I recently founded 4realz Consulting to focus on helping small businesses use social media to create community, build buzz and enhance their brand in order to drive additional business.
In addition, I manage Rain City Guide as well as run a blog that focuses on the real estate industry: 4realz Consulting. And because I’m never busy enough, I’ve also dabbled in consulting with real estate technology companies on how they can use internet technologies to better reach and engage with real estate professionals and consumers.
Prior to founding 4Realz Consulting, I worked at Move, Inc as the Director of Consumer Innovations and the Director of Interactive Marketing, where I helped to build and drive implementation of tools that better enable community to be built around the REALTOR.com, Move.com and Top Producer brands.
I am also an accomplished speaker having presented before numerous professional groups including the National Association of REALTORS®, the American Planning Association, and the California Association of REALTORS®.
For my seminars that were part of the Finding Relevance on the Internet series, I asked for feedback from attendees on this unmoderated blog post. The overwhelmingly positive feedback is exemplified by the first four comments I received:
Your blog training was the best presentation I have ever attended. Prior to hearing your take on the subject I thought that a blog was not worth the time it would take to set up and manage. Now I am sure I have to do it to say in front of the market.
Dustin: An A+ seminar! I judge an event’s success by its power to evoke change in the way I do things.
As a result of this morning’s learning, some definite changes will be made. And for what it’s worth, Top Producer and I will likely be mutual beneficiaries. So will my network:-)
Thank you for a powerful presentation!
Dustin,
Thank you so much.. I have been a fan of Rain City Guide for sometime. This was a terrific presentation. I found the answers to many questions. I ‘m involved with Active Rain but know that I need to do something with my regular blog. I think it’s time to move on from blogger but have questions about what happens when you take your name and move. I’m curious if you would have time to answer an e-mail or if I could call and ask a few questions. I would understand if you are too busy.. and perhaps this is something that could be addressed on this site if you are going to enlarge the scope in the future.
Again.. your presentation was the best I have attended.
Excellent presentation, Dustin. I came away with a boatload of ideas and look forward to making more changes. Any chance the session tomorrow could be recorded? I expect there are many that would enjoy a podcast.
Cheers,
Jeff
I’m actively involved in numerous social networks including:
If you’re active on any of these social networks, please consider sending me an invite at dustin [at] raincityguide [dot] com.
And you can’t really know what I’m like unless you browse some of my articles on Rain City Guide and 4realz.net.
Non Disclosure Loophole:
In one state I know of, if a Seller does not deliver a Disclosure Form to the buyer, they have to pay a $500 penalty at closing. As a result, many sellers are advised not to do the Disclosure and pay the penalty thereby avoiding all the legal risks associated with the form..
That doesn’t make a lot of cents 🙂 That’s a yoke, son.
The seller is still responsible for lack of disclosure regardless. That said I have had times when I would not let the seller provide a Seller Disclosure Form and told the buyer they could not rely on the seller’s representations.
I once had a seller client whose husband had just died and she insisted she knew things she did not. She kept calling the toilet a sump pump. The buyer asked “Do you have a sump pump?” and she said yes. Luckily I was there. I said can you show it to me? She looked at me like I was stupid and brought me to the toilet. LOL
In her defense it was a below grade toilet operated by a hydraulic pump to pump up to the main sewer line. She must have heard her husband mention the word pump when it was installed.
No Seller Disclosure Form for her! LOL
Ardell
Just a general comment here but I would strongly advise any agent to refer their seller to a competent RE atty before “disallowing” them to complete a disclosure form. I hope also that the buyer’s inability to rely on reps by the seller was incorporated into the purchase and sale agreement and that provision was drafted by a lawyer so that the language was appropriate to protect the seller in case of a future dispute.
Remember, under our agency law, a seller’s agent MUST advise the seller to “seek expert advice on matters relating to the transaction that are beyond the agent’s expertise.” IMHO, no court in the land would conclude that such actions were within the expertise of a real estate licensee.
-Russ
Now Russ, how can I get her to agree that she needs an attorney when she won’t even agree that the toilet isn’t a sump pump. How do I tell her she needs an attorney because she doesn’t know what she is talking about. She was left all alone by the death of a husband who did everything in the house. But by darn she wasn’t going to admit for one second that she didn’t know something.
