In episode 32 of The Real Talk, Raquel Ramirez welcomes Hugo Hernandez, owner of H&H Pro Home Inspections, to delve into the world of home inspections. They explore the importance of home inspections for both buyers and sellers, touching on listing inspections and common reasons why homeowners seek inspection services.
Tune in to gain expert advice and insights into the world of real estate and home inspections.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:02:07] Getting into Home Inspecting.
[00:04:34] Brand New Construction Inspections.
[00:09:14] House Settlement Cracks Explanation.
[00:12:28] Hiring the Right Professionals.
[00:17:00] Termite Inspections for VA Loans.
[00:21:01] Visual Wood Destroying Organism Inspection.
[00:24:38] Dealing with House Inspections.
[00:29:05] Major Defects to Watch for.
[00:31:40] Real Estate Investors and Ethics.
[00:36:41] Safeguarding Yourself When Hiring Professionals.
[00:39:29] Importance of Home Inspections.
[00:47:02] Pre-listing Inspections for Sellers.
[00:49:36] Various Home Inspection Topics.
In this episode, Raquel Ramirez and Hugo Hernandez discuss the importance of hiring trustworthy professionals in the real estate industry. They emphasize the significance of interviewing and vetting professionals before hiring them, whether it be a realtor, inspector, lender, attorney, or title company. Hugo also highlights the crucial role of a home inspector in offering accurate and detailed information about the condition of a property.
Moreover, Raquel and Hugo discuss that a pre-listing inspection demonstrates to potential buyers that the seller is transparent and proactive in disclosing the condition of the property. This transparency can build trust with potential buyers, as they can have confidence that the seller has been upfront about any known issues with the property.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Raquel Ramirez
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/featured_properties_intl/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/featuredre
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raquel-ramirez/
Hugo Hernandez
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hhprohomeinspections/
WEBSITES:
The Real Talk: https://www.therealtalkpodcast.net/
Featured Properties International: https://msha.ke/featuredre
Welcome to The Real Talk. I'm Raquel Ramirez, your host and real estate professional here to bring you insightful conversations, expert advice, and powerful stories about what really goes on in life, love, divorce, and real estate. Are you ready? Let's get real. Hello, hello. How are you doing today?
I'm doing great. Thank you for having me.
I'm so happy to have you. Actually, I've been hunting you down for quite a bit, Hugo. Thank you for accepting my invitation to join me for this podcast episode. This is the Real Talk podcast, and we're bringing it to you real. For those of you who are tuning in today, I am speaking to Hugo Hernandez. He is the owner and founder of H&H Pro Home Inspections. And as you can imagine, he is a home inspector. So thank you so much for for joining me today.
The pleasure is mine.
So as you can imagine, we're going to be talking about home inspections, which I know is a huge topic of concern, not so much for homeowners, but everybody across the board, really, whether you're buying a home, whether you're selling a home. And we'll get into that because I know that there is such a thing as listing inspections, which most people don't know about. Even if you're just a plain old homeowner, a lot of times you call a home inspector because you can't figure out something that's wrong with the house. Maybe you've I don't know, your water bill has gone really high or you found, I don't know, some type of vermin in the house that you really can't make heads or tails of. No pun intended. Or you just want to kind of get a general idea of the condition of your house. I mean, home inspections are a big deal. And they tell us a lot about the condition and the wearability of the house, including its its warrantable items like your roof, your plumbing, your electrical, things like that. So we're going to get into that. And I'm sure we'll we'll be able to uncover a lot of great information that people will benefit from. But before we get into that, tell us a little bit about you, how you got into home inspecting and, you know, what you'd like us to know.
Well, a little bag. I got my license since 2017. And same day I got my certification and the test from the state, I opened up my own company. But I was still working for another company, a freight forward company to Panama. And just right before the pandemic, I just realized that I wasn't too happy with that work. And then I went all in to the home inspection business and Since then, I've been flying solo.
That's good. That's good. That's good. What about what did you do specifically in that particular line of business? I'm curious.
Which one? The Freight Forwarding? Yeah. The Freight Forwarding. Yeah. It's exportation to Panama.
Just exportation?
Yeah. And from there to any other country in Latin America.
Oh, OK. OK. That's interesting. So what got you into inspections?
It was a friend of mine that he was a he was a real estate investor. OK. And I was very interested in working on a real estate bill. And he told me, well, why don't you get an inspector license, a home inspector license, a home inspector license. What is that? And he explained it to me. And I was like, no, I kind of like it. You know, it's it's like a you're like a forensic detective for homes.
That's a good way to look at it.
Yeah, exactly. It's always fun. It's always fun. It's like it's like an Easter every day.
