“Don’t do what I did,” says a chorus of buyer’s agents who made buying mistakes in the past.

Buyer’s Agents, heal thyselves! A lot of buyer’s agents made huge mistakes when they bought their own houses, before they found out about buyer agency and entered the profession. They worked with agents who had not interest in helping them negotiate the best price and terms, they worked with agents who didn’t know how to negotiate the best price and terms, they worked with agents who didn’t care whether they got the best price and terms. Read the stories.

One of the things that I admire about NAEBA (National Association of Exclusive Buyers Agents)  is that they are the kind of people who, when they see something that is wrong, they find a solution.

by Ron Rothenberg, 4 Buyers Real Estate

Conventional water heaters have always bothered me. Why would anyone install an appliance that is guaranteed to fill your basement with water the moment its warranty expires?

The age of the conventional water heater may be ending. I’m happy to see many more Indirect Hot Water Heaters and more Demand (tankless or instantaneous) water heaters installed in existing houses, but I also see many new conventional water heaters installed, too.

Most hot water systems are installed on an emergency basis, after the old one has failed, and homeowners and and plumbers don’t put much thought into doing anything except replacing what’s currently there. It’s also a pricey repair, and not many people are thinking about investing in the future, when the new system will fail 7-10 years hence.

Over the years, I’ve considered prophylactic non-emergency hot water heater replacement, but somehow never got around to that before the tank failed. It’s a good idea if you can do it. Plumbers charge much less when installing hot water heaters on a pre-need basis.

I’ve tried monitoring for rusty hot water, a sign that a hot-water heater is nearing the end of its life and entering its incontinent phase, but to no avail. As much as I try to outsmart these devices, every few years I”m greeted by a basement full of warm water and an urge to call a plumber.

You can buy a simple moisture alarm that costs about $15 that will make noise when the floor around the tank gets wet, but what good is that if you’re not home?

If you must have a conventional water heater, there are now better solutions to the wet basement problem. Most cost substantially less than the cost of cleaning up a flood. I have yet to see one of these installed in a house. I think most homeowners and plumbers unaware of it, but I’m hoping that will change soon.

One solution is so simple, I’m surprised it’s not standard on all hot water heaters. A moisture sensor coupled with a water intake shutoff valve.

The moisture meter goes on the floor, near the hot water tank, and the valve goes on the cold water line that feeds the hot water heater. When the moisture meter first detects water on the floor, the valve will shut off the water intake and sound the alarm. The most water you can lose from the tank is the contents of the tank., and you can contain most of that with a

One of of these floodproofing systems is The Floodmaster FM-094 Hot Water Heater Feed Water Alarm/Shut-Off – this sells for about $200.

Another one is the Onsite Pro Water Heater Floodstop

http://www.getfloodstop.com/Water_Heater_FloodStop_p/fs34npt.htm

This one appears easier to install and sells for around $125.

As for me, when I had my new heating system installed, I had it plumbed for an indirect hot water heater. The next conventional hot water heater that breaks in my house will be the last one.

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I just spoke to Loren Shapiro at Asset Mortgage.  He’s an all-around good guy and trusty lender. He called his credit rep to fact-check on a question that frequently comes up:

Suppose I want to shop around for a lender. Does my credit get damaged by having multiple lenders making credit inquiries (checking my credit score)?

The answer is that you can shop around for a lender for a big purchase, like a house or a car, without having a significant impact on your credit score. Credit bureaus deduct a few points for the first inquiry, but do not penalize you for subsequent, similar inquiries that you make within the same 30 days. (After 30 days, a few more points get deducted.)

Inquiries for revolving credit, like credit cards, carry a higher deduction of your score. Each inquiry matters.

My advice is to shop around once, then choose the lender you think will be reliable. Go back to that lender when you find your house or condo.

by Ron Rothenberg, 4 Buyers Real Estate

Usually the buyers I work for have a bit of time. If we can’t see a house one day, we’ll see it the next, though frequently we just move on and never see the houses that were unavailable on the first day.

Recently I had some relocating buyers. They had a very short timeline, just a few days to see houses in four different towns. They were realistic, and realized that they didn’t have the time to get a wonderful deal, but wanted to make the best choice they could in about a week, even though it meant paying a bit more than the house was worth.

Most of the towns they were looking in are ones where the current real estate market is very heated – good houses are getting snatched up in a few days, and there’s not a lot of inventory to look at. But there were a few houses in this, just seven that were still available, according to the MLS, so I set out to show them a few of those.

To my surprise, most of the remaining homes weren’t easy to see. On two, the seller had set restrictions on what hours the house could be shown, one having only two 2-hour windows per week to show the house. Three required the listing broker to accompany our showing, even if the house was vacant. On another, the listing broker just wasn’t around, she was on vacation and not returning calls.

Why were these houses the leftovers in an otherwise hot town? Some were a bit overpriced, some were ugly or small, but others looked as if they were nice houses, but we’ll never know, since we couldn’t see them.

Please, Mr. & Mrs. Seller, don’t lock ready, willing and able buyers out. Make your home available to us. If it’s a nice home at a fair price, I’d be happy to help my buyers buy it, if only you’ll let us in.

One of the best training tools for me, as a buyer’s agent, has been to take classes designed by seller-centered real estate companies to teach agents how to “handle” house buyers. I got most of my early education in a real estate world that expected all agents to be working for the seller. That’s where I first heard “buyers are liars.”

A little history: Until the mid-00s, there was a relationship called “seller’s sub-agency.” A seller’s agent drove buyers around, opened the door and sold the house for the company that was on the sign outside. If the seller’s agent worked for the company on the sign, it was seller’s agency; if the agent worked for another company, it was sub-agency. The sub-agent never met the seller, but had the obligation to work for the best price and terms for that seller. The real estate agents knew the buyers, asked lots of questions about what they wanted, but the negotiation was stacked against the buyer.

