Ask Realty Times - February 4, 2005
by Peter G. Miller
Question: We have bought a house and discovered that the main living area is 100 sq. ft. less than what was shown in the description provided by the real estate company. We just moved from a 1,300 sq. ft. home to this house with supposedly 1,500 sq. ft. Seemed small, so we called the agent who sold us the house. He did come over and measured it for us and told us it a lot smaller. What can we do? Answer: Life has certain mysteries and one of them concerns the size of a home. The world understands how to measure the size of a lot, but when it comes to improvements the answer is not so certain: Do we measure from the external dimensions or inside the home wall-to-wall? Halfway into walls as might be the case with a condo? Do we count the garage? Basement? A well-lit basement with many practical uses? What about an upstairs room in a Cape Cod with a sloped roof? Etc. It may well be that the count is not off at all -- depending on who does the measuring and how they measure. Question: We have just moved to a new area. My husband and I were referred to a real estate agent through his company to show us around and take to houses that are for sale. My husband and I also have been looking ourselves and found a house on our own to buy that was being built as a spec home. We had our agent write a contract on the house and it was not accepted. So we moved on for a few weeks and then we went back to the sub-division and ask the agent there if a particular lot was going to become available. He thought so and got back to us. How can I nicely severe our ties peacefully with the first agent or should I really include her in the purchase of this new home. She has spent a lot of time as well as I have going out on my own. The main purpose for the question also is the fact that the sub-division agent has done all the work on this deal and the other agent only knows about the possibilities. By not having another party representing us some of that commission that would have gone to her would go to us in the form of a lower price. Any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated. Answer: It's not possible to unravel all the potential issues here, but let's start with a few: First, do you have a buyer brokerage agreement with the first agent? If yes, is it exclusive or non-exclusive? When does it end? Does it have a "protection" period to assure the broker receives a fee for home shown during the term of the agreement? Second, the agent "introduced" you to the builder. Does that mean he or she has an eternal claim to all sales on the site? (In other words, did the agent set in motion a chain of events leading to the transaction?) Third, did the first agent "abandon" you and lose an opportunity to earn a fee? You can see where this is going: The first agent may have an entirely different view of what took place and demand a commission. Your goal is to buy a house. If the new house is the one you want, have the developer and broker agree to binding arbitration so that in the event of a dispute between them no claims will be made against you. See an attorney for details before signing anything. Question: We purchased a six-year old home a couple months back. We were in our last week prior to close and on our final walk-through after the sellers moved out we noticed stains in the carpet everywhere the sellers had area rugs and large furniture. We obviously were upset at this and we asked to have the carpets cleaned. The seller's agents offered to have the carpets cleaned prior to close. Well here comes the tricky part, the carpets did not end up getting cleaned until the day of closure, the carpet cleaning company told the sellers agents the stains came out when in fact every stain remained. We could not stop escrow at this point. We then had the sellers agents over to look at the carpet condition and they agreed the stains did not come out and asked us what we would like to do. We said we wanted the carpets replaced. They then told us to get an estimate and they would let their clients know and get back to us. Well the sellers feel they did everything they needed to do and refused to do anything about the carpets. What can we do now? We filed for small claims against the agents because the sellers moved out of state. Shouldn't these stains have been disclosed? Answer: The home is six years old, thus some wear and tear is simply the normal result of living in the property. For this reason it is unlikely that you are entitled to new carpets. Moreover, the carpets were cleaned by the agents. That is not to say they were returned to their original condition, merely that the owners tried to accommodate your concern. When you move into the home how many of the stains will be covered by your furniture and area rugs? You have sued the agents in a small claims court and the judge is likely to ask some questions: Did the agents represent you, the seller's or both? Was a proper agency disclosure made? Was a proper seller disclosure provided? Did the sellers hide the stains or did they simply prefer area rugs? This is a problem which likely could have been avoided by requiring completion of the carpet cleaning so many days before closing. If you were then dissatisfied you might have been able to get a credit at closing for some or all of the damage. Assuming all disclosures were made and nothing was hidden, the betting here is that your day in court will not produce more than a token check -- if anything. Question: Can you give me a source which gives the current total of interest-only, adjustable-rate and fixed-rate mortgages around the country, also broken down by regions or states? Just the ballpark numbers will do. My objective is to determine the amount of speculative activity in the real estate market by comparing different types of loan activity. Answer: Yes. A good resource would be the recent column by Ken Harney in The Washington Post entitled, "Forecast for Prices Is Partly Cloudy" (January 29, 2005).
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