Oh, true, true, true. I know you and I have talked about this before, and I love to tell this to my clients, both the buyer, seller, doesn't matter. I always say, if you hire an inspector and you get an inspection report that is clean, you should fire that inspector and hire somebody else. Because the goal, if any, if we're going to call it a goal, but your purpose really is to uncover anything and everything that could possibly be wrong from a tiny crack on the wall or a missing outlet cover to rotting, you know, wood and trusses, anything and everything.
No house is perfect, Raquel.
No house. It's true.
It's true. My professor always says funny to me, but he always say, like, if you didn't find anything the first time, do it again. If you don't find anything the second time, break something so you can put it on your report. No, I'm kidding.
Yeah, because I mean, it's funny, but it's true that no house is perfect, including the brand new ones.
There are even brand new construction inspections.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And this is probably a whole nother episode, but I think I told you the story of my sister who bought a brand new home from a contractor, a well-known contractor, which I'm not necessarily at liberty to discuss right at this moment. It was a brand new home, multimillion dollar house. We did a pre walkthrough and there were so many problems. I mean, so many. We're talking not just brand new construction. I mean, they just got the CEO. They haven't even finished the construction in the rest of the community. She was one of the first homes that had been finished building. There were so many problems, never mind cosmetic issues. The light was in the wrong place. The switch was on the wrong side of the house. They used the wrong tile. They forgot to secure the countertop. Never mind those little silly things. And a little scratchier on the wall. They forgot to paint the closet. Never mind those things. Nevermind, there were so many issues and I'll give you just a quick rundown. They actually moved in and moved right out within a few months. I don't even think they lived there for a full six months. They ended up having to rent an apartment, which they still live in two years later because they found black mold underneath all the carpet in all the bedrooms. There were five bedrooms, all the bedrooms. Was that a brand new construction? Brand new construction. Never lived in before. Still construction site. Black mold. They had to obviously shut off the A.C. and the plumbing was pitched in the wrong direction. So for those people who don't know, your plumbing, that your pipes underneath your home have to be pitched a certain degree towards your septic tank or towards the sewer system, whatever, so that as you flush your water, that water drains down those pipes into the sewer or the septic tank. And when it's pitched in the wrong direction, that water and that backwash comes back up. So after a couple of weeks of using the toilets and the bathrooms and the sinks there, all the sewer, all their sewage was coming back through all of their What do you call all of their drains? So after weeks of flushing and weeks of inspections, they finally hired a legitimate inspector to, not the contractor's inspector, but their own inspector. And they discovered that the plumbing was pitched in the wrong direction, like 10 degrees. So yeah, naturally that was never going to go anywhere. So they had to move out because the property was unlivable. Nevermind the threat
and the issue with the health issues we're talking about like sewer smells all the time the house it's not oh my god and that was brand new construction and if you're talking about monolithic uh foundation talking about mass and construction repairs yep
Yep. So before we even get to the end of this podcast, the word to the wise, the lesson to be learned here is make sure you hire a reputable inspector. Make sure you inspect your home, whether you're buying it cash, whether you're financing it through a lender, whether you're finding us through private money. Whether your uncle is lending you the money, it doesn't matter. Whatever it is that you intend to buy, house, condo, new construction, trailer, investment property, second home, vacation, it doesn't matter. Make sure you inspect it.
Make sure you inspect it. Also, I never stress it enough, be present with the inspection as well. Be there, ask the questions, look for your things too. You know, there's so much strife. The inspector is always happy, not happy when they get interrupted when they're working and looking for things and distracted by by all the things, but you know, be there, take your notes, take your observations. And at the end of the inspection, be present for the inspector to give you the previews of what's going to be on the report and ask them questions about even the things that you have seen. Sometimes the inspector don't see everything and ask questions. Maybe the things that you saw is not a big deal for the inspector or deal breaker and the inspector just went through it. I noticed it, but I'll explain it to you. This is not a thing that would affect anything on the property. So we're going to keep moving above it.
Right. Right. It's true. It's true. And yes, I think one of those things that comes to mind right now is sometimes when you see little cracks in the ceiling, people think that the house is falling apart.
And that may just necessarily, you know, it may not be just plaster, plaster tape or just wear and tear of the actual home.
Yeah, yeah, and there's settlement. I mean, there are settlement cracks in a property that houses do settle here. So that can be, you know, just a simple fix or it could be that the roof is indeed caving in, but you need an inspector to be able to tell you that. You can't just look at it and determine it's horrible or it's not a really big deal. You need somebody who is a professional, who is licensed, who is experienced to be able to tell you those things.
Yeah, in those cases, when the roof is caving, the attic is the one that has the last words. You're gonna have to get on top of the attic, check the trusses, check the beams, let's see what's the movement up there, what's the support.
