Be a Smarter Homebuyer with Rachel Oslund

November 28, 2023

111. Be a Smarter Homebuyer with Rachel Oslund

Navigating the intricate world of home buying can be a daunting task, particularly for those stepping into the real estate arena for the first time. Rachel Oslund, an experienced home inspector, shares her mission to empower both buyers and realtors with the knowledge they need to confidently navigate the intricacies of this high-stakes process. Don't let someone else's oversights undermine your dream home. Knowledge is your greatest ally in this journey – the more you possess, the smoother the path to homeownership becomes.

Here’s how you can follow Rachel:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rachel.oslund 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unicorninspector

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-oslund-5284349/

TikTok:  https://www.tiktok.com/@unicorninspector

 
YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/@LodeStarInspections 

Some highlights from this episode:

06:26 The risks of waiving the home inspection.

10:09 A great story of why you need a good inspector.

23:43 Rachel talks about the education training she provides.

Important information from Homeowners Be Aware:

Here are ways you can follow us on-line:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homeownersbeaware/

Website: https://homeownersbeaware.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-siegal/

If you'd like to reach me for any reason, here's the link to my contact form:

https://homeownersbeaware.com/contact

Here's the link to the trailer for the documentary film I'm making: Built to Last: Buyer Beware.

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Thanks for listening!

Transcript

George Siegal: 0:00

Thank you for joining me on this week's Homeowners Be Aware podcast. Buying a home is one of the biggest purchases most of us will ever make, so how much do you know about what you're doing? I would venture to guess that most people have more knowledge about a car they are buying or a trip they want to take than they do about houses. Well, my guest today is Rachel Oslund. Rachel has been a home inspector for 17 years and she's committed to educating home buyers and real estate agents about all the components in a house, how they work together and how regularly maintaining them helps protect you and your investment. I'm George Siegal, and this is Homeowners Be Aware, the podcast that teaches you everything you need to know about being a homeowner. Rachel, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

Rachel Oslund: 0:50

Well, thanks for having me. It's exciting to be here.

George Siegal: 0:53

Yeah, now, I love what you're doing because I think it's an area that we don't think enough about. When I think about real estate agents, I think, okay, they're working for the seller, so the buyer is working against both of them. Explain how the relationship should really be working and what is the responsibility of realtors in the whole process of buying homes.

Rachel Oslund: 1:14

So the realtor or that person works for either the seller or the buyer and not for both, and they are the fiduciary for the seller's best interest and the buyer's best interest. But those are two separate transactions, two separate relationships. And the seller's agent. Their job is to get them the highest amount of money. Whatever the seller wants, sell it as fast as you can. I don't care how much I get or the best amount of money or whatever. The buyer's job, the buyer's agent is to negotiate on behalf of the buyer, to take them to properties, show them. Also, both of those agents need to educate the sets of their clients about what's the norm in the market. What's happening now as opposed to 20 years ago.

George Siegal: 2:13

Well, it just seems like there's a lot of different forces competing here. So let's just say, for example, I'm selling my house and I hire a person to be my real estate agent and my house is a disaster. Are they better off passing you? Educate realtors and help them learn more about the whole home process? I know they're obligated to the seller, but then what's you know? If a lawyer knows their client is a murderer, they're not allowed to go into a court, I think, and say that they're innocent. That's why they never ask.

Rachel Oslund: 2:45

Right. And so for a seller's agent. They are going to have to handle their client and be very clear to them that whatever's going on with the house and when you say it's, I don't remember what you said it was a wreck or it's in bad shape, Disaster.

Rachel Oslund: 3:02

We use the word disaster, disaster yes, that fits in with a lot of stuff. If it's a disaster cosmetically, that's fine and the agent should tell them deal with this and clean it up, or get a stager or a declutterer in there they also. But if it's not cosmetic stuff and there's just a ton of things that need to be fixed, then they might suggest that they either get a pre-listing inspection, get it so you know exactly what's going on with the house before you even put it on the market, so you can get things fixed by licensed people, or that's one thing, or you have to disclose everything that you know that's wrong with it.