When I first started in real estate, residential buyer’s agency was just beginning. I did a handful of transactions as a seller’s subagent, then went to buyer agency only. Although the days of treating buyers like a customer are over, legally, some of the bad attitude that the buyer is just not buying to annoy the agent, lingers. Thus, the old saw “buyers are liars.”
Buyers are not liars. Buyers often do not know what they want until they see it. There is a trial and error period when they are working to get the right balance between size, location and condition. Here’s a case in point.

I started with some new buyers last week. We went house hunting for the first time this past weekend. At our consultation and planning meeting, the new client said something along the lines of, “this is my forever house, so I don’t want to be on a busy street.” Dave Twombly and I created lists of houses to see. We avoided houses on busy streets, which was easy since there are a lot of choices for these buyers. The buyers chose some of those, plus a house at a traffic light on a busy street. Buyers are liars? No! Buyers need time to learn the marketplace.
The house looked really good to them and it was (barely) in their price range. The reason such a nice house was in their range was because the location was a problem for most people. At first showing, they were excited about it. The room dimensions were good, the condition was good, the size was a little small inside and perfect outside.
I went back with them on Sunday. The crowded open house made them realize how small the house was. Their perception changed. They realized that this compromise on location wasn’t worth it. It was a good choice after all. They learned something about their need for interior space.

On the way back to the car, my buyer commented that the traffic was “so much worse” on Sunday than Saturday (when Dave showed the house.) I smiled broadly and said, “I don’t believe you.”

These clients eventually chose a house on a quiet street that, in many ways, was a lot like the one they saw that Sunday. Congratulations to D and L! They close this month.

The national seller’s market doesn’t mean a thing to buyers who have been picking through leftovers for the past four months. To the buyers who I saw swarming open houses, I say “Just Say ‘No’ to Bidding Wars.” 
Or if you are saying ‘yes,’ to a bidding war, know what you are doing.

I am fairly cynical and often wonder how many bidding wars have phantom offers or are just dud bidding wars. (One agent was bragging that 85 parties came through last week. It was aimed to scare my buyer into an offer. What I hear is that 85 parties rejected the place at that price last week.)

So, how do we respond to a hurry-up?

Since there is no way to know if the offers on the table are viable, or if the offers expected are going to show up, as a buyer, you need to make some decisions. I look at these things to determine what advice I will give to the buyer who wants a “hurry-up special”:

1. Sale time on similar properties early last spring.
2. The price of this property compared to similar properties sold last spring and since then.
3. My perception of the number of buyers who saw it and what they were thinking. (If it is open at an open house, I watch the expression of the other buyers.)

Asking prices can be way over or somewhat under what the house is worth, based on a Comparative Market Study. But first, consider that asking price is an awful measure of whether a buyer is getting a good deal. I contend that asking price is a fiction created by the seller or the seller’s agent or both that reflects the wishful thinking of the seller or the seller’s agent, or both.

For a seller or listing agent to identify a price that is compelling for a buyer is both science and art. It is not so easy to find a price that will make a number of buyers jump. The masters and mistresses of the bidding war do just that. The ones who do it well are very good at Comparative Market Analysis (CMA.) It’s done by looking at the properties that are most like the one for sale, the “target.” The like-kind properties’ prices are then adjusted so one can compare apples with apples, by deducting value from the target for things that are worse and adding value to the target for things that are better.

Once they establish a market price, they list the house at or just below the market value, where they expect a number of buyers will respond. The risks: if the price is too high, no war; if the demand is lower than expected, it is hard to bring the price up again (although some do it.)

For our clients, we do the CMA on the buyer’s side to help them establish the point where they could be overpaying for the house. By knowing the walk-away point, a buyer can go into a bidding war without losing his/her/their head. The most important thing for a buyer to do is to keep a perspective. If the property is unique (special architecture or special location) there is more reason to go into a bidding war. If the property is typical for the area, consider sitting out the madness.

by Ron Rothenberg, 4 Buyers Real Estate

Black & Decker Thermal Leak Detector

I’d try to triangulate the entry points of drafts, then vanquish them with the caulk gun. All this effort served to make my home more comfortable and probably saved me a load of money. Of course, I’d also wind up with singed fingertips, and burn marks on the rug.

This year, I’m fighting drafts two-fisted. I sling the caulk gun in one hand, and my Black & Decker Thermal Leak Detector TLD100 in the other. It helps me find the draft, and I’m far less dangerous to my fingers and the carpeting.

It’s really just an infrared thermometer but someone had the bright idea to add projecting colored LEDs that will change colors as you move the beam over hot and cold spots.

You aim it at any surface and it reads the temperature and the light shines green. As you move the beam across your walls, the light will change colors – to red for hot-spots, to blue for cold-spots. You can set the sensitivity of the device for changes of 1, 2 or 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

It’s such a simple idea, and it works.

With my new toy, I found a few leaks around some windows, and a portion of a wall that missed getting insulated 25 years ago.

Check out Black & Decker’s video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpifuiVpv2w

The best parts, in addition to the energy savings, it’s very reasonably priced at about $35. It’s also useful for testing the efficiency of your insulation. It’s also a great conversation starter at parties.

There are a lot of steps to take when purchasing a home.  Whether it’s a condo in Cambridge or a 2800 square foot ranch in Bedford there are a number of things that have to happen.  Of course, being educated followers of 4 Buyers you know most of these things, but not everybody does.

Before you start your search you have to get pre-approved for a mortgage from a (hopefully reputable) lender.  Then there’s the search.  You may see 6 properties, you may see 60 but once you find the future home of your dreams, things happen quickly.  You make your offer, it gets accepted and then you just get your mortgage and move in right?   (This is where you chime in with “Of course not Dave! You get a home inspection.”)  Those of you who said that get a gold star (and don’t have to continue reading).  Those who didn’t, read carefully.