Generally it works in reverse, Russ. I have the expertise and first hand knowledge that the lady is calling a toilet a sump pump. So I tell the buyer on the spot and the buyer’s agent NOT to rely on her representations right there and then and NOT where she can hear me. She was a very proud and very elderly woman.
The next day (because no lawyers were around on Sunday), I went to the estate attorney and had him draft an appropriate document. It was not an addendum, because neither I nor the attorney wanted her to see it. It would have upset her terribly.
The buyer signed it and the seller never saw it. I’d rather buy the guy a sump pump than argue with her and make her feel stupid.
Right before closing she told me she forgot about a curtain she wanted to keep. It was the first curtain she bought for the house with her now deceased daughter. She couldn’t part with it. I called the buyer’s agent and he said the buyer said the agreement says he gets it. Creep. I told her to take it. I told her to take it down and pack it right now. She said won’t you get in trouble. I said don’t worry about it, I’ll buy him a new curtain and put it there, he probably won’t know the difference. And he didn’t.
Isn’t every agent’s expertise different? Granted, many agents would not know whether or not she had a sump pump. Maybe they wouldn’t have looked. But I knew the minute she said it that she didn’t have a sump pump. Glad I made her point to the toilet so the buyer could see what HER sump pump looked like 🙂
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Ardell
Ask Russ how difficult it is to argue and prove “lack of disclosure” That’s why the Disclosure form was invented. It’s in writing. So it make perfect sense to avoid the writing and just pay the 500 esp if you have a sump pump to hide 😉
Im not saying this loophole is available everywhere but where it is IT IS USED & those that know about it will corroborate what I’m saying.
3 cents, I don’t think there is a fine here for not providing a seller disclosure (called a Form 17), as long as the buyer waives the right to receive one. Most people fill them out, but nothing replaces the buyer doing their own due diligence and hiring a competent inspector. Also a good idea to go to the property at different times of the day and night during the first week.
The “Form 17” law in WA
“Except as provided in RCW 64.06.050, nothing in this chapter shall extinguish or impair any rights or remedies of a buyer of real estate against the seller or against any agent acting for the seller otherwise existing pursuant to common law, statute, or contract; nor shall anything in this chapter create any new right or remedy for a buyer of residential real property other than the right of recision exercised on the basis and within the time limits provided in this chapter.”
So what does this mean? The buyer’s rights under the Wash. Seller Disclosure law end at closing. If seller fails to provide the form and the buyer elects (knowingly or unknowingly) to close without receiving the form, buyer has no recourse against the seller directly resulting from the failure to provide the form. This does not mean that buyer gives up any rights under tort or contract law to go back against the seller for misrep or breach of warranties or against their agent who may not have advised them about the form.
-Russ
While this “disclosure” discussion has come up under my “roof” post, I have to say that I haven’t had any after sale problems with roof issues. Over the years I had one problem with a small rock with a plant in it, a mailbox switchout, and a few issues with wet basements where the seller was “correct”. I try to make it a point not to deal with people who lie and conceal. Once someone lies to me or asks me how to lie about something (yes, they do), I choose not to deal with them.
I had an appraiser call me the other night, after 9 p.m. on a Sunday I might add. He asked me what I wanted him to put on the appraisal, owner occupied or tenant occupied!?!? I said “The truth usually works well enough for me.”
There is too much paper and not enough real honesty and disclosure. The only one I find “iffy” is about neighborhood noise. Some states have that and some don’t. There’s a tot lot about two blocks from me. I happen to like hearing happy kids playing. Is that a “disclosure” in Washington State? How about the kids that are having a tantrum about not wanting to go home that DO annoy me? Most of the time the place is empty. How many tantrums equals a disclosure? How about dogs barking five doors away? Where do you draw the line?
Non Disclosure to Small Claims/King County
Ok, long story short. I bought a condo in Queen Anne 2004. The seller checked “NO” to this question on the Seller Disclosure Statement. 1g. “Are there any pending or existing assessments against the propety.”
In the Resale Certificate it states there is a pending lawsuit against the builder for defects and “Additional funds will come from a Special Assessment.”
I did not see these documents until after I moved in. 2 months later I was billed $1,678.71. I am serving the Owner who has moved out of state with small claims papers.
Your absolutely right, you don’t need to always disclose just the bad things in your home. Adding a list of good things that are unique is a nice change of pace.
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