George Siegal: 3:49

Yeah, you would think ethically you do. I know I live in Florida and there's a form example for flooding that a seller can fill out to let the buyer know that the house flooded, but they don't have to give it to the buyer. So my house could have been under 10 feet of water six months ago and I just pass it on to the next person unless they ask me. I mean, there is a degree of ethics involved here, but I also understand it's a business. So how do you balance that line?

Rachel Oslund: 4:17

That's a big part of the situation. That's a problem because you need to ask, the buyer needs to know to ask, the buyer's agent needs to know to ask and the seller has to disclose these things. In all every state there are different rules and in Maryland they need to disclose things that would not be easily just seen on a visual inspection. So say, there's polybutylene pipes behind the walls and you don't see any evidence of them, but the seller knows they're there. They need to disclose that.

George Siegal: 4:53

So when you come in and work with realtors, who are you primarily working with? Tell me how you go about doing what you do.

Rachel Oslund: 5:01

So the four home inspections usually realtors recommend us to or refer us to their buyers, and so then the buyers will call us, get information, and usually they call a couple of people, the agent refers a couple of inspection companies and then the buyers come to us. Ultimately, the home inspector is working for the buyer, the person who's paying them, the person who hired them. So if it's a pre-listing inspection, then we are working for the seller. The seller has hired us to come in give them an objective view so that they can get things fixed.

George Siegal: 5:41

I've heard good and bad about that, though it's like be careful, because once you know it, maybe you're better off not knowing sometimes.

Rachel Oslund: 5:46

Yep, and it's a risk. I think it depends on who the seller is. So it's really important for the seller to understand themselves, have a little bit of insight about their comfort level with risk. If they're really risk averse and they're not gonna be able to sleep until they've got a buyer and the home inspection report in hand from that buyer, then they should just get a pre-listing inspection to have an idea and find whatever there is. That's big.

George Siegal: 6:14

Now, just after COVID, there were selling a lot of houses here in Tampa where people were saying, because they wanted to be the ones that got the house, they were saying, I'll take it without an inspection, I'll waive my inspection. That's a really risky thing to do, isn't it?

Rachel Oslund: 6:26

Yes, yes, that you are risky is the same as disaster for a lot of people. If you, you don't know what's going on with the house and you don't have the same latitude to get to know the house before you buy it, if you waive your inspection and that was happening here in Maryland too A lot of people didn't have home inspections for the last couple of years. And then there's buyers remorse because they're going to be surprises.

George Siegal: 6:53

Yeah, but I always tell home buyers is let's stop rewarding other people's mediocrity, because it's really just passing it on. You know what's that game? It's like musical chairs. Or when we used to toss the grenade to somebody, that game you used to play Hot potato. You ended up with the hot potato and it's like that's what buying a house is like. And if the problem ends up on you, there are some major things you can get stuck with paying.

Rachel Oslund: 7:16

Oh, yes, yes, and not just a roof or a leaking basement or where you are. You don't have basements, but damaged foundation, wet crawl space. It could be there's an underground storage tank with a buried oil tank on the outside of the property. That's been there since the 40s and it could be leaking and the cleanup for that is huge and it requires the EPA getting involved, and those are things that you need a professional to tell you about. You just don't it's not stuff. You just don't look at houses the same way a home inspector does. I am a terrible person to buy a house with. My husband goes through and, oh, this kitchen is beautiful, everything looks great, and I'm like huh, looks like they took down some drywall. I wonder if there was mold down here, and so we have these opposite things. But that's what we're trained for. We identify defects for a living.

George Siegal: 8:12

Yeah, I think you and I would get along great because I see things that I was buying a house one time and I told the builder that countertop's not level. And he goes it's absolutely a hundred percent level. And I said, look, I have an eye for certain things, maybe my only gift in the world. It's not level. So he gets out his level and it was about a quarter of an inch off, eighth of an inch off. He had to rip it out and put the whole thing in again to level it. So I'm a seller's worst nightmare, but things still get by. I feel like I've gotten screwed every time I've bought a house.