Right, right, right, exactly, exactly. I actually did have a case like that many years ago. This was in Broward and it was a young couple, great property. We weren't sure whether the seller was, let's, I don't want to say the seller was lying, but the seller wasn't necessarily forthcoming with all the information we thought we needed to get from them. So of course, we had the inspection anyway, we were going to have it. And I remember the buyer was present and he looked in the garage and he said, that doesn't look great. And he that's all he said. He says, that doesn't look right. And it was in the front corner of the garage. And he saw a little bit of the roof sagging and some cracks and some some things there. And sure enough, when the inspector got to the attic, there was a big problem up there. So and it was just in that one corner. It seemed like there had been a prior leak and whatever was underneath the roof was never addressed. So they fixed the roof, new roof, everything looked great, but they never dried up and they never reinforced the beams underneath. And so over time, that part of the roof there decayed. And it was something that was coming down and it wasn't anything that was too serious or anything that couldn't be fixed. But had he not known originally to look for that or had he not known that it was OK to ask certain questions, he might not have gotten the answer he was looking for, which was some call it some reassurance from the inspector. There's a lot of times you see that you freak out and you said, you know what? I saw the roof caving in somewhere and I don't want to buy this house anymore. But it really wasn't that big of a deal.
Well, I mean, adding on that topic, Most sellers are honest, you know? And under no obligation to repair everything, you know, that they might find on the report. Like I said, no home is perfect. And most of the times they are even surprised of the things that you might find at the house. Sometimes they don't even know. And I got a couple of years back, I went to this house. I was the inspector for the buyers. And for the surprise of the sellers, The attic had burning wood. They didn't even know the house had fire before. I told them, do you have an inspector? And the answer was negative. No, my cousin, he's an electrician and he inspects the house. He went inside the attic. I don't remember. That was a few years back.
You learn. Yeah. Yeah. That's I'm glad you bring that up, because, again, we talk a lot about that in my podcast, the different episodes about hiring the right professionals. An electrician is not an inspector. If anything, that electrician should take a look at your electrical box, your electrical system. Even an inspector will be able to inspect that you want something more thorough, a deeper investigation. You hire an electrician to look at your electrical system. It's, it's like saying, I'm going to go to my cardiologist to see how my eyesight is doing. You wouldn't do that. And you wouldn't, you wouldn't do it by, you know, in the, in, in the inverse, you wouldn't hire a pool contractor to come and check your plumbing. For your roof. For your roof. So yes, that is that. And that happens a lot, a lot, a lot. And it's really sad because, again, you miss things that are that important. And that could be detrimental. See, and, you know, it happens a lot of times, like you said, you know, it's OK for the buyers to be present because sometimes, you know, an inspector will miss something here and there. You know, they're only two. There's only one set of eyes and he only has so much time in a day to comb through everything. But a lot of people buy a property, live in it for a few years, and then sell it. And they may or may not have done a thorough inspection when they bought it. And they probably don't know that something happened before they bought it. And they probably, that family or the owners of the property prior to don't know that something happened before that. So some things take time. to develop, let's say almost like a disease, if you will. Like if something was leaking somewhere and something began to rot, a lot of times the symptoms don't show right away, but they'll show over time. And the people who lived in there before you may not have seen it, may not have caught it, or maybe it wasn't an issue when they bought it, but it is now. So again, it's important to do a thorough investigation, a thorough, what did you call it? A forensic investigation.
Forensic investigation of the real estate property.
Exactly, exactly, exactly. What are some of the craziest things that you've seen?
Oh, you name it. One of the scariest one that I saw was a pounding water that I saw in one of the rooms. And there was water coming out of a receptacle outlet. What? Yes. I didn't even know what to recommend, a plumber or electrician. At the end, I recommend both. An electrician first to shut down the electricity and then the plumber to work on it for the safety of both. And yeah, there was a polybutylene pipe on the back of the wall that burst and was pounding water out of that receptacle. It was crazy.
Oh, my God.
Yeah. The other one was the fire in the attic that every time I said to my clients, no one paints an attic. Why would you paint an attic? No one's going to see it. That's right. And it was. So you scrap out of it and you may find barnwood and that's toxic to breathe. And yeah, many other things that I that I have found. But yeah, like you said, usually usually you can find the problem before you get worse. So especially on termites, let's talk about termites. And the first stage of termites, you may find the little wings all around the house. That's the first stage. And you still have time to prevent wood damage. And that's when you need a termite treatment. And usually it cannot be that costly of a tarp. You know, a tarp, it's like you need the whole house. You need a treatment for the entire house, usually when you just when you just see the first stage that when you when you start seeing those ones, you can start working on that specific area only and start doing local treatments and can now be costly so you prevent future costly repairs or damage, especially. when you find these type of things.