The home inspection is the single most important step before you buy a property.  Your friendly neighborhood Buyer’s Agent should be able to point out major flaws (the roof is old, there’s water damage here, there is asbestos that needs to be taken care of etc).  A really good Buyer’s Agent can tell you that the floor is sagging and there is deflection in a doorway which is a sign of a foundation sinking etc).   But a home inspector is the licensed expert who can point out things large and small (and often the sum of the small things is more than you want to spend). They can also educate you about how your future home works.

Recently, however, I was out with clients who found a lovely home they wanted to purchase.  They made an offer, it got accepted and we moved onto the inspection.  The inspector started to point out some issues and compile a list (they will give you a full written report of their findings, usually within a day of the inspection). He found two major issues, one knob and tube wiring which is an immediate red flag (more likely, immediate fire work display) and then noticed the foundation, in one corner, had sunk an inch.   When conveying this to the listing agent (and being amazed that there was still knob and tube wiring in the house, which is incredibly antiquated and dangerous) he informed us that the current owners didn’t have the house inspected prior to purchasing.  Now, I might be biased but this blew my mind.  My clients walked away from the house as the issues were too many and too serious (sinking foundations are a deal breaker)

A few houses later, my clients found another (and better) house to purchase. They made an offer, it was accepted and we moved to the inspection.  This house was very solidly built and had no major issues, however we learned from the owner that he also didn’t have a home inspection when he bought the property.    Once again, mind blowing.

Perhaps the sinking foundation will last the years you own the house, or the knob and tube won’t start a fire burning down your dream home.  Me?  That’s not a gamble I’m willing to take.  Seems to me that spending the $500-$600 on a home inspection to protect the multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars you are about to invest, is a no brainer.

Hopefully it is for you too.

Have you seen this form?  Did you notice that it is more complicated than it needs to be? Have you ever asked yourself why? The legislature in Maryland  is taking a look at their agency disclosure law right now.

I could explain agency pretty easily. In Massachusetts, the form reads:

The form reads:

(Check one) ____The real estate agent listed below, the real estate firm or business listed above and all other affiliated agents have the same relationship with the consumer named herein (seller or buyer agency, not

designated agency).

____Only the real estate agent listed below represents the consumer named in this form (designated

seller or buyer agency). In this situation any firm or business listed above and other agents

affiliated with the firm or business do not represent you and may represent another party in your real

estate transaction.

The form means:

(check one)

No one in the office will be representing the person you may be negotiating against.

An agent in this office is allowed to represent the person you may be negotiating against. (This is called designated buyer or designated seller agency. See the definition on the back.)

The flap in Maryland is because the current disclosure does not include “exclusive buyer agency” or “exclusive seller agency” or “single agency” (where the firm can represent buyers and sellers, but will recuse itself if both parties are in the same transaction.)

John Sullivan, Vice President of Buyer’s Edge Co.  writes:

If passed, these changes to the Real Estate Brokers Act … would provide the consumer with all of their agency choices when selling or buying their home…It would be the first of the 50 State agency disclosure statements in the country to provide the consumer with all their agency options including exclusive buyer, exclusive seller and most importantly single agency.”

In Massachusetts, not only is the disclosure overly complicated, but it also does not get seen by consumers in a timely manner. The form reads:

All real estate licensees must present this form to you at the first personal meeting with you to discuss a specific property. The licensee can represent you as the seller (Seller’s Agent) or represent you as the buyer (Buyer’s Agent) and also can assist you as a facilitator.

Did you see it at the first personal meeting?

You know that I think agency matters.

It certainly matters to consumers whether the agent they are talking to has the responsibility to disclose information to the other side of the negotiation or whether that agent has the responsibility to keep that information confidential.

It certainly matters to consumers whether the agent they are talking to has the responsibility to work for the best price and terms for them, or for the person they are negotiating against.

The disclosure Massachusetts disclosure reads:

… The agent owes the buyer undivided loyalty, reasonable care, disclosure, obedience to lawful instruction, confidentiality and accountability, provided, however, that the agent must disclose known material defects in the real estate. The agent must put the buyer’s interests first and negotiate for the best price and terms for their client …

 It certainly matters to consumers whether the agent provides required disclosures in a timely manner. A disregard for consumer protection laws is not a good sign for someone who is about to give you advice about a high-stakes financial decision.

John Sullivan takes the problem of agency one step further. He sees lack of representation and buyers  taking advice from people who represented sellers as part of the machine that lead to the real estate crisis. He says:

“chronic misunderstandings about agent fiduciary responsibility have contributed to the foreclosure crisis both in Maryland and across the nation” — namely that buyers weren’t given good advice by agents about what they could actually afford, and thus did not have their best interests protected.”

Since I care about this, my eyes are on Maryland.

by Ron Rothenberg, 4 Buyers Real Estate

It’s almost Springtime. Today, I noticed some of my daffodils and crocuses are starting to push their way up through the soil and towards the bright sun. The days are brighter, too, I was calculating as I was driving home this sunny afternoon that the sun is as high in the sky as it is in late September. Even brighter days will certainly be here soon, tra-la.

Did you know you could make your bulbs 20% brighter just by cleaning the dirt off of them? No, not your daffodils, your light bulbs.

Whether you use incandescent, compact fluorescent or LED bulbs, you get about 20% more visible light from a bulb that’s clean, and I know you haven’t cleaned your bulbs in a long, long time.

The visible light grows dimmer gradually and you don’t notice that the world is slowly becoming darker.

LED and CF bulbs last longer than incandescents, so they’re probably the dirtiest by now since it’s been so long since you had to replace one.

And clean the lampshades, too, while you’re at it, that will give you more visible light, too.