Rachel Oslund: 8:45

Interesting and you've worked and you've worked. So new construction was the one. Was that your house with the countertop?

George Siegal: 8:51

Yes, it was, and I've had a bunch of new construction issues Like the house we're living in now. The day we showed up and I was getting the walkthrough tour, the superintendent told me it was his last day on the job. I don't think you ever want to hear that.

Rachel Oslund: 9:05

No.

George Siegal: 9:06

Because I knew we were. The things that he rushed on are things we've had problems with. Like he rushed to have him put the garage door in. We've had problems with that. He put brackets in for shelves upside down where we were going to hang things in the garage. I mean, the guy was a knucklehead. So my point is that's why I try to teach people with my podcast you really need to be 100% on your game, Because even if you think you know things, you miss things.

Rachel Oslund: 9:31

Yes, because there's an emotional attachment to the house that's there for you and for me, even if, even though we both have really really trained eyes for seeing stuff like that and new construction is the purchase of new construction is rising because of the limited inventory of existing homes. Is that the way it is in Tampa too?

George Siegal: 9:55

Absolutely. It slowed down a little bit, but houses of skyrocketed here. They're tearing down old houses and building new ones and the price of the lot has gone up double, sometimes triple. It's insane what's happening.

Rachel Oslund: 10:09

And the same is happening here and I think it's a trend across the country right now and people don't think they need home inspection with new construction, and that is. We work with several builders in the area and it's a fine line for the buyer and you know this because you've done it. You have a long-term relationship with this builder, so you want to make sure that it stays professional and you want to be comfortable going to them with questions and problems and you need to hold them to account for whatever's not right. And the first one I did was 2006. And the buyer didn't want a home inspection. He didn't want to pay for it. His agent said you've got to get a home inspection. It's new construction. You just never know. There are subcontractors, whatever.

Rachel Oslund: 11:04

I filled up the jetted tub and as it was draining, it was draining in the primary bathroom upstairs, draining down onto the recessed lighting in the living room, down onto the fireplace, down onto the electric panel in the basement. Now, if we hadn't done that, their first night there they'd had the kids in that giant bathtub playing around and had a mess downstairs on their new furniture that they bought to put in there and there were missing shingles and no liner in the wood burning fireplace, like there were hazards there that were beyond just water coming through the ceiling. They're really big problems, not usually the builder trying to pull something over, but just subcontractors, humans.

George Siegal: 11:56

Right, and I think that a housebuild is only as good as the person on the job, supervising the people there, watching them and being on their game, and I think people buying the house have to be there a lot. I have a couple of inspectors in my Instagram feed. I've had them on the podcast that show videos all the time and you just shake your head going how did they not vent the fireplace? Have it go to a chimney? It's just going into the attic. How did this stove not do this? How is this not wired right? People make mistakes and they make a lot of mistakes, I think an inspection and you lose your clout once you've closed and that sale is completed.

Rachel Oslund: 12:33

Yep, and you're right about that, and that is, you've lost all of your power then and you've got your 11 month warranty inspection or warranty is up, and so have an inspection then, because you start to notice things and live with them and forget about them as you live there, as things go wrong. But you can't. You can do whatever you want, and there are things that are going to happen with people who make mistakes and, like your guide, leaving the superintendent. It says last day he doesn't care and no one's going to hold him to account. Later call him at his next job and that's yes, yes, and we did. We did a 55 plus community and it was, it's like the first couple. Couple people had us come in and inspect and we found very specific things wrong and by the fourth house there were none, no problems at all, because the builder was able to stop or fix or stop in the tracks, the what the contractors were missing. A lot of times they forget to connect the dishwasher, so we run that and then water's pouring out on the floor.

George Siegal: 13:44

Yeah, I mean, I think it's sloppy work. I've never worked with a builder in a personal level building a house where I've ended up liking them at all when the job is done. I have some friends that are builders that I know do a great job, and I read about great builders all the time that are building resilient houses. They're building houses that can survive fires, floods, all kinds of things. I haven't had the good fortune of working with them, so how do we level the playing field? So the person buying the house is in a better position than we seem to end up in most of the time.