Yeah. Yeah, those spot treatments can be a few hundred dollars. I'm certain that there are degrees to that, depending on how much damage there is or how many spots you have to treat, how big the house is. But yeah, it's important to do that, too. I typically recommend, obviously, in addition to, say, a four-point inspection for people who are financing, I always say get a full inspection. If there's a pool, get a full inspection, get the pool checked out. And get a termite inspection too, because believe it or not, even though we don't have wood frame homes, they're not very common down here. We have a lot of CBS construction given our weather system here. We do get a lot of termites. We have termite season, and we do get a lot of termites. And for people who actually, I don't know if you know this or not, but people who are financing through the VA, in other words, getting a veteran approved loan, you have to have a termite inspection. It's not even a question of whether you think you might need one or whether you would like one. You have to have one. And if you have any termites were. Yeah. And every and if any termites were found, it needs to be treated. You have to provide a receipt of the treatment and a clearance from the inspector that there are no more that there are no more termites or that the termite infestation has been dealt with before you can get an approval on your VA loan.
So I mean, I don't want those. Yeah. Especially for VA.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So yeah, so tell us a little bit about the different types of inspections. I know that you can practically inspect, I mean, anything and everything under the sun, but what are some of the typical ones?
Yeah, just on insurance, the most typical one on insurance is the four point that you just mentioned. Four point insurance is the one that you need the main basics to requirements to apply for insurance. Right. Those includes the roof condition and the age of the roof, the HVAC, plumbing, and electrical system. Right. Those are the bare minimums that you need to qualify for insurance. If there is anything wrong there, you may not qualify for insurance. That needs to be fixed as soon as possible for you to qualify. The other one that goes next to it, it's wind mitigation. The wind mitigation is the uniform form that the state requires, especially in South Florida, for hurricane protection. That will help you lower that quote, depending on how your house is protected against hurricanes. A lot of times I get this, Oh, I got a, I got a new impact windows, but before I had shutters. If you have shot us before if your house was fully protected by shutters or cordials or. Any other type of protection approved by the county, you don't need to do any updates on it. It's the same credits. Correct. And then your house was fully protected. Also, people get nervous, oh, can I get part of the house with e-pads and the other part with shutters? It's the same thing. You just need to have everything protected. Every little, every single door, every little window needs to be protected. It's all or nothing. That's exactly right. That's on the side of insurance, which is kind of tough right now in this part of the state. And on the real estate transactions is the full home inspection, the comprehensive home inspections. Those are the must go. Every time you're doing that transaction, we're talking about 30 years of investment in your life. Yes. How much a house, what's the approximately cost of a house right now here in South Florida? We're talking about about $400, right? Oh yeah, easily. Regularly three bedrooms to about about $400.
Yes, in a distant suburb.
Exactly. So we're talking about less than 1% of that investment, you're going to invest it in a home inspection. I can never stress that enough. What will you save? A couple hundred bucks. And your next investment, we're talking about hundreds and thousands of dollars.
Absolutely.
For saving a couple hundred dollars that may cost you another thousands of dollars in the future. Oh, yeah. Many thousands of dollars in the future. Many. Yeah, so yeah, that's the comprehensive home inspections. Next to it, you can add on a few other inspections like visual wood destroying organism inspection. We are not terminators, but we can identify any type of pest control situation, rats, roaches, termites, wasps, bees, any type of insect wood destroying Even carpenter ants. A lot of people think that they have termites when they just have carpenter ants.
Interesting. What do those look like? I'm curious. Do they have wings too?
Yes. Carpenter ants, they have wings too. But the difference in the body structure. The termites have a smaller head, bigger body. Carpenter ants have bigger heads, smaller body. And the color too. The color too. The termites are a little bit more orange-ish. yellowish and the ants are a little bit of dark brown, black.
You know, I may I may have to hire you to come and check my house because and I'll tell you why. We, I mean, we, we have, I hate having ants of any kind, any color, any size in my house, including the little sugar ants. I don't, I just, I hate having anything that belongs outside inside my house. So I have my home exterminated every month. It's just a service I pay for. They come, you know, and they fumigate, you know, inside my garage, they fumigate my yard, et cetera, whatever. But I feel like it's every day or every other day, I find one, two, three or six ants with wings somewhere dead in my house. They're not necessarily walking around. Sometimes I catch them walking around and, you know, of course I deal with it right away, but I find them dead. And I said, okay, well, at least the extermination is working. But I asked my husband the other day, I said, why are they in here to begin with? I mean, we have impact windows. Nobody ever leaves a door open because I'm crazy about that. So how is it that we're constantly having something or, you know, some creepy crawler somewhere in the house? And so he said, I don't know, maybe they're coming in through the vents. I'm like, well, that's not that make me feel any better. But what if then they're in the walls? What if they're in the walls? What if it's something else? And now that you said carpenter ants, I think I'm going to need you to come in and and do an inspection for me.
I'll be more than glad to help. Usually they went through the attic as well. They find the comfort of the heat in the attic and sometimes some moisture that is, you know, coming inside the edge of the roof could be a ridge board that is not waterproof as well. And it's moist most of the time. It's not causing a leak, but it's getting wet because of the flashing. not doing their proper job or a dent or it could be anything.