Turn off your lamps, let the bulb cool, then clean with a rag and some glass cleaner. Now, enjoy that free extra light on me.

You might be shocked to learn this, but in my line of work I see a lot of houses. Some of them are empty, but most are still being lived in.  I’ve been noticing a trend of late that I find pretty disturbing.

Living in New England means dealing with the winter (or, at least it used to mean that).  Many homes come with fireplaces, something architect Frank Lloyd Wright thought was the centerpiece of which a home revolved around.  The hearth.  To many folks, fireplaces are an extremely desirable feature in a home.  What’s more romantic than that family gathered around the hearth on a snowy day?

As television became more popular families moves away from the hearth to being around the television. (I guess they both emit light, warmth if you are close enough etc).  There seems to be a new trend in trying to combine the two.

As technology has progressed we now have the high definition flat screen TV. It takes up less space and can even be mounted on a wall.  Somewhere along the line, somebody had the idea (see where I’m going with this?) :  Family gathers around the TV, we have a fireplace that used to be the gathering spot but we don’t use it anymore due to the TV, what if we could combine the two?   Time and again, I’m seeing the TV mounted above the fireplace.  To me, unlike chocolate and peanut butter, these are NOT two great tastes that taste great together.

I don’t know about you but when I was a boy (no, you couldn’t buy a TV for a nickel) and started playing with electronic toys one of the first lessons I learned was “heat + electronics = bad news”.   Think about it, your pricey laptop computer has a built in cooling fan.  The server room at your company is air conditioned.  You probably have a special “cooling pad” to put your Mac on.  If you’ve nodded your head to any of these things, why on earth would you but your brand new, luscious, high definition plasma TV above the fireplace?  Do you microwave your cellphone to it feels nice and warm next to your ear?

Yes, I understand maximizing the use of space. Hell, I can even appreciate that the TV looks lovely mounted perfectly above the fire place. But, that doesn’t stop me from shuddering and thinking, “what the %$^&*$^#%!!! are these people thinking.”

So do yourself and your TV a favor buy a stand for your TV. I’ll even help you put it together.

Shade: nature’s own (almost free) energy saver

by Ron Rothenberg, 4 Buyers Real Estate

“Awnings can directly affect energy use by simply blocking the sun. heat gain through windows is one of the main reasons why buildings need air conditioners… In some climates you can save 20 to 25% of your cooling energy just by using awnings.” –John Carmody, Director, Center for Sustainable Building Research, University of Minnesota

When I was a boy in the 1960s, I can remember how swiftly each Springtime would transform most of the houses on my street: the snows would recede, the trees and bushes would fill in, and awnings would appear in front of many windows.

Each Spring we’d go through the awning ordeal: go up to the attic, get the heavy canvas awnings and their metal frames down. We’d take them out in the yard and wash them, pass them out the window and secure them to their posts, run the ropes through the grommets. We’d check to see that the vents were clear, so the awnings wouldn’t overheat.

In exchange for all that one-time work, you’d get a much cooler, shadier house all summer, without using air conditioning. If we had air conditioning, we would have saved a fortune on it.

Ironically, during the 1980′s when there were high tax credits for high-tech energy saving methods, people started to ignore the awnings. People started replacing their old windows and being concerned about solar-heat gain and heat loss through the windows, but they forgot how much more effectively your windows can lower your heating and cooling bill in tandem with low-tech awnings.

According to the Center for Sustainable Building Research at the University of Minnesota an awning can reduce solar gain (that’s heat added to the inside of your house by the sun) by 77% on west-facing windows, and up to 65% on south-facing windows. In the winter, when you want the solar heat, you just take those awnings off or roll them up.

The savings from awnings occur during peak usage hours, so you can get by with a smaller air conditioner than you would need otherwise. From a societal standpoint, utilities could get by with fewer and smaller generating plants if everyone would use awnings.

According to the report by the Center for Sustainable Building Research, the further north you go, the more energy can be saved by awnings. For a home in the Boston area, according to the Center’s tests, it took 855 kWh to cool their test houses without awnings. With awnings it took only 651 kWh to cool a house with approximately equal window orientation. For houses with mostly south and west facing windows the savings was more dramatic: it took 965 kWh to cool the house without awnings, 677 kWh to cool the house with awnings. That’s a 30% savings. You can reduce peak demand in a house with a mostly westward window orientation by as much as 40%.

You can read a summary of the report at:

http://www.csbr.umn.edu/download/PAMA_FinalSummaryV2_1.pdf

or the entire report at:

http://www.csbr.umn.edu/download/PAMA_FinalReport_V2.pdf

When you’re thinking about new windows, or just trying to improve the energy performance of your old windows, consider getting attractive awnings for your home. They’ll improve the energy efficiency of your home far more than just new windows alone.

I got a call from A last week. She said that there was a new listing she wanted to check out at open house. The address sounded familiar to me — not in a good way. I warmed up the agent MLS database and my suspicion was confirmed; this house had been on the market a couple of times already. I couldn’t remember it, even after looking at the pictures. (Now, that is a bad sign. I usually remember something about a house beyond the address.) A and her husband saw it and didn’t care for the place. However, the open house was swarmed and the house went under agreement by Monday.

2/17/2012  Listed for $699,900

2/22/2012  Listing Alert Flag set to: Yes – Accepting Additional Offers

2/22/2012  Status Changed to: Under Agreement

Days on the market = 5

Someone new to the market would think this is a great house, a hot house. If it sold immediately, it must be wonderful. That’s because they don’t know about the other attempts to sell it. It looked like this:

This house went unwanted since 2008. It was actually on the market for 152 days.

3/4/2008  Listed for $879,000

9/8/2009  Listed for $799,000

11/18/2010  Listed for $799,000

The problem with this house, by and large, was the price. I have no way of knowing whether the agent recommended the price of $879,000 in 2008 or if the seller insisted on “testing the market.” It doesn’t much matter. Nothing sells for that much over its real value.