Rachel Oslund: 14:19

The buyer's got to be educated. It's not this isn't like when you're renting and it goes especially for first time home buyers and first generation home buyers because there's less, less experience with home maintenance and all the things that go along with owning a house that you just don't a lot of times, just don't think about, and so there's an education piece that needs to be there, and there are certain grant programs across the country for funding where people get training in home ownership, but you have to be getting a grant to do that, and every grant has its own requirements, and most real estate agents just don't have any understanding of how houses work until they've been doing it for a while. You have to have a lot of transactions under your belt, have attended a lot of home inspections to understand it, so the buyer really has to be on their game. But then what do you trust? On YouTube, it's people like you, or what podcast do you listen to? You can't just listen to anything and trust everything.

George Siegal: 15:23

I don't trust anybody. I mean I know that sounds really bad. I mean there are certain people that if I get to know them I sort of trust them. But if they're an official, if they're in the government, if they're somebody that's in a position of power, I just assume they're always out for themselves and not necessarily looking after my best interest. And what amazes me is most people their house is their biggest investment. They probably do more research about the car that they're buying on Edmunds and AutoTrader and Consumer Reports, whoever they're reading that information from. But when they buy a house they go oh, that's so beautiful, it's near the school and there's a park nearby, and that's all they think about.

Rachel Oslund: 16:01

Yes, and so what's so powerful is what you're doing and educating people that there's more to look at. And I've said the same thing. I like the car analogy. I say you buy shoes and you find the ones that have all these things that you like and know about them. Same thing You're doing so much research on them and you know a lot about them. You buy them, you take care of them. Same thing with the house and with new construction. It's like prenatal care when you're pregnant. You've got to go to the property, you've got to go there and check it out as they're working on it. You've got to hold them to account, and that's what inspectors do. But you've got to know to do that. And buyers have to have the. They have to know that there's stuff they don't know. They don't know and that they need someone to be their guide.

George Siegal: 16:49

With houses having gotten so expensive, I think what happens, too, is people are squeezing into something that maybe they can't fully afford. So when you say, okay, look, maybe another $1,000 worth of inspections would be a good thing, because then you would truly be in a much better position once you close on that property. But they don't want to spend the money. It's like the landscaping at the end of a deal, the builder landscaping package. My wife and I always laugh at this Two bushes and a patch of grass and you're on your own and you can walk around the neighborhood and see who took that package. I just don't understand why we're not more on top of this.

Rachel Oslund: 17:25

It's dollars and cents, it is absolutely. Customers have an understanding most buyers that a home inspection should just be a couple hundred dollars and when you Like. If you were buying an airplane, a little airplane, you would have it inspected and it would be a couple thousand dollars for the inspection, and that's you, and you're not in there all the time but you're flying. You want this thing to be fine. You bring yourself, your partner, your pets, your family into this house and you're getting an inspection. And I've done inspections for people and it's a million dollar property and they're like, ooh, $500, can you get it lower? Well, what do you want us to skip? I mean, there's, so, there's a. It's a priceless, priceless Inspection to have someone else who's not not attached to the house emotionally come in and tell you what's going on and Give you an objective list of what's there. I and then so I don't know if there's got to be a balance of people understanding that there's value in the home inspection beyond checking a box.

George Siegal: 18:33

Well, I think even too, before you get to the inspection, people should be doing more research into the person they're buying the house from, or the history of the neighborhood or the history of the community, and don't just go to the builders references. Go to the people that may own one of those houses that he didn't tell you about. Yes, that's where you get the most information.

Rachel Oslund: 18:53

Yes, those neighbors who have already moved in are really fantastic resource, definitely.

George Siegal: 19:01

Good, yeah, and what you know. One of the other things too, which is is we care more about the Icing on the cake than the ingredients, and you really need to know. I mean, there's so many things that are important in a house being resilient in terms of you know how that house was built, safety wise and most builders don't put that out front, but everybody should ask that question of anybody, even if it's just somebody selling a house what are the features in your house that make it safe?

