Make Sure You Consider EVERY Cost Before Buying A Home

Published: June 15, 2016, 7:43 p.m.

b"With Terry Story, 26-year veteran Real Estate Agent with Coldwell Banker in Boca Raton, FL

Terry Story\\u2019s weekly segment today tackles some interesting points included in her Real Estate Survival Guide: Dealing with uncooperative tenants and ignoring insurance risks when buying a home.
A recent scenario involved an owner trying to sell his rental property and confronting a tenant who wouldn\\u2019t allow access to the home for the prospective buyer. This resistance from an otherwise good renter, one who paid on time and took care of the property, can be a sticky issue which often has to be resolved by a real estate attorney.
Aside from some of the emergency or mutually agreed upon reasons a tenant can legally access a renter\\u2019s home, in the case where the landlord has put the property on the market, by law, he must give reasonable notice to the tenant in order to show that property. The concept of \\u201creasonable notice\\u201d is subject to interpretation and often means cajoling the tenant into being cooperative and then that often is a battle.
Another situation which real estate agents frequently confront is the new home buyer who either ignores or minimizes the cost of insurance when calculating the price of their purchase. They may be aware of the down payment, the monthly mortgage payment, and real estate taxes, but only factor in insurance premiums at the end\\u2014which can be a shock if no advance research has been done. Terry advises the client to consider factors such as the age and condition of the roof, whether the home is in a flood zone or not, how far from a fire station it is, and if it has a swimming pool\\u2014all things that affect the cost of homeowner\\u2019s insurance
The best advice from Terry is to do your homework before you set out on your search for your new dream home.
Read The Entire Transcript HereCollapse Transcript
Steve Pomeranz: It's time for Real Estate Round Up.\\xa0 This is the time every single we get together with noted real estate agent Terry Story.\\xa0 Terry is a 26-year veteran with Coldwell Banker located in sunny Boca Raton, Florida.\\xa0 Welcome back to the show Terry.
Terry Story: Thanks for having me, Steve.
Steve Pomeranz: I love when we do your real estate survival guide.\\xa0 It's my favorite part of the show.\\xa0 You've got a couple of them for us today.\\xa0 Take us through the first one.
Terry Story: Steve, the first one is what happens when you're trying to show a house and the tenant won't cooperate in letting you in the house?
Steve Pomeranz: Have you ever had that experience as an agent?
Terry Story: I'm living through it right now, Steve.\\xa0 It's very challenging but, really, the question that was proposed was the seller is trying to sell his rental property and the real estate agents are not having any luck with the tenant cooperating.\\xa0 The tenant has always paid on time and does take decent care of the property but doesn't even seem to be available. There's a prospective buyer that wants to take a look at the house.\\xa0 What are your rights?\\xa0 What can you do?\\xa0 That was the question that was presented to Gary Singer who's a local real estate attorney.
Here's the answer: The law in most written leases allows landlords access to rental properties, for a couple of reasons.\\xa0 One, to make repairs provided that there's an agreed upon service and that you\\u2019re showing the property to lenders, contractors, and prospective tenants.\\xa0 The landlord must give reasonable notice to the tenant to access the property.\\xa0 Now this is where the problem lies.\\xa0 What is considered a reasonable amount of time?\\xa0 The tenants have no skin in the game.\\xa0 They're going to be moving out of the property.\\xa0 They have no reason to cooperate except just to be nice.
Steve Pomeranz: They may be resistant.
Terry Story: They're resistant."