It was a good house for $699,900, as demonstrated by its quick sale last week. But, when I saw it at $799,000 last year, my clients instantly rejected it. It does not compare to housing that is worth $799,000 and therefore looked like a hopeless dud. It got filed in my brain that way. The lesson for sellers is that overpricing doesn’t work.

This brings me to a question I get asked all the time: “Should I, as a buyer, look at property that is over my price range?” The answer, of course, is “it depends.”

I have found that going into a property that is WAAY over your price range is not going to hurt you. It is fantasy. So, if you go past a $2M open house, go on in and see how the other half live.

Avoid properties that are around 10-15% over your price range. These will make your choices look just a little shabby. A $699,000 house trying to be a $799,000 house looks like junk. If you are spending $699,000 and you go look at $799,000 houses, the places you can afford will look like junk. This will “ruin your palate” for houses you may actually buy.

I have a way to let my client find overpriced properties that should be in their range. It takes sellers a while to accept that they have overpriced. So, I create a set of searches to find overpriced properties that have had some time to demonstrate their unsalablity at that price to their owners.

Suppose the price limit is a firm $690,000. I will set a search with $690,000 as the limit. Then, I will set an additional search with $720,000 as the limit with 14, 30, or 45+ days on the market, depending on the town and the season. If sales are slow there, I may even set another search with 45, 60 or 90+ days with a limit of $750,000.

I also keep an eye on things that I have seen, and know to be overpriced and I have a buyer for it (if the price gets down to reality level.) The house my clients saw at open house last week was not good enough for that, but some are.

Today, I spoke to a fellow who was thinking of hiring us for his search in Lexington. I offered him a reference of a couple who recently bought there. He asked me if I knew the address. “Of course,” I said. Then I told him, “26 Hayes Lane, Lexington.”

After I got off the phone, I grew curious what I’d find if I Googled that address. What I found was rather depressing. The quality of information on line, frankly… well, it stinks. Along with the expected pages from agents, the big real estate sites of Trulia and Zillow were way up in the rankings.

Truila says: “This is a Single-Family Home located at 26 Hayes Lane, Lexington MA. 26 Hayes Ln has 3 beds, 3 baths, and approximately 2,324 square feet. The property was built in 1984. The average list price for similar homes for sale is $1,526,835 and the average sales price for similar recently sold homes is $907,167. 26 Hayes Ln is in the 02420 ZIP code in Lexington, MA. The average list price for ZIP code 02420 is $1,007,873.”

Zillow  Zestimates the value at $644,700.

So, which is it? Is this a million-dollar-plus property or is it worth $644,700 (which is modest in Lexington.)

If  buyers use these services as real estate advice, what would they think? There is so much that does not come through on electronic valuation systems which is critical to understanding what a house should sell for. On a street like Hayes Lane, the computers just can’t keep up.

I’m not a computer. This house on Hayes Lane was one of the rare ones where I had “house envy.” (I tend to stay objective and I am rarely aware of emotion when I am showing a house.) However, when I stepped out of the front door of this house and saw woods all around, I had to smile. This house is very close to Lexington Center. It is a great house – the best of both worlds.

Yet down the street are some small and unattractive houses. The street itself is a private way, and it’s in only moderate shape. It’s not such a nice neighborhood in one direction, and a pretty nice one in the other. That’s why Zillow and Trulia couldn’t figure it out.

I could figure it out.

At the time my clients made their offer, the price had just gone down to $819.000. But, it hadn’t gone down quite enough. The house was still overpriced, even though offers were coming in. My client’s offer was well below asking price, but prevailed. Partly, I can toot my horn for doing a good market study and giving a good negotiation presentation. But, sometimes houses find the right owners. This house needed a lover of woods and gardens who also wanted to be close to Lexington Center.  It was the best of both worlds. My client got the right house at the right price.

This makes me happy.

by Ron Rothenberg, 4 Buyers Real Estate

I’ve been potty-talking lately as I’ve asked all the plumbers, contractors, home inspectors I meet about toilets. I talked to many neighbors about this topic, too, and found that more interest swirled around this subject than I would have imagined.

I was interested because we were replacing our tenants’ bathroom and our bathroom and were trying to get a handle on the bewildering array of toilet styles, valves, capacities and ratings.

I did find that most people are pleased with their newer toilets even if they were badly disappointed with their first generation low-flow toilets. If you have to flush your high-efficiency toilet twice each time, it’s no longer a high-efficiency toilet.

The good news is: Green toilets HAVE gotten a lot better.

The choices became clearer when I found that there was an almost unanimous consensus that the best toilets are made by a Japanese maker, Toto toilet.

Toto has the patent on an ingenious flush valve that flushes the water cyclonically, giving you both a good flush and keeping the walls of the bowl cleaner longer, even with toilets so water-efficient they only use 1.28 gallons per flush (gpf). Other toilet makers will soon be licensing their patent, but for now the best flush award belongs totally to Toto. Watch it flush once and you’ll be bowled over by the difference.

You will not find them at Home Depot or Lowe’s. You will find them at local and regional plumbing supply stores. We shopped at the showroom at Republic Plumbing Supply in Framingham has the whole line.

Toto doesn’t make much in the way of dual-flush toilets, but they do have a few good 1.28gpf toilets and the water use on that commode should be about the same as a 1.6gpf toilet with a dual-flush valve.

For our tenants’ unit, we got a Kohler Scout model from Home Depot. It’s not bad, and they claim it can flush a whole bucket of golf balls at one time. I’m hoping no one in my house will ever think of testing that claim, but I have since learned there is more to flushing than just the ability to flush bulky things.