Rachel Oslund: 19:28

Yes, and when you had work done on the house, did you pull permits and and did you have those permits closed? Was there a final inspection? Because people will pull, pull permits but not actually have that final inspection, and that at least gives you some sense of security. I mean, it's government, so you never, you never know exactly, but but at least there's something there. And the other thing that buyers can do is get a clue report from their insurance company to see what Claims have been filed on that property. So that would be helpful in finding out about if they've been flooding. It makes no sense to me that that in Florida you've got to Disclose or fill out the form saying that they're that you had a flood in your house, but you don't have to give it to anybody unless they ask.

George Siegal: 20:19

Yeah, so if my house flooded and I didn't go through insurance to fix it, it's not going to show up on that clue report, is it? It's like a car fax report.

Rachel Oslund: 20:26

Yep, yep.

George Siegal: 20:28

So I was told there's little clues you can use to to maybe look around the house and see if water ever intruded there, if there's a basement or you know, maybe you bring one of those thermal cameras and you can see if there's moisture in the walls. I mean, are there things you can do to try to slupe that out?

Rachel Oslund: 20:45

Those are. Those are all great suggestions. One of the things with the I'll just start with, first of all, in the basement, using a thermal imaging camera, is that's looking for differences in temperature. So it doesn't tell you if there's water there or mold there that which is a misconception that a lot of of clients of mine have had it's it's showing you a difference in temperature and, of course, the dry wall or concrete on the basement, in the basement wall or the crawl space is going to be cooler when the water is, where it's wet, then where it's dry. So scanning those walls with an infrared camera.

Rachel Oslund: 21:21

Another one is to look around the basement Walkout door and look for water there. Evidence of water staining at the, at the baseboards, staining around the door frame. If you've got a basement, that walkout should be clear. There shouldn't be leaves. You don't have this in Tampa. I know because my daughters are sending me pictures of the palm trees and I'm sending them the crunchy leaves from Maryland right now, but but you don't have piles of leaves filling up drains. You've got to clear that away from the basement walkout door so that the drains stay clear. Going around the basement. If you've got concrete and I'm imagining where you are with no basement, there's a. It's harder to see this, but you're looking for evidence of water, so uneven lines of staining or even sparkly white stuff around the perimeter, at the base of the wall. That's efflorescence, the minerals left after the water evaporates. So that's there. Those are, those are clues right away.

George Siegal: 22:26

Yeah, and you also have to know I mean, we've, I've heard stories of people that live in a community where they never thought it would flood, but because they built up a community next to them, all the water that used to go into the ground there now runs off into their neighborhood and and that's where they're going to Go off into their neighborhood and and now people have to deal with flooding.

Rachel Oslund: 22:46

Yeah, it's a big deal to look at the historic Water situation in an area where you're moving, especially if it's a place you've never lived, if you're. If I were moving to Tampa from Baltimore that would be I would really have to do some different research. Another thing to notice in some areas is If you're looking at a neighborhood and it's got street names like Uh, running brook east, running brook west, those are signs that there may be an underground spring or that there was a brook there at one time. So you can look at a map and see, okay, these are all named, something that has something to do with water, and then that can be a sign that there's something going on under your house and that or they re-rooted something or they had to suppress something and it may come back. So you want to just be hyper vigilant in that way.

George Siegal: 23:41

Wow, I haven't heard that one. That's interesting now. Has it created an industry for you? So many people are becoming realtors now because they want to make extra money. They want to do it. On the side. There's the high-powered agents in a community and then there's all the other people that are Scrambling to try to get listings and do everything that. That probably is good for what you do, because it opens up a whole bunch of people you can educate it really does and Over the last couple of years because there have been fewer home inspections.

Rachel Oslund: 24:09

What I created was this real estate Education education series and so that was to train new agents and experienced agents in all different aspects of homes and home inspections and that. But so many people come in trying to do it on the weekend or the evening and some are fantastic and they just absorb information and they're seeking out training and then with. Others are not. Others are hoping, because these last couple of years Told people that they could just get in, make some money and be done Because there was no negotiating. There was none of. That was not as much was necessary over the last couple of years.

