[Music] Hello everyone and Welcome to another episode of Selling Greenville your favorite real estate podcast here in Greenville South Carolina I'm your host Stan McCune realtor as you guys should by this point already know here in the upstate of South Carolina and you can find as always all of my contact information in the show notes if you need to reach me for any reason that's where you can go if you don't already have my contact information and as well just a reminder as always if you've listened to this podcast multiple times or even if this is your first episode and you you have gotten something out of the podcast please leave a five-star rating please leave a short little review that'll only take you a couple of seconds in your podcast app and as well make sure that you subscribe so you don't miss future episodes jumping right in today I want to discuss the 10 least helpful questions to ask when looking at purchasing real estate and I'm mentioning these 10 questions because they are very common questions they're questions I get literally every single week and let's just let me just cut to the chase here okay if it's a question that I haven't already asked then it's probably not a useful question to ask if that makes sense when I see a property and when I have a client that's interested in a property I'm already thinking through okay what are the potential issues here what are the potential things that we need to get out in front of usually if if my clients are wanting me to ask a question particularly if it's one of these 10 questions it's probably not worth asking now that being said I'm still going to ask it because that's my duty that's my responsibility for my buyer clients but that's just something that I just want to say on the front end and I also want to say on the front end not to be snoody about this I never have a problem with people asking questions I never have a problem with my buyers wanting me to to go to the listing agent and to ask you know specific questions even if they fit into one of these top 10 least helpful questions I never have a problem with that I get paid to do what my clients want me to do right and I do follow the philosophy for the most part that the customer or to use the legal South Carolina terminology the client my client that they are always right there are times when I will disagree with them but at the end of the day it's my responsibility to represent them and their their desires usually if we have a disagreement I have found more often than not later down the road my clients come back and say yeah you were actually right and and I'm again I'm not trying to brag or or any of that but this is what I do for a Liv living right so I should be right more often than not if I'm not then maybe I should be doing something else but I don't actually believe that there are dumb questions so I don't want to pose any of these if you're listening to this you're like oh man that's a question I ask all the time and I'm I must be an idiot no I'm not saying that there are dumb questions and I'm not suggesting that any of these 10 least helpful questions are in are dumb or you know the product of a lack of intelligence or anything like that but what I am saying is that these questions tend to not yield helpful answers or as you'll see multiple times with multiple of these questions a lot of them are an attempt to shortcut the process real estate purchasing real estate is a process and you cannot shortcut it like it that simply can't be done the process has to play itself out that is exactly why I have a job as a realtor is because if it was just really simple and you could just shortcut the process and just go about it you know real simply there wouldn't be a need for Real Estate professionals but the fact that there are aspects to this that there's multiple steps to it that there's a lot that goes into it that's exactly what real estate professionals are here for okay so with all of that to be said let's dive right into the 10 not not stupid questions but the 10 questions that tend that I get the most often that tend to be the least helpful questions to ask when you're looking to buy real estate and these are not in any particular order these are just in the order that I came up with them in my head question number one why is the seller selling oh man I wish I had a a dollar for every time I get this question why is the seller selling in all of my years of real estate I have never had a seller answer this in a way that either wasn't already obvious or in a way that just didn't really directly answer the question what what do you expect the seller to say oh this property is just garbage that's why that's why the seller is selling the property is just garbage no they're not going to say that do can you expect them to say let's say that they're an investor they're selling off an investment property they're not going to say well I'm selling this one off because I can do a lot better elsewhere there's a lot better stuff on the market than this so I'm I'm dumping this off no they're not going to say that do you expect them to say I'm about to foreclose and I'm super motivated and we'll take the first offer I can get no they're they're not going to say that and and this is what I just alluded to before this is a shortcut question asking why the seller is selling is an attempt to shortcut doing your own research into a property I would say rather than focusing on why a seller is selling selling focus on why you should or shouldn't buy the property it is your job to do that research it is not the seller's job to do the research for the buyers it's not the sell's job to reveal the obvious things or the not obvious things to the buyers except for material facts about the property itself the seller does not need to reveal their motives and they will not even if it sounds like they're telling you their motives they're not telling you everything usually sellers have a lot of motives for selling a property and they're just going to tell you the one that is the least you know quote unquote incriminating to them the one that that sounds the best so asking the seller or asking listing agent why is a seller selling you're not usually going to get I mean very rarely again I don't think one time in my career have I gotten a helpful answer from that so you have to do your own research and obviously as a buyer agent that's something that that I help with and and usually it becomes readily apparent why a seller is selling as you do your research as you look at the property and all of that kind of stuff and sometimes sometimes it's not apparent some maybe the seller doesn't know what