We did have termites when we actually, funny enough, we did obtain a VA loan. We had our termite inspection before we moved. They found minor termites. We spot treated and that was it. So I waited a year and about a year and a half later, I re-inspected just to make sure that, you know, they hadn't come back. And that inspection said that we were fine. I feel like we'll probably do another inspection, say, now in the middle of the year. So now might be a good time. I don't necessarily have to wait till June or July to do it. Maybe they've come back or maybe it's what you're saying. Maybe they're carpenter ants and not termites, because I think termites are a little bit smaller, aren't they? Yes. Yeah. These are a little bit bigger, which is why I thought they were just regular ants. But I just noticed the other day they have wings.
Yeah. Those are carpenter ants. They fly too. Great. Yeah. Welcome to right.
So you and I are going to have to chat over. Yes, I'm going to make a note of that for sure, because I like to nip those things right in the butt, which is what people should be doing. They should be nipping those things early on. So when you do decide to buy a house, the very first thing, of course, when you're working with a professional, the very first thing you want to do, aside from putting your deposit down with your contract, is to call your inspector and make sure you have a few days on your side to be able to have a full, thorough inspection of the property. And it's like you said, the inspections really are not that expensive considering what they do. I don't mean to add any fuel to the fire anywhere, but I think inspections should probably be a little bit more expensive for what it is that you're getting. You're getting information on a property that you're going to own and you can either act or not on that. You can cancel the property, you can buy the property as is and decide to deal with those issues right away or wait. That's entirely up to you, but at least you know what the diagnosis is for the property. And it's like you said, there are a few hundred dollars at most, say a typical three, two, I don't know, say 2,000 square feet is well under $1,000. Even if you do the WDO, you do the wind storm mitigation, it's under $1,000 and you're spending 500 to buy it. I think it's a deal. It's a bargain. to pay $1,000 in inspections for a $500,000 property, especially if, I mean, what's the worst that can happen? You get an inspection report and it looks good, and you're like, hey, listen, the roof is in great shape, the HVAC's in great shape, there's no issue with the plumbing, the electrical is up to date. Great, peace of mind.
It's a peace of mind. It's a peace of mind investment. We're connected on that one. I couldn't explain it better. I wanted to say this to your listeners. Focus on what really matters. in a home inspection, you know, because the process can be very stressful. You know, you as a realtor, you know how it is, even for the buyer, the seller, realtors, anyone. On this transaction, the process can be really stressful. A home inspection is supposed to give you the reassurance, but often has an opposite effect on it. It will be asked to absorb a lot of information within that short time period. This often includes a written report with checklists, a bunch of photographs, environmental reports with what the inspector himself says during the inspection. All this combined with the seller disclosure and what you notice yourself make the experience even more overwhelming. every time. What you should do, relax. Most of your inspections will be maintenance recommendations, life expectancies, and minor imperfections. These are nice to know about. However, the issues that really matters will fall into four categories. One of them will be major defects. An example of this will be a significant structure failure. I always have this trick, Raquel. If you see a little tiny crack all around the wall, that could be just too cold. That just can be like moisture on just the aging of the building. Now, if you see a crack on the walls that have this staircase a staircase form, you know what I mean? Yeah, like a zigzag? Yeah, and you can feed a quarter inside that crack. Now we have a structural damage that can lead to water penetration. It doesn't mean that the building is going to fall apart, but that needs to be mitigated by a contractor, that stucco has to be removed, see what's going on with the veneer in the inside. and do the proper repairs. And for this to go back, paint it, and that's it. Maybe this is not a big deal, but those are the cracks that you may be looking for. If you fit a quarter inside those, that's a major problem. That's the one that you want to look at. things that may lead to major defects. I mean, a small water leak coming from a piece of the roof flashing, for example. That could lead to carpeted arms, for example. It's not going to cause leaks inside the house, but you have moisture water, moisture wood outside the house, which can lead from the attic vents inside the attic. They're going to find the warmest place where they can lay the eggs and then work on the on the moisture, yes. I have some crazy pictures about carpenter ants.
I don't know if I want to know.
I can tell you're a husband, I'm not telling you. So, yeah, another point is that the Things that may hinder your ability to finance the property. Legally occupy or insure the home, like structural damage caused by termite infestation. For example, we're talking about that. Safety hazards, such as a lack of GFCI outlets, especially in old houses. But now every time you're remodeling any bathroom, any kitchen, that needs to be by codes or standards of practices that needs to be installed, GFCI receptacles. But you'd still be surprised. You know, a lot of real estate investors or house flippers, they don't go by the codes. Most of them don't have license. Workers working on their homes. So that's mostly you need a home inspector. The prettier the houses, the more you need an inspector.
