com or visit one of my websites at https://www.endrebarath.com Your Pet Friendly Realtor. I contribute a portion of my commission to Local Animal Rescue Organizations

 

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