they're doing I have seen that I have seen times where a seller is selling because they don't realized that they're sitting on a gold mine I had a situation one time a few years ago where a client of mine was going was looking to purchase a property the seller had no idea they they underpriced it they had no idea what it was worth we gave them an offer and my client unfortunately backed out but what ended up happening is in the process of being under contract they ended up having to do some work to some things that we revealed and while they were do during our inspections while they were doing work to the property they got so much interest from people wanting to rent it that they realized well my goodness I'm sitting on a gold mine here and then that seller ended up after my client backed out which they then immediately regretted and that was something I discouraged them from doing I didn't think it was a wise decision they backed out immediately regretted it and then the seller decided I ain't even going to sell this property now and so that was just an example of a seller selling they didn't even know what the property was worth and so again not usually a helpful question all right question number two is there anything wrong with the house they aren't telling me yes yes there are things wrong with the house they aren't telling you there isn't a single house anywhere in the US where the homeowner discloses every single detail that they know that's wrong with the house the seller's disclosure itself is a in South Carolina it's a 5 to six page document and it's very basic some of the things that it asks it's mostly yes no questions there's not a whole lot of room in there to to fill out everything do you think that the seller is going to tell you every single outlet that doesn't work every single faucet that has low water pressure do you think that they're aware of of every single thing going on in the crawl space no and if they are odds are that they are not going to list out every single thing they might not even remember every single thing that's what I have run into many many times where where clients that are selling a house they don't disclose everything that that is wrong with the house because they forget they've gotten used to just living with you know with this or or that or the other thing and it just becomes one of those you know it's easy to forget and again this is a shortcut question is there anything wrong with the house they aren't telling me you can't shortcut this you have to do your due diligence now that's not to say you should go crazy with your due diligence an experienced investor if you're looking at investment properties doesn't need a ton of due diligence to identify a good deal but you should do what you need to do to properly assess a deal based on what you're doing what your criteria is and for some for I have a a several clients several investor clients that their assessment of the property at least their initial assessment involves just me looking at it in some cases without even my buyer client available I because I know generally speaking what I'm looking for now again that's not a shortcut you still need to do your inspections by and large but that's just something to keep in mind mind there are things wrong with the house that the listing agent isn't telling you or doesn't know and that the seller isn't telling you or doesn't know that is always the case it's not a question that that you need to ask question number three I I'm getting this one a lot because this is such a common thing that we're seeing in this market why are they selling as is let me tell you what a seller isn't going to say in response to this question I'm not going to say we're selling as is because there's a ton of problems that make it not worth it for you or for me they're not going to say that again another shortcut question the vast majority of cases where sellers are selling Asis are when okay a there are clear and obvious issues that they don't have the money to address themselves you can see that very easily you don't need to ask the seller that question you can see it usually in the photos but for sure in person you can see that maybe even the seller's disclosure reveals some of that B they never lived in the house such as you know an estate sale or something like that and don't know what might be wrong with the property and they just want to dump it off that's a very common reason why sellers are selling as is again that's very obvious you can see it usually in the photos you can see it perhaps on public records often times in the listing it'll it'll say if it's an estate sale or something to that effect and I still get clients that are like why are they saying that they're selling as is because it's an estate sale people that are selling in an estate sale situation they don't want to have to to go through all these inspections and repairs and all of that they just want to get under contract for an an agreeable price and then just get to closing and not have to to worry about fixing all sorts of plumbing and electrical stuff and whatnot you have to factor that into your price and again you have to do your your own due diligence to make sure you know what you're getting into before closing and and see the last reason and this is right now I'm recording this in April of 2022 and this is a really common reason why people are selling as is because they can right now we're it's such an insane sellers Market that a lot of sellers are just saying you know what I don't I hate having to deal with repairs and all that this house it's in good condition I've kept up with it I've done everything I need to do I just want to sell it to someone that I know isn't going to nickel and dime me for all these Ticky Tac little repairs and so that we're seeing that very commonly right now very commonly situations where the sellers are just are are not wanting to have to to mess around with that and the house isn't necessarily in bad condition they are just wanting to not have to to deal with with going back and forth than a mid transaction negotiation over repairs next question why don't they answer any questions in the seller's disclosure what this question is really asking is is the seller hiding something right you I see a lot of this I mean most sellers disclosures they don't say hardly anything and again there is no way to know whether they're hiding something most sellers don't take the sellers disclosure very seriously and as a buyer and a buyer's agent I don't put a whole lot of stock into the sellers disclosure I constantly find mistakes in there I looked at a property recently with some