That's right. That's true. That's true because these investors come in and they pick up a property that maybe hasn't been updated in 20, 30, 40 years. And all they do is that they bring in their crew, they slap lipstick, like what they say, slap lipstick on a pig, and they turn it right back around and they sell it to you. And it's as you say, sometimes you walk into these homes and they've been redone from top to bottom, but you know when those properties are fixer uppers and when they've been done and lived in by the homeowner. There's a big difference and I don't know how to explain it necessarily. A lot of times it's just the type of work, right? Number one, the materials that they use and the type of work that they put into the property and the little corners that they cut. here and there to make a quick buck. They just need to get in and get out. It's just it's something about a property that, you know, when it's been just. Yeah. And you're right. When they come in, they come in. The goal is to get in and get out as quickly as possible. Time is money. And yeah, they'll cut corners like that.
Yeah, not not not to not to not to downgrade the real estate investors. No, of course not. But every time every time I have to work on a flip, I'm like, this is going to be a tough day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because because usually things are hidden. Yeah. Things are hidden. So you want to look you want to look extra. You want to go for the extra mile and seeing the. Yes. Miswiring connections, false wiring connections. Yes. Shock hazard all around the house. Conduits, electric panels altered with with with you may find a lot of things. Melting cables because they they they didn't put the correct gauge on the actual breaker in the panel. So we're talking about fire hazards, electrical fire hazards. So yeah, talking about big money.
You name it. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember you and I had this conversation also some time ago talking about how there are inspectors. I know that I typically bring some of this stuff up and some people might hate me for it, but it's the truth. And that's what this podcast is about. So it's about revealing some of the things that people don't know about and that happens in our industry, right? We'll have some realtors who are Let's say well acquainted with their inspector or in cahoots. I didn't want to use the word, but I really have to in cahoots with the inspector. And they say, I really don't want to lose this deal or my seller really needs to sell this house. Can you make sure that your inspection report isn't as scary? Let's say, you know, quote unquote, as as you might want it to seem, you know, can can we maybe not include this in the report? Or can you tell the client that this is not something they should worry about? And it's a real shame because they're putting them either in danger or at risk of, you know, being in financial trouble later on, because it's something that actually does have, could have a greater impact on the property in the long run. And I know you and I talked about that, which is unethical. It's unethical in the simplest form. It's just unethical behavior. And it's it's downright lying. And it's and it's a problem in our industry. I'm sure you've come across people who will who will encourage you to bend the rules.
Yeah, Raquel. Yeah, it's maybe happening right now there. And yeah, I prefer that realtor not to call me again. Yeah. I'm going to get the work, going to get the work and I'm going to do my job. I'm not going to disclaim that to the client because I don't want to I don't want to get that realtor in trouble, you know, in legal, legal issues, because that's that's something really serious. And but yeah, I prefer I prefer they're not to call me again with whichever they don't like the report. But I always tell my client, I work for you. I don't work for the realtor. That's right. I'm looking for your I'm taking care of your investment. Right. That's that's my my number one priority.
Right. And that's as it should be. That's as it should be. Unfortunately, though, we live in a town that's
The bad side of it, it's that you may not get more work from that from that realtor, but you probably don't want it. Yeah, exactly. I don't I don't I don't want I don't want that type of work. But at the end, you're creating this safe sphere around you of good realtors that they appreciate actually how you work and they really care about their clients. So it's a handful of realtors out there that they just, you know, just looking for the quick bucks and the easy movement, but there are some other realtors out there which I have a kind of a big group. I will say a few guys that I know that they are really honest on what they do and they really enjoy and appreciate the work that I do.
Good, good, yeah, as it should be. You know, and I know that for people who are out, let's say, you know, hunting for a house and they might be tuning in, they might be thinking, man, you know, how do you know you can trust this particular inspector or this particular agent? That's why it's important for you to take notes, let's say, when you're listening to an episode like this, where there are some things that you can do to safeguard yourself, which is number one is to ask questions. Number two is to, or actually, you know, even before you ask questions, make sure that you interview some of the, professionals you intend to hire, whether it's a realtor, whether it's an inspector, whether it's a lender, an attorney, a title company, and anything and everyone in between, make sure you're talking to these people. Like it's, you know, whenever I choose to work with someone, let's say, or they say, I need you to recommend someone to me. I say, I'm happy to recommend, let's say two, three, four, five, six lenders, because you need to feel comfortable working with that professional. You're going to be, disclosing a lot of pertinent and a lot of sensitive information, you need to feel absolutely comfortable with this person that you're going to be working with and you need to make that decision for yourself. And again, it's important for you to talk to these professionals before you hire them so that you can at least get a sense for their work ethic, Even their turnaround times, you know, are they working within the scope of time that you need them to? And what are they going to provide you? So interview those people, ask questions, be present at your inspection, right? As you said, be present in your inspection, make sure that you're looking around. Don't be afraid to ask questions. This report is for you and your knowledge and your use. Exactly. Yeah. And don't and don't be afraid to to push a little bit and say, I don't understand this. I need you to clarify this.