The flush ratings of toilets aren’t as wonderfully useful as they sound, unless you regularly flush golf balls down the toilet. They are based solely on the amount of bulk a toilet can flush.

There are other things to consider, such as how clean the inside walls of the bowl will stay without additional cleaning.

When we put in a new bathroom last summer, we didn’t replace the 12 year-old toilet in our bathroom because we couldn’t find exactly the toilet of our dreams: a dual-flush with cyclonic flushing, etc., so we reused the old toilet, retrofitted for dual-flush, and it’s still a fine flusher.

As soon as toilet technology catches up with my desires and there’s a 1.28gpf, dual-flush, cyclonic toilet, I’ll be the first in line at the store to buy that commodious commode.

by Ron Rothenberg, 4 Buyers Real Estate

The heating systems in most homes I see are much too big for the job they have to do.

If you have a boiler that’s too large, it will cost you more throughout its shortened life.

You’ll throw more up-front money at your heating system AND it will have a shorter life because it will short-cycle more than it should. Short-cycling is when a boiler starts, uses all its extra capacity to catch up with heat demand and then stops. The too-big boiler is wasting its life starting and stopping rather than running efficiently. Running a smaller boiler for longer periods is actually more efficient.

Old boilers were oversized, and so many new boilers are oversized.    Installers use rules-of-thumb to size boilers,and they tend to overestimate. They are afraid of undersizing a boiler and getting that “my house is too cold” phone call next winter.

Of course, most won’t do the actual heat-loss calculations to ensure that you get the right size, it’s easier just to overestimate. The homeowner will probably never notice.
 
Hot-air furnaces tend to be even more oversized and that will make them inefficient and also noisier than the right-sized furnace.
 
The correct way to size any heating plant is to use the Manual J Load calculation.   Getting an installer to do this generally requires at least an act of Congress, but it’s just an arithmetical calculation that closely approximates your homes heating loss on one of the coldest days of your winter, based on your floor space, ceiling height, number of windows, number of outside walls in a room, insulation and your climate, etc.

The calculations are actually simpler than they sound, and you can get help from your computer – try a web based calculator at http://www.mrhvac.com/free-hvac-stuff/free-heat-gain-and-loss-calculator/ or a program you can buy for $49 at HVAC-Calc Software.

Whether you do it or the installer does it, you shouldn’t get a new boiler without having someone do a load calculation.
 
Don’t forget that some day you may be using your heating plant to heat your domestic hot water, too, so be sure to figure that in.
 
My house came with a 135,000 BTU/hour boiler – that was first sized 80 years ago when the house was built, when there was no insulation in the walls, no thermal windows, very little insulation in the attic, and oil cost very little.
 
When I went to replace it, various plumbers wanted to put in boilers from 125,000 BTUH – 170,000BTUH which seemed too big, considering that the 135,000 BTUH boiler had been doing the job for so long, even before most of our energy improvements.
 
I eventually got a 105,000BTUH boiler – that’s probably a bit more capacity then we need now, but I plan to add an indirect water heater to that system soon, and have the boiler heat our domestic hot water, too.

 
Size does matter, and I’m always surprised at how little homeowners and installers thought about right-sizing their heating plant.  

by Ron Rothenberg, 4 Buyers Real Estate

An often-forgotten energy saver is plain old water, added to your home’s air.

Humid air will feel warmer on your skin than dryer air, partly because it slows the evaporation of sweat from your skin As they love to remind you repeatedly in Phoenix, “it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.”

In the past, our house maintained a pretty comfortable relative humidity of about 30%, in the winter. We had two teenage boys who would take long showers and we’d run the dishwasher every other day and had lots of plants that would add water to the air and keep our humidity at a reasonable level during the heating season..

This year, we renovated our bathroom and added a vent fan. Plus, the boy who was the longest showerer left for the Air Force, so we’re using the dishwasher less, too.

When we had a taste of winter last week and started using a lot of heat it got very dry around here. Though the thermostat was set exactly where it was last year, I felt chillier, my skin was drier and itchier and my throat felt scratchy.

I wasn’t surprised when I measured the relative humidity and found it at an extremely low 11%..

Adding humidity to your home’s air shouldn’t be a complicated affair. There are good reasons why you shouldn’t go out and get a whole house humidifier or add a humidifier to your home’s heating system. More is not always better, and you don’t want the relative humidity to be too high, save over 45%, since that will promote mold and dust-mite growth and create condensation on windows and other cold surfaces.

I got a simple vaporizer out of the closet, the one we used to aid breathing when we were sick and filled it with water, set it up on the first floor of the house and switched it on. Within a few hours the relative humidity has risen into the low 30s, and the entire house, including the upstairs, was much more humid and comfortable without resorting to raising the thermostat.

A vaporizer doesn’t cost much, as little as $15, and does a nice job of adding some germ- and mold-free water to your air. You’ve got to clean it every few days, but the effort is worth it – you’ll get a net savings on energy. Your savings on moisturizer and throat lozenges are just an added bonus.

(And we’re back from our Holiday Hiatus.  I hope you all had a delicious time, regardless of what your flavor of holiday is.)

Do a quick Google (or search engine of your choosing) search on “Crooked House”  and you’ll find “whimsical playhouses for children” , a book by Agatha Christie,  a TV show and a restaurant (among many other things). Sort of has a romantic ring to it, doesn’t it? But could you live in a crooked house?

Recently, I was out showing a house to some clients. Not only are they like me, living in a Cambridge condo, expecting their first child (well, my expectations have come to fruition as you know) but they have similar tastes in style and architecture.  It’s fun to go view houses with them. They are searching for their first home in which to raise a young family. The house was in a neighborhood they recently discovered and seemed perfect for them. They were pretty excited to check it out.