clients of mine it said on the sell disclosure AC unit 2022 brand new right well part of what I do as an agent is I always look at the AC unit because you you don't know what you're going to find I went to the AC unit guess what year it was it was a 2004 and they had on the S disclosure that it was a 2022 unit I went back to the listing agent and was like hey what's going on here why do they disclose it was brand new when you know it's like 18 years old he went back to the to the seller the seller is out an outof State seller and the outof state seller didn't realize that they had hired an AC guy to replace the unit and he had gone to some like scratch and dent place and had installed an 18-year-old AC unit that I guess was in good shape in his mind and and that was what he used in order to save everyone costs so you cannot trust a seller's disclosure and as I already said there are times when when sellers don't even remember there's no way for a seller to remember every single thing that's that's wrong with a property so you can't expect that you cannot shortcut the process you have to do all the research yourself again this is a major part of my role is to make sure that my clients that my buyer clients actually purchase what they want to purchase actually get the property that they that they want to get all right next question actually I don't know do I have 10 questions here let's see here one 2 3 4 five 6 seven eight nine I've got nine questions here I don't even have 10 wow I I need to come up with with one more on the Fly here I don't I don't think I'm going to do it all right regardless question number five this is for a new listing specifically okay cuz this can be a good question for a home that's been on the market for a while but if a home has just come on the market to ask the question do you think they have some wiggle room on the price okay again this is as of April 2022 if you're listening to this three years from now this might be a very different answer that I would give but right now in these market conditions there the answer to this question for a new listing is always the same it's always the word no no do I think they have wiggle room on the price for a new listing no no I do not it doesn't matter if they clearly demonstrably overpriced it you know how many times I talked to to listing agents when they've listed a new house and it's overpriced and come back to them and and and and discuss with them I'm just like you know this you know I I might give feedback or I might talk to them and be like you know I'm not really seeing how this fits this price and they always just come back you know I had one that was sassy with me lately that was just like you know if you look at the comps you'll see that it's not overpriced and and what was ironic about that is that I had looked at the comps and it was overpriced and that house is is still languishing on the market as of today which only happens in this market if it's overpriced in a sell's market it is a complete waste of time to ask if a seller has wiggle room on the price they do not have wiggle room on the price in their mind they all they are seeing is these prices going crazy all their neighbors selling their homes in in two days and they're just you know jacking up the price and there and there you go they're expecting to get that and it's not until they start to lower the price that reality starts to come to come in now if a home has been on the market for a week or two maybe at that point they do have some legal room although less so than in the past I'm still seeing homes that have been on the market for one two 3 weeks that go under contract and it's still a full price contract just again because of how insane the market is but even in these situations it's usually not worth my time to ask the listing agent you know does the seller have wiggle room because Realtors are fiduciaries and there's very limited information that we can give you know with regard to whether our clients have wiggle room or or not just like me as a buyer agent if the seller comes to me and it's just like you think they can come up on the price you know there's only so much that I can say in that situation without completely giving up you know what I'm supposed to be doing as a fiduciary for my client and so the the better way to ask the question is not to ask it it's just to make the offer and obviously I prefer my clients talk to me first like hey is this offer even worth it I'm I'm just going to shoot you straight and there's a lot of ways that I can assess whether an offer is worth it or not but at the end of the day if the seller does have wiggle room if it's a property that's been on the market for a while and it and it might be a candidate for having some wiggle room the best way to assess that is simply to make an offer all right question number six is the property overpriced okay this is the question again that I get a lot is this is this property overpriced the is issue with this question is a lack of precision what you got to we've got to determine what you're really asking are you wanting to buy a home with Instant Equity I mean good luck right now that that there was a time when when you could do that and that time will return at some point it's just not right now are you wanting to make sure your appraisal comes back at Value that you don't end up in a situation where where you have a low appraisal and then are are in the middle of the transaction having to renegotiate things that that can be a good question to ask that and and so that's really the you know if that's really what you're asking just ask it don't ask it is it overpriced ask would this house actually appraise and and even you know if you're wanting to buy a house with Instant Equity that's fine too ask that question often a better question to ask though than any of these what a lot of people are are asking is they don't want to to buy something more than it's worth but that that's a that's subjective in so many ways even what appraisers value properties at is very subjective which I've talked about many times better question ask often what is this house worth to me it might be worth less than it's listed for it might be worth more than it's listed for but that is the question that you need to ask and and be realistic compare that house to the other homes that are on the market and go from there if if that house is a a great value compared to everything else you've been seeing on the market then it might be worth more to you than it would be to someone else all right question number seven why hasn't this home sold yet again there are certain questions where certain