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So, if the agent tells you thatto the best of their knowledge, the home has no CD, and the inspector finds CD, you will not place any blame on the agent for costing you the inspection fee?
That thought never entered my mind, because I never took it that far, and while society as a whole is very litigious, I've never sued anyone in my life. It just isn't on my radar screen.
If someone says "to the best of my knowledge" then I ask them what they did to get their knowledge. If the buyer's agent (mine) is told by the selling agent that a property doesn't have CD, then that would be ok. We would still look for it in the house and proceed with caution. But I would still want to know if the selling agent has personal knowledge of a neighborhood, or if they have knowledge about the builder. Believe it or not, SOME real estate agents have info they can give you right off the top of their head. Interesting concept huh? Actually knowing an area, and being able to speak intelligently about it without having to look something up?
This whole conversation is unbelievable. I'm looking for a real estate agent who can actually do something besides gather info off a computer or show us a few houses, and I'm accused of wanting to sue someone. Pathetic. I suppose if we were coming in from Michigan it would be OKAY for us to have to make multiple trips and "take our chances" with the drywall each and every time? Of course not. That's an asinine assumption. The agent would do their friggin' homework and have the RIGHT houses ready for viewing when the buyer came into town. That's all we're asking for here, because each trip we're out about $100. We're not wanting to sue someone for God's sake.
Since the agents here have offered nothing but excuses, it reinforces my idea that there are a lot of lazy agents out there. They want a ton of money, but they want to do as little as possible for it. At least that is what I've gathered from this conversation.
Since the agents here have offered nothing but excuses, it reinforces my idea that there are a lot of lazy agents out there. They want a ton of money, but they want to do as little as possible for it. At least that is what I've gathered from this conversation.
Maybe it's the way you are phrasing things that we aren't getting what you are wanting. When you come out and say that you have had bad luck with three agents and call them lazy because they don't want to call builders to find out if the houses have CD, that tells me you have an expectations problem. You are clearly frustrated with the agents that you have run into. It might be the agents, or it might be the way you are communicating with them.
I'm not sure that you realize how negative your tone is on this forum.
So what I would do if I were you...
The next time you go to Naples, meet with three agents whose blogs, websites...whatever, appeal to you, personally. Then sit down with them and explain what it is that you expect.
1) I expect you to call the listing agent to find out if there is any CD in the house.
2) I expect you to find out who the builder was and call them to find out if there is any CD in the house.
3) If there isn't any to anyone's knowledge then send us those ones to look at.
I totally understand why you are vehement about not having a house with CD. I've had a house with LP siding and EIFS...so I get the defect thing from personal experience. You either need to go into this with the mindset that you are going to end up spending extra money on home inspections because you will discover CD in homes, or avoid homes from that time frame. This isn't just about CD anymore. American companies that make drywall are also having problems in FL. 1/4 of the complaints about drywall are from AMERICAN drywall companies. Not Chinese.
What the agents on this forum are trying to get across to you is that we would expect 99% of the time for the answer to 1 and 2, to be no, there is none. So our concern for you and the agent you hire is that your agent will spend time making those calls and then you will dump your agent after you spend inspection money after inspection money on houses which turn out to have CD. And you will be right back where you are now which is frustrated.
...Believe it or not, SOME real estate agents have info they can give you right off the top of their head. Interesting concept huh? Actually knowing an area, and being able to speak intelligently about it without having to look something up?...
I believe it . What you are asking for is not something the average agent would be knowledgeable about, especially to the point of being able to identify with any certainty which homes have CD. Perhaps areas with the highest concentration of CD would have more agents aware than agents in other areas just because more potential buyers would be concerned.
I would be happy to ask the selling agent and builder if they are aware of any CD in the home. However, my advice to you would be to take their answer with a grain of salt and verify with an inspector.
I'm not saying you would sue anyone. However, there are others who probably would, and do. Agents have to be careful with any buyer that asks for information not in their area of expertise. I don't call that being lazy, I call it being prudent.
FYI, if you want authoritative info on Chinese drywall, try the CDC Drywall Information Center. Yes, I know, I ran off to the computer instead of having this information memorized - what can I say, I'm lazy . By the way, this is included in the Arizona Buyer's Advisory that we give to our clients.
Thanks rjrcm for the info. Um, I wouldn't expect someone to have all that info in their head!
I got a pm from a realtor in the Naples area, who ran into the same problem when moving to the area a few years ago, so... knows exactly what we're talkin' about. I'm not sure you guys can appreciate how much CD is here in southern Florida, and especially in Lee county, which is where Naples is. There is a TON of it, and believe me, the agents come to know where it is, that is, if they are semi-conscious.
When we went on one of our wasted trips over there...the time where 2 of the 4 houses we looked at had it, the real estate agent was just LAZY. Didn't make any calls ahead of time to the selling agents or anything. Ok, how HARD is it to pick up a phone and ask the selling agent one question? So yeah, LAZY is the word.
Anyway, when we were out with said lazy agent, I guess a lightbulb went off in her ditzy head when she noticed a lot of those PODS storage containers sitting in many driveways. Yeah, that was a CLUE that there was something wrong in the neighborhood.
I'm glad I found someone who "gets" it, and doesn't think we're just wanting to sue somebody. That is a realistic concern, but that is with ALL RE transactions, so, that was just kind of a strange thing to come up as an excuse.
Laura, Most states have sellers fill out a sellers disclosure about what they know about the house. I would think Florida would have updated their disclosure to address the issue of CD since it appears to affect the house.
Have you looked at any of the disclosures from some of these homes to see if it addresses the issues ? That might be an easy way to verify a problem.
Laura, Most states have sellers fill out a sellers disclosure about what they know about the house. I would think Florida would have updated their disclosure to address the issue of CD since it appears to affect the house.
Have you looked at any of the disclosures from some of these homes to see if it addresses the issues ? That might be an easy way to verify a problem.
That is a great idea! Thanks. We could ask our agent to contact the selling agent and review the disclosure form. In some cases I would think if it wasn't on there, the selling agent could also call the seller too, just to double check.
See, I KNEW it couldn't be that hard to figure out! I'm guessing you are one of the more "in demand" agents, since you look for solutions rather than excuses. (If you can't already tell, I really HATE excuses when someone is supposed to be a professional. )
Thank you, Our MLS system has for the last few years allowed us to post Disclosures, Surveys and any other important document in the system as a PDF file.
If they have that in FL, the agent could just download the form and email your way. If it is disclosed and the Disclosure is on line it would save him a lot of work.
Edit: Not all houses have disclosures. Foreclosures and REO would be exempt from a disclosure. Sellers disclosures are also only as good as the honesty of the seller. If the house did have a problem and the seller was not aware you would also not see that on the disclosure since it's "what they know" of the home.
Last edited by Rakin; 12-14-2009 at 03:39 PM..
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. What you are asking for is not something the average agent would be knowledgeable about, especially to the point of being able to identify with any certainty which homes have CD. Perhaps areas with the highest concentration of CD would have more agents aware than agents in other areas just because more potential buyers would be concerned. 
. By the way, this is included in the 
.
We could ask our agent to contact the selling agent and review the disclosure form. In some cases I would think if it wasn't on there, the selling agent could also call the seller too, just to double check. 