George Siegal: 24:50

Yeah, I mean, it seems like education in that. So how do people take that course? How do people get involved with you and and get be part of that?

Rachel Oslund: 24:58

So just going to my website under the agent resources, there's a section there or they can email or text me and I'll connect them. It's right on. It's on zoom you.

George Siegal: 25:08

That's excellent.

Rachel Oslund: 25:09

And the other one that I do that's in person is a mock home inspection. So I meet with a group of people at a house and we walk through and talk about the drainage and what I'm seeing and the downspouts and the soffits and holes in the soffit and how they connect to the ridge vent at the top of the roof and all of those things and grading and all the parts of the roof and the types of shingles, and then go through the inside to see how it all corresponds to what we saw on the outside. And that's an interesting thing and it's done in person. And someone has asked someone in California asked me if I would please just record one entirely and send it so they could watch it. So I'm working on that.

George Siegal: 25:54

Now, are you talking more to agents with that, or potential home buyers, because I think that anybody buying a home should be armed with that knowledge too.

Rachel Oslund: 26:01

Yes, yes, thank you, and many times, yes, I do it, for I offer it for buyers and I offer it for agents and it's agents who seem to be coming more. I don't have as direct a link to buyers as I'd like to to get them the education, because if your agent doesn't know and you don't know, it's a challenge to you, may lose out on a house and you may get into a house. I say, a lipstick on a pig, you may notice, but lipstick on a pig with polio, you're not going to see that. You guys, you have to be looking at stuff differently.

George Siegal: 26:38

Should people do a better job vetting the person that they're using as a real estate agent? I know a lot of times you end up hiring the person who's sending you flyers all the time or who seems to sell a lot of houses in the neighborhood, but you never really understand whether they have the kind of knowledge you're talking about.

Rachel Oslund: 26:55

Right. So I would say, when you're interviewing an agent, doing a lot of houses in your neighborhood is a good thing, because they know the construction and they know the, they know the area. But someone who's listed a lot of houses and sold them may not have had any experience. Especially if they've got a big team behind them, they might not actually have the experience themselves and know when to ask for help from the rest of their team. So you want them to be able to walk through the house and point things out to you. If you have someone there as your listing agent, then you're, so I'm talking about two separate people here. But for the listing agent, you want them to walk through and be able to identify the parts of the house and and understand as you're pointing things out, they should also be looking at it differently, beyond just cosmetic. Most don't do that, which is what I'm trying to teach.

Rachel Oslund: 27:53

And then for buyers, you want to ask, you want to ask your agent. Tell me about what you know about houses, and they'll say well, I know all about them. I know two and a half baths or one bath, and I work with a ton of really fantastic agents who know a lot of stuff about houses, and then I work with some terrible ones who are just. I mean, I had one who just said to me so when are we going to look at the foundation? We just walked out of the basement and that's the foundation. That's where we just were. Oh, can we go back? And you show me that? So you and it's and it's asking them, and anyone can reach out to me and I am happy to answer questions or help them develop some questions, but I haven't come up with a script for how to interview an agent, because you also have to be comfortable with them, because it's a pretty intimate experience.

George Siegal: 28:44

It is and you know it's. It's one of those things where still every experience I've come away with there, I only blame myself if things screw up, because ultimately we could have investigated or found things out too. Like we bought our house here in Tampa because it was on this beautiful tree lined street with all this shade, because it gets really hot here. When we moved down here they had cut down all the trees between when we closed and when we got here because they were putting in a new sewer project right down the street and so they had to cut down all the trees. That made it a tree lined street. Now some would argue that's a good thing, because now the street drains better, but our agent didn't tell us about it. I think people need to make that call to the city, find out if there's any projects going on there. What's the master plan for that community? You know they're now putting power lines underground here, which means transformers in people's yards. You got to ask questions if it's your investment.