situations rather where this question could make sense if you see a home priced correctly in an area that normally sells quickly and without any discernable issues with it it's a great question you know that that at that point it comes okay is this maybe a diamond in the rough here but 99% of the time the answer is really simple it's either a a house hasn't sold yet because it's overpriced and or B the house is in bad condition easy to see and or C is in an undesirable location one of those three things is the answer 99.9% of the time for a house in a seller's market that is isn't selling that's it and so and and those are all things that can be identified pretty quickly and now if you're not from Greenville and you don't understand the areas and and all of that I completely understand asking this question that's a great question if you're not from around here from my out ofate investors or people moving here from out of state great question to ask but for those of you that live in this market that understand the market that understand the different neighborhoods and the school districts and all of that you can rule out whether it's in an undesirable location or not and you can pretty quickly identify whether it's overpriced or in or in bad shape that said again like with all of these questions I'm happy to entertain them it's just the answers are usually pretty obvious and most of the time I feel like when I get asked that question in particular usually it it it's something that just common sense I don't even need to to do any Research into it I can just look at it on my phone and and just immediately tell you what what the reason is and probably a lot of my experienced clients could could figure that out too without me even needing to do that but I'm still happy to do it because that's again what I get paid for question number eight is this a rough neighborhood okay as a realtor I simply cannot answer that question I've actually gotten worse variations of this question I got a question is this an all blank with question with fill in the blank was a skin color is this an all blank skin color neighborhood and I just said to the guy I absolutely cannot answer that question that is a violation of real estate law in so many ways but specifically it's it's it's steering that is what it is me answering questions about whether a neighborhood is rough or not again I have to be extremely careful with with with what I say and those are are not good questions to ask it's also a very subjective question are you wanting to know how much crime there is well there are objective ways to look that up and me as a realtor my office has told me not to look that up because that's them become something that I can potentially be liable for so I don't look up any crime statistics but you can you can look up registered sex offenders online you can get crime stats from the sheriff's department etc etc do you want to know how what percent of homes in the area have been updated well Google street view or doing a driveby is a great way to do this and and you could also you know ask me how many you know generally speaking how many homes in this area have been remodeled what kind of what kind of rates are we seeing of of people coming in and flipping houses I can't answer that question to the best of of my knowledge but don't ask me if it's a rough neighborhood I can't really answer that question number nine which I guess is the question we're going to end at why aren't you buying this house question that investors will ask me because they know that I invest in real estate and usually there are 10 15 20 reasons why I'm not looking to purchase a property that's available I'll remind you guys my primary job is being a realtor and that's what I spend 90% of my time on most people that are realtors and investors primarily focus on the investment side of things and don't do much on the the retail real estate side of things I'm the opposite because I enjoy the retail real estate side of things the so the Investments take take a a distant second place from in comparison to my normal real estate business and my investments are very selective I only buy a very narrow profile of rental properties I only flip usually a couple of houses a year typically and I could make a more money if I focus on the investing side of things but I'm more focused on a lifestyle that I prefer and flipping houses and all of that it's a very for me it's very stressful I don't enjoy it and so I I don't do it as much as as perhaps I could and you know as you can see I consider a lot more than just the money in all of this I also factor in the business side of this as well if I bought every property that had potential for my clients and but bought it for s then my clients would just go somewhere else so I have to keep that in mind too and and there are times when I will present a property to a client that I'm interested in and when they decide that they want to purchase it I let them have it rather than me focusing on it because I I'm looking at it from a broader picture so the long story short for me to buy a property has to fit a very specific profile I have to have money in the time to buy it I have to have time to focus on it and it has to be the kind of thing where I don't have any clients that want it more than I do and that type of thing only happens a few times a year and I guess I I'll throw in one more question just to make it 10 questions right because this is one it's kind of similar to some of the other questions but as a buyer do will the seller pay my closing costs most often pretty much all the time in a seller's market no again if it's a new listing the seller is not going to pay for the buyer's closing cost I've seen listings where it says the the seller wants the buyer to pay the seller's closing costs I have seen that multiple times the past year at some point this will flip right at some point the market will correct and it will become more of the norm like it was 5 years ago for sellers to pay for some of the buyer closing costs but right now the way things are sellers are not paying for any buyer closing cost each party has to pay their own closing costs and that's something I can I can give you an idea of what your closing costs will be depending on the deal that we're looking at so there you go I gave you the 10th question to make it so that I can say that I asked an answered 10 questions on here I hope you guys enjoyed the show all of my contact information is in the show notes if you need to reach me for any reason that is where you can go please subscribe rate review and I hope you guys have a wonderful rest of the week [Music]