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It's not the realtor's job to research anything in the area you're looking to buy except comparable listings. It's YOUR responsibility to research the neighborhood, schools, crime rates, and sex offender registry. With this obviously being a concern of yours, why didn't you check this out beforehand?
My husband and I are closing on our home next week. During the search, one of the first things I checked BEFORE we even saw a property was the sex offender registry. We have a young son so it's very important! If there were any child sex offenders in a close radius it was off the table. Onto the next possibility. The number of sex offenders is disturbing and honestly I wish the worst ones would all just be shipped off to their own little island forming their own little colony. But since the laws continue to be a joke, you need to take your (and your family's, if applicable) safety seriously and ALWAYS do your own research!!!
sure, everything is public info. But why should an agent get 3% if you have to do the work yourself?
Because the agent is doing way more work then you can imagine? They don't get an hourly wage. Just the commission. If you're making the decision to purchase what is the biggest purchase of your life, you need to have a better mentality then that...
My husband and I are first time home buyers. Just by having common sense I knew to check the registry, research schools, crime rates, comparing the pro's and con's of homes we saw, researching "issues" that came up on the inspection, finding answers to anything I was second guessing, etc. It's just smart thinking!
Actually there is no regulation or law that keeps an RE Agent from telling you about sex offenders or schools or crime or anything else you may care about. I personally do it all the time...though reasonably carefully. You have to be careful not to certify that there are no sex offenders...as there is no way you can know that.
RE Brokerages discourage telling any of that to a client to avoid liability if it turns out to be wrong. The classic is a family buys a home in School B to find out 2 months later it is now is School G.
You also need to be careful of things that correlate with minorities. The Feds can get all upset.
sure, everything is public info. But why should an agent get 3% if you have to do the work yourself?
There is a lot the real estate agent does not do for you in that 3%. He's not going to give you a termite inspection out of that 3%--you're going to have to do that.
He's not going to tell you if the house suffered water damage five years earlier.
He's not going to tell you if the attic insulation is sufficient for your area. He's not going to tell you if the water pressure is adequate.
He's not going to tell you if the guy next door is a drug dealer.
Realtors aren't going to tell a prospective buyer anything that will cause them to rethink the purchase of a property. Some Realtors here will come behind me and bash me (again). The idea of a "buyer's agent" is just a way to make buyers think they have someone on their side. In reality, it's not true.
I've had some do exactly that. I've even had a seller's agent tell me, "This house has problems you need to consider before I even show it to you."
We're currently househunting. Rarely are the homes we look at listed with the same agency as our Realtor. When we walk into a house, it's usually his first time walking into it as well.
Yes, he often points out problems--it's not doing him any good not to point out something that we're going to discover in subsequent inspections.
In the paperwork I signed for my buyer's agent there's paragraph about the sex offender notification laws and that it is recommended I check it out. I had to initial that I read that paragraph.
So I was expected to do the research myself. But they gave me a heads up/reminder to do it.
On our auditor site, when you look up a property there's a link to take you directly to the sex offender website for that address. They make it easy for people to find that information.
And you do realize that some offender could have moved into a house across the street the day AFTER you closed, right? There's no escaping the risk entirely, I'm sorry to say.
Section 6a, page 5, of the Arizona Residential Purchase Contract, lines 190-192 read: "If the presence of sex offenders in the vicinity or the occurrence of a disease, natural death, suicide, homicide or other crime on or in the vicinity is a material matter to the Buyer, it must be investigated by the Buyer during the inspection period."
Also, the cover sheet to the contract, called the Buyer's Attachment mentions, at the bottom a Buyer's Advisory that you can find online at Arizona Association of REALTORS®. Our agency requires us to give this to our buyer, and they have to initial each page and sign the last to prove that they received it. On page 8 "conditions affecting the surrounding area of the property" there is a paragraph on Sex Offenders with websites provided so that the buyer can look these up if this is important to him.
It makes me sad to read the comments on here regarding Real Estate Agents. I think that the majority of us do everything we can to make a real estate transaction as positive as we can for our clients. A happy client tells his friends and family, and helps us grow our business. It does us no good to cheat our clients in any way.
As an agent to the buyer, we work in YOUR best interest, not the seller's. We have a fiduciary duty to YOU. I don't know of any buyer's agent that would be upset with a buyer if they wanted to back out of a contract because of a sexual predator. There are plenty of houses out there, one of them will be the right one for our buyer, selling them a house that they aren't happy with is not good for us or for our buyer.
I'm sorry that you must have had a bad experience with a Realtor in the past, but most of us really do have our client's best interest at heart and do our very best to make sure they make a decision that they are happy with.
When I was looking to buy my house, it would have never occurred to me to expect my realtor to check crime stats and sex offender registries. That's something I did on my own. Being a first-time buyer, I searched online for tips on choosing a home, and did the things suggested, such as driving by the house on different days and different times to assess the neighborhood, checking crime reports and registries in the area, and so on. The reports are helpful tools, but they don't protect people from transients and non-compliant offenders. It's a good idea to do your own due diligence before and after you buy the house.
Just purchased a home and like 3 hours ago we were told that we have a level 3 sex offender living right next door. Is there not a law that obligates realtors to disclose information about sex offenders while showing property?
Out of curiosity, how did you find out?
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