You don't have to. You know, you're not a professional. You just need to ask questions. As many questions that you have, the better you're going to be. That's right. The more the more. How do you say this? with more confidence, you're going to keep doing those steps of the big investment that you're going to do. Imagine start working, walking for the first time with your eyes closed. How safe are you going to feel?
Right, right, right. Exactly. Yeah, I say that all the time. It's important to be informative, right? Educate your clients, talk to them. How much are you disclosing? How much are you divulging? How much are you explaining? You have to remember that your clients don't know anything about what it is that you do. That's why you do what you do and they do what they do. I don't pretend to be an attorney. Attorneys shouldn't pretend to be real estate professionals. Real estate professionals shouldn't pretend to be inspectors. Inspectors shouldn't pretend to be lenders. And the story goes on. But the point is, you should be able to make informed decisions. And the only way for you to make an informed decision is to hire people who are willing, ready, and able to provide you with the information you need to make those decisions. So yes, it's important for you to identify the right people who are going to be on your team when it comes to purchasing a home. And even when it comes to selling, right, I know that we talked about this at the very beginning of our conversation, actually, we mentioned that you don't have to be a home buyer to have an inspection. Look at me, I just told you I was probably very likely going to hire you to come the next few days in the next week or so to come and check it out. I'm a homeowner, I'm not looking to buy and I'm certainly not looking to sell. I'm very happy where I live, but I feel I may have a problem and I'm going to need you to take a look at it. And when you're selling a home, I love, love, love to encourage my sellers. They don't always do it for their own reasons. They figure the buyer is going to have an inspection on their own anyway. But when it comes to, for example, estate sales, that's a really, really important one, because usually you're inheriting a property that you really have no clue. in what shape it's in. You really don't know, especially if you never lived in it before. Sometimes, you know, they say, oh my, this used to be the house I grew up in and, you know, it was my grandparents. Okay, but you haven't lived there in 25 years. You have no idea what happened in the last 25 years. You should probably get a property, a home inspection so that you can identify what are some of the big issues you might be able to address them. Maybe it's something small. You can address it now so that, you know, the buyer in the future doesn't try to, you know, undersell you on or undercut you on the sale. But it's important, yeah, for you to get ahead of some of those issues before you put the property on the market, especially if they could, you know, be detrimental to the sale or hurt you in the negotiations. So I'm sure you do a lot of those, right? Pre-listing.
Actually, yeah. Like you say, it's not really frequent. A lot of sellers don't see the idea of having a pre-listing inspection. But actually, last two weeks, I did one pre-listing inspection in Miami Lakes, and this gorgeous house was beautiful all around. But the roof, the roof was original from 2006. It was concrete tiles, really strong roof, but it was showing some type of defects. The cement was falling apart and the rich tiles were falling apart as well. And they were not aware of that. And I told them, you can fix it now for a few thousand dollars because this roof has more than 10 years of life expectancy because of the age of it. Or you wait for the buyers inspector to find it out and request you a new roof. Yeah. Now you invest $3,000 fixing those few tiles, or they may suggest you the idea of lowering you, negotiating you $30,000 down because they needed your growth. Right. Which is not true. Right.
Yeah, it's a tactic.
This is one of the most compelling thing about the pre-leasing inspection. The accurate pricing. You want to get the top dollar for your house, get a pre-leasing inspection. You may be The home that you've been living for 15 years, let's say. The other things of the benefits of the policing inspection is the transparency. Transparency that you're going to find. That allows the seller to identify and address the issues with the property up front. Promoting transparency and building trust with the potential buyers. Like I said, the accurate pricing. Knowing the true condition of the property enables the seller to set a more accurate leasing price. Faster sell process. The smoother it's gonna be that transaction. This is the inspection that I did before leasing the property. You can get your own inspector, get things inspected, but this is my material facts. That's not on a seller. This is what I have found on my house. And I fixed this and I fixed that. And these things, you can take it on your own. Like, this recycles, these light switches, you don't like it? Fix those yourself. You know, I don't think this is a deal breaker. But like, big material facts, like condition of the roof, condition of the AC, condition of the plumbing, condition of the electrical system. You may want to go ahead and do those because those can stop any transaction. That's right. Even pretending, you know, getting in the middle of even getting the house insured. If that guy is not getting insured, that deal is broken. There is no step forward from that. That's right. You can only sell to a cash buyer at that point. Exactly. Unless there is a cash buyer. But usually cash buyers are taking more care of the... I have been, I have been doing more inspections for cash buyers than for finance buyers. Interesting. Yeah. Finance buyers. I always get like, get me the basics. Sweetheart, what is the basic for you? Just insurance inspections. The front door. okay well here's my disclaimer sign here please i'm just doing the basic inspections for you just insurance inspection sign here all right so any other material facts that i may find in your house i'm not liable for
Right. And then they'll come. Oh, you didn't tell me that there was a major, I don't know, crack in the window in the back. Well, you asked me for a basic inspection. I'm not really sure how much more basic can it get.