Rachel Oslund: 29:36

Yeah, and you learned that the hard way and that is something that the agent may or may not have known that, and the agent should be encouraging you to do your due diligence. Maryland is a caveat emptor state by a buyer beware state. So here you've got to do your due diligence, look those things up and you want your agent to be able to, to have knowledge about the area that you're in. You can't use I say you can't. I've said that twice in here do whatever you want. And if you use an agent who is from I don't know you, if you use an agent from Orlando to come to tell you this house in Tampa because it's your cousin's sister or whatever, then they're not going to know that area and you want someone who is an expert in the spot that they're selling. Yeah.

George Siegal: 30:28

I think in my case it's because I only learned lessons the hard way. There's no, there's no easy way. So if you had to give people advice and say, okay, here's the number one thing, whether you're a seller or a buyer, what's something people can focus on so we can walk away making a difference here?

Rachel Oslund: 30:49

Ask questions. And if you're not sure what questions to ask, so you're just going to silently listen and hope for the best, you're going to have problems. So ask questions, google. What questions should I ask? Because every area is different. And don't take this as a passive thing. You've got your credit all set. You've got the loan. You actually are all set. You get to look at houses. That's not the end. The end is taking responsibility for knowing about the house and knowing about home ownership.

George Siegal: 31:23

Yeah, I have questions. I put them on my website for every questions. Every buyer should ask a seller before they buy a house. Just a list of questions. And my response to people always is they. I don't want to be a bother. If they weed you out because you want information, they're doing you a favor. Walk away and buy something else.

Rachel Oslund: 31:41

Yep, you are spot on. No matter how much you love that house, if the seller doesn't want to respond to give you answers, that's the red flag.

George Siegal: 31:51

Yeah, there's red flags all the time and I think we just don't want to see them sometimes because you want them to like you, your spouse falls in love with it. But sometimes you got to make the tough decisions. It's not fun when you're writing checks for stuff down the road because they did a crappy job.

Rachel Oslund: 32:08

Exactly and your buyer's agent has. As a buyer, you've got to really make sure that your buyer's agent is. They can be friendly and wonderful and then also a pit bull at the same time, because they've got to go to bat for you. So you've got to have someone that's going to be able to negotiate and get questions answered that you want answered, that you can't get answered Like they are. They've got to do that for you and if they are rushing you, that's a red flag. People who don't do many home inspections, don't do many transactions, are generally trying to sell quickly because they've got to pay for something I've got to get this commission, my kid needs shoes, kind of thing, you know.

George Siegal: 32:53

Yeah, that's not a good situation, because then you're the one that's going to end up paying for it.

Rachel Oslund: 32:56

Yeah.

George Siegal: 32:59

I should write a book about that.

Rachel Oslund: 33:01

Oh, totally, oh, my gosh, you've got your website's fantastic, and what you're doing with educating people about the resilient homes and everything that you're doing is fantastic. So I love going through all of your social media your Facebook and Instagram looking at everything, and your website, of course, has a ton of great information.

George Siegal: 33:25

Well, thank you for saying that. That's what I was attracted to having you on because of what you do, I think it's filling such an important. This is like a love fest here, but this is such an important thing to educate people. We need to wake people up, period.

Rachel Oslund: 33:39

Yes, because homeownership is the American dream. I should do this. Air quotes the American dream, or at least that's what we've been sold so. And you want your own space, don't rush into it and don't just ask questions. And so this is just, and if I can help realtors understand more about houses so that they can help buyers and sellers actually be better homeowners, then I will feel much better, like I've made a difference because they're, then they know how to take care of the house and then when they go to sell it, it'll be worth more too.

George Siegal: 34:15

Absolutely. Let's stop passing along problems and, just you know, have it landing on somebody else. We're speaking the same language, Rachel. I'm going to put all your contact information in the show notes and I really appreciate your time today. Great information.

Rachel Oslund: 34:31

Thanks for having me.

George Siegal: 34:32

Thank you for listening today. I'd love to learn about your stories as a homeowner. As a contact form in the show notes, fill it out and share your experiences, good or bad. You could be featured on an upcoming episode and if you enjoyed what you were listening to today, please become a regular subscriber so you don't miss an episode. A new podcast comes out every Tuesday. Thanks again for listening. See you next time.