This house had many of the details that they (we) like.  Tall ceilings, nice wood floors, built-ins and details you’d expect from a house built around the turn of the century (that would be the LAST century).  We made our way through the house, liking what we saw, until we got to the master suite.  A big open space that was converted into it’s present form. It had some nice details, good light but a fatal flaw to my clients:  A leaning tower of chimney that would make that little thing in Pisa jealous.

Aesthetically, it was actually pleasing.  Exposed brick over hardwood floors, some nice trim.  It reminded me of some apartments I’ve lived in. I’ve always liked the combination of brick and wood.  Quirks are often what make a house.  One woman’s house oddity could be another’s selling point.  With a love of older house styles comes the inevitable quirk here and there.  In an older area of the country, like Boston, we are used to such things.

However this lean was so drastic it threw the whole room off.   Almost vertigo inducing, my clients worried they would wake up every morning a little off kilter. The rest of the house had features to like and a setting they enjoyed.  Alas this seemed to be the deal breaker.

So, that leads to a question?  What is your quirk tolerance?  Could you live in a crooked house?

2010 was the best year, ever, in my career. I had worked through the growing pains of establishing my own business (I started in April 2008.) In January 2010, 4 Buyers Real Estate was me and Dianne. By March, I hired Matthew and Sandy. In September, Ron came on board. For those of you who don’t know this, Ron Rothenberg was the person who brought me into real estate in 1991. He was my mentor and the biggest influence on my career. I was honored that he wanted to work for me.

2011 started out on a high. We were bigger and better than ever. Dave joined us right around Groundhog’s Day making 4 Buyers Real Estate a six-agent firm. Despite the weather, we dashed through the snow and held our first big Groundhog’s Day celebration at Flatbread.  A good time was had by those who dug out and came.

Things went downhill for the company as Sandy took family leave. She expects to return to the firm in September 2012. Matthew left real estate. So by spring we were four.

The summer left me and Dave as the only agents standing. Dianne fractured her knee and Ron simultaneously took sick leave. The upside is that Dave became my right-hand man and turned into a great agent. Also this summer, I got our FaceBook Page  going, we started to benefit from being an Angie’s List Super Service Award winner,  and got most of the kinks out of our website, blog, and FaceBook communications. I continue to blog at Boston.com and I completed my book proposal. The book is based on my experiences as a buyer’s agent and my study of neuroscience and decision-making. (So far, I’ve had one rejection. If you know any agents I can send it to, please let me know!)

Despite the departures and the absences, we celebrate a wonderful diversity of households established this year. We worked with new construction, short sales, starter homes, trade-ups and trade-downs. Our clients were young and old, single people, couples, couples who were expecting, and couples with children. We continue to be blessed by having smart, interesting, and nice people knock on our door. If that continues into 2012, I will be grateful.

Happy New Year!

by Ron Rothenberg, 4 Buyers Real Estate

Though I’m being pleasantly lulled by the warm weather, convinced that Spring is just around the corner, I concede that winter will soon be here. With winter comes high heating bills, which I’m thoroughly opposed to. Winter is bad enough without having to pay for the privilege of feeling too chilly.

Most winters I would seal up the windows, weatherstrip the doors, turn down the clock thermostat, don many layers of clothing and pray for warm weather, yet the heating bills were still annoyingly large.

But this winter is different. This winter I’m making it personal.

Last Spring, I replaced my 82 year-old boiler and 25 year-old oil burner with a new energy-efficient gas boiler. That made a big difference, but I could still feel the dials on the gas meter whooshing every time the heat came on.

So, I also insulated all the heating and hot water pipes in my basement. I never realized I had so many pipes. Several hundreds of dollars worth of insulation later, the hot water enters the radiators at almost the same temperature as it leaves the boiler, where it used to lose 8-10 degrees transiting those many pipes going across the cold basement.

Now, I can hear the dials on the gas meter grinding just a bit slower. As a bonus, the heat and hot water comes up much faster, too.

The biggest fuel-wasters in any old house are the leaks. When I moved in, everything leaked and a winter’s day in the living room was like a chilly, breezy Spring day outside. After 25 years, I’ve made some progress in the battle against leaks – blown-in wall insulation, a few new windows and the extremely generous use of caulk to plug those darn leaks has rewarded me with an indoor environment that’s more like . . . an indoor environment.

In the good old days, 2010 and earlier, I would go to war on some breezy day in Autumn with a caulking gun in one hand, and a match or cigarette lighter in the other. I’d watch the flame flicker to find out where a leak was and then I would plug it. I’d walk around the house doing this until the flame no longer flickered or I got too bored.

That method was crude, but it worked, and I hardly ever set anything on fire. But this is the 21st century, and progress marches on.

I’ve got a new high-technology tool in my anti-draft armamentarium – An electronic thermal leak detector that uses an infrared thermometer and colored lights to show me exactly where my heat is exiting the building. . . . .

More about that gadget in my next installment.

As you you know my dear readers, my posts typically feature my (often flat) attempts at wit sprinkled with some lighthearted comments.  As a new father, living in Cambridge, I like to share my experiences with you, both from my life and professional experiences. I want you to be entertained as well as educated.

Today, that changes (well, you will still be educated).  I’m taking a different tack.  Gone is the lighthearted post with middling attempts at humor. Today, I’m going to scare the hell out of  you.  Well, those of you who are thinking about becoming parents.

Please take a look at the link below (with thanks to my colleague Ron).

15 Ways Your Home Can Make You Infertile

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20450885,00.html

Hopefully, Lighthearted Dave will be back for the next entry.

There are many things that come along with having a baby. In addition to the every day amazement that new parents experience (and the sleepless nights, diapers, worrying, joy, humility, etc.) comes, as I mentioned in my previous post, stuff. Lots of stuff. Unfortunately, the stuff has to go somewhere.  Regardless of whether you live in a condo in Cambridge or a mansion in Medford, you’ll notice the place is getting smaller as you accumulate all of that “necessary” stuff. So, it’s time to buy a bigger house.