We just did a four point and a one mitigation, which is the very minimum information that insurance companies require. That's it. If you want me to work harder, you have to pay more.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's worth it. And listen, going back to something else that you said, it doesn't even have to be. And I'm glad that you mentioned it because this works in the other direction, too. Let's say you are listing a property and you know the property is is I'll give you a let me actually let me speak from example. So I had this case. This was actually an estate sale. Of course, grandchildren inherited a property. They had no idea what condition was in. The house didn't look great. I knew the house had had to have more problems. They had no idea when was the last time the roof had been inspected or had been addressed. But they thought that maybe the grandfather had at some point changed the roof and they could have sworn it was during the last hurricane. And so we couldn't find any information in Dade County, not that that that we could automatically find. It would probably need a little more digging, say, from somebody like you, like an inspector. You have additional resources and you know exactly where to look for permitting information. Anyway, long story short, they finally took me on my advice to hire an inspector to do a pre-listing inspection. Sure enough, we found that the roof was like 35 years old, okay? The plumbing was in terrible condition. The electrical still had cloth wiring. you know, and, and, and, and. The property was in terrible shape. That allowed us to say, okay, now we're well aware of what the problems might be. We're not gonna fix any of them, right? Because we don't have the money. We don't care. We don't have the time. We just need to get this property sold. But now we know what the real condition of the property is in. I can take that information and re-evaluate the expected market value, knowing that the roof is garbage, they're going to need to replace it, knowing that the plumbing is also a problem, et cetera, et cetera. So now we can adjust the price and not waste any time by overlisting the property and realizing that deal after deal after deal falls through because nobody can afford to practically demolish this place and start from scratch. So that is really important. Just because you get a pre-listing inspection doesn't mean you have to address those issues. It just means that now you know what you're up against. You know that the next inspector is more than likely going to find the same issue. They may miss the little crack in the corner. They may forget to, I don't know, test the outlet in the back bedroom, but they're not going to miss or they shouldn't miss, you know, a decaying roof. They're not going to miss the leak, you know, in the plumbing leading to the laundry room. They're not going to miss those things. They're not going to miss the fact that you have a double tap in your electrical fuse box. So you don't have to fix them, but now you know what you're up against and you can price accordingly so that you don't waste your time or anybody else's and you can get the property sold, which is at the end of the day, what everybody wants. You list your property is because you want to sell it. So You know, knowing the more you know about your property, the better you are, the more informed you are to make, again, decisions that are in line with your goals. And I think and I love that that's how you work, too.
Yeah, definitely, definitely. I mean, overall, releasing inspection can be very valuable tool for sellers because in this case, help them to showcase their priority in the best possible light. Attract serious buyers. This is what I have. And this is, this is everything, but this is my material facts. This is what I have fixing on the house. This is what I have don't fix on the house. So you may have to address this in the future and facilitate a smoother, more efficiency sales process. You don't want to have that listed, that house listed for 200 days. You know, in the market, people are going to be saying, okay, what's wrong with this house? Not even, may not even looking into it, not even, you know, throw an offer. It's true. It's true. It's just a reflect.
That's right. That's right. That's right. Well, thank you. I do appreciate you coming on today and sharing a little bit of information and some insight as to the inspection process. As you said, as you mentioned earlier, that it is a scary process. It is time consuming. It can be frustrating. It does take its time. And if you work with the right professionals, then you can rest assured that they're looking out for your best interests and they're dotting your I's and crossing your T's and making sure that you have as much information in your hands as possible so that you can make a decision. Again, that's in line with your goals and your family's goals. Do you have any parting words, any suggestions, any words of wisdom, anything that you want our listeners to know after our conversation today?
I just want to say to all the real estate transactions out there, especially the buyers, which are the most stressful one out there, take a breath, call an inspector, because peace of mind is just an inspection away.
That's right. That's good. I like it.
Yeah.
I like it. I will certainly have you back at some point in the near future, hopefully, to talk about maybe, I don't know, anything else that we can consider part of the inspection process. The inspection, I mean, even though we talked about it very broadly, very generally, it can be very specific, right? We can talk about a lot of little things that we find, maybe some tips and tricks, you know, to help you maintain your home. We can talk about all those kinds of things maybe in a future episode, and I'd love to have you back.
Yeah, there are many other there are many other topics that we can touch up on and, you know, look into it deeply, like IR visual inspections for electric panels or commercial roof or sewer camera inspections. Yes. A lot of people don't even think about it, especially in older houses. And but yeah, there is a lot of topics that we can talk in the future. There's a lot of there's a lot of things for home inspections. Like I said in the beginning, no house is perfect. That's it.
That's awesome. It's so true. Thank you so much, Hugo. I really appreciate your time today and I look forward to having you back.
I really enjoyed this. Thank you so much.
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