It was easier in the old (pre-baby) days. Everything was easier. If you wanted to line up a bunch of houses to go check out on a Saturday, you just picked the houses, hopped in the car and went to go find your dream home.  There’s an open house in Cambridge at 11:30 am and another at 2 pm in Arlington Heights?  No problem. We’ll hang out, take our time and grab lunch in between. We’ll make a day of it. Right?

Well my new-parent friends, those days are gone. Finding the house you want just got a wee bit harder.  If you are like me, (and I promise you, it gets easier) it takes at least 45 minutes just to get out of the house. You have to collect all of the items you’ll need to go on this journey to the next town over. Now you have to think about things like “can we make a 2 pm Open House when nap time is usually at 2:30”?  Do we take the baby out of the car seat to go into the house? Do we divide and conquer? What about actually viewing the house?  That car seat gets heavy going up and down those stairs but you’ve gotta see that furnished basement with the Man Cave of your dreams and the master suite in the converted attic with the whirlpool tub.

Now, I know first hand that Grandma isn’t going to be available to watch the baby every weekend a good house comes along that you want to see.  (Wouldn’t it be better if life worked that way?)  So how do you navigate this?  Be exacting and have a good agent.

As you know, the time you have to accomplish things (and that’s anything: laundry, grocery shopping, taking the garbage out) when you have a baby is precious and fleeting. So you have to use it wisely.  When scoping out potential houses to see, remember: Baby don’t like ‘maybe’.  Instead of the four Open Houses, with two houses that you aren’t so sure about but “could” work, stick to the two that look like good matches.  Use a discerning eye. If there is something is on your list of negatives that you see, don’t waste time going in. Head on to the next one.

A good agent should know what your likes, and more importantly dislikes are, and can preview a house for you. You find a perfect listing and your agent previews it realizing that you are going to bump your head going down the stairs for the next 30 years…off the list!  Your agent reports back that the idyllic looking nursery is actually above the garage and knows it will be noisy and cold?  Off the list! The house looks great but your agent points out all of the lead paint with which you are going to have to deal?  (An extremely expensive and time consuming project)  Off the list!

Be precise and make your agent work for you!  You can have a baby AND still find the  right house for you.  It just might be a little harder.

But hey, maybe you have one of those babies who sleeps all the time and will stay knocked out during your entire housing search, rendering this post meaningless!  (Yes, that was me muttering under my breath about how lucky you are).

As you know, my company only works with buyers because it reduces the conflict of interest that occurs when one agent in an office lists a house that another agent in the office has a buyer who wants to buy it.  It is hard to get the highest price for the seller and the lowest for the buyer at the same time. It must be hard to keep peace in the office.

Inman News is doing a series on dual agency (where the company represents both sides of a transaction — buyer and seller.) The practice is going down. (see chart)  It is going down not because it is bad for consumers, but because it is creating complaints from former clients.

Buyer agency, when it was new, only allowed an agent to call herself a buyer’s agent if she did not work in the same firm as the listing agent for the house the buyer chose. The company could not fully represent both sides. Those were the days when, as a buyer’s agent, I was treated like a leper. Being my dogged self, I made most of them get over it.

by Ron Rothenberg, 4 Buyers Real Estate

I’ve been in thousands of basements over the years and I can tell you that a home with well-insulated heating pipes are rare. This winter with oil prices at record highs, it pays more than ever to insulate your heating pipes.

In most homes, the uninsulated heating pipes are just heating the unfinished basement and quietly draining their owners’ wallets.

Last Spring, I replaced my 82-year old boiler, which left me with lots of bare pipes in the basement. So, now I have the chance to make my basement the exception and insulate my pipes.

My favorite insulation is foam tubing – it comes in 3-6 foot lengths and you can just slip it over the pipes, then seal it. You can even buy it pre-glued, to make the sealing process easier. Unfortunately, foam doesn’t stand up well to high temperatures, so it can’t be used for the pipes closest to a boiler and shouldn’t be used at all with the feed pipes of a steam boiler. Those pipes need fiberglass sleeves which is less flammable and won’t shrink at high temperatures.

I went down to my local big-box hardware store and bought some pipe insulation, but when I got home it seemed a bit undernourished. When I compared them to the old insulation from 25 years ago, I found it was half the thickness of the old insulation, and had much less than half the insulating power.

This gaunt insulation may be good for return pipes and cold water pipes, but for the pipes that are the hottest you need better insulation.

I went back to the store to buy some thicker insulation and there wasn’t any on the shelf – and there wasn’t any available on their website. I checked the other big hardware retailer and found the same emaciated pipe covers.

So, I set out to find something better.

I went to my local plumbing supply warehouse and they had fiberglass insulation with a 3/4” wall. Twice the thickness of the store-bought insulation. It cost 50% more, but that seemed like a fair deal, since it supplied more than twice the insulating power.

When I tried to buy thicker foam insulation there, I was disappointed – the thickest they had was 1/2”, not much heftier than what I had bought at the store.

I was able to find better insulation – for smaller pipes, you can get Tundra Plus insulation at www.acehardwareoutlet.com and at some Ace Hardware stores. These foam tubes have walls that are up to 1” thick, though the thickest ones are hard to find.

For the widest selection of sizes, try Grainger at www.grainger.com – they have a vast selection of pipe insulation in many sizes and foam and fiberglass insulation with wall thicknesses of up to an inch. You can order exactly what you need from their website and have it shipped, or pick up within a few days at one of their 400+ branches in the United States.

Winter’s coming for sure. I’ll have more on how to lower your energy bills shortly.

Frugal homeowner tip: City Paint in Arlington, Cambridge and Somerville will give you a $10 gift certificate for any of their stores when you join their mailing list.