New Shingles For Roof

[NIXON]

Garry, If the roof is not leaking ,And appears to be in good shape , then leave it alone . I guess You have to ask Yourself if You'd buy it . Or would You trust the roof for another 5-10 years .
If the answer is Yes then sell it as is . If not. reroof it .
If You decide ot over-shingle it , specify 30lb felt .It isn't all that much more ,and makes for a better looking job on a re-roof . John

 

[Bob_Skurka]

I really agree with everything Eddie Walker said about the roof and what to do when you sell your house. And I'd like to add one more thing. Remember, the real estate agent is your enemy.

Even though you are hiring the RE agent, they are your enemy. I've met some good agents and I've met a lot that I would rank below a politician or a lawyer. RE agents are out for themselves. They want you to do all sorts of things to raise the price of your house so that they can make a bigger commission, not because they are trying to get you more money. They couldn't care what you get. They care what they get. They will gladly let your house sit on the market until it appreciates up to where they get a bigger commission, in the mean time you've been making payments for 9 extra months and actually end up pocketing nothing more than if you would have sold it for a bit less 9 months prior.

And the golden rule that I have seen/heard burn more people than any other RE rule is NEVER LET A RELATIVE OR A CLOSE FRIEND BE YOUR R.E. AGENT WHEN YOU SELL YOUR HOUSE. Its bad enough being screwed over by a stranger, but its worse to get screwed over by family.

Maybe its just me, but I'd rather have a politician over for dinner than most of the RE agents I know.

 

[gsxr1100]

Bird- The Fire and water is called Fire and Ice barrier (Membrane). Sorry I call it fire and ice. It is the black sticky stuff (Membrane) that goes in the valleys, by vent pipes etc. The stuff is a ROYAL pain to work with by works great. Everyone uses it up here in MA and it saves from major ice damage. A 75 foot roll is about $80

I know if I ever do a roof again, I am stripping it no matter what. I had never doing multi layer roofs. It is a pain. It is pay now or pay latter.

But if the guy is selling it, let the next buyer worry about it. See what happens on the home inspection. They stated my roof was fine, my kitchen was fine, and bath/ fire hazards were fine. WRONG! Roof was poor and the kitchen was a fire hazard along with the carpet up to the wood stove.

 

[shoppintractors]

<font color="blue"> Garry, If the roof is not leaking ,And appears to be in good shape , then leave it alone . </font>

I'll agree and add to what Nixon said....

You'll be asked to disclose the age of the roof and if it leaks. If the age of the shingles becomes an issue for a buyer I would want to have a couple re-shingling estimates in-hand. Why? Because buyers 'work estimates' for 'negotiating purposes' have a tendency to be higher than what the actual cost of the project would be.

Don

 

[AndyM]

<font color="blue"> Even though you are hiring the RE agent, they are your enemy. I've met some good agents and I've met a lot that I would rank below a politician or a lawyer. RE agents are out for themselves. They want you to do all sorts of things to raise the price of your house so that they can make a bigger commission, not because they are trying to get you more money. They couldn't care what you get. They care what they get. </font>

In this area, the real estate agents want the easy money and the quick sale. Grab the fast commission and move on to the next one. Sell several at low prices, rather than waiting forever to sell one at a high price.

We had to get a certain amount of money for our old house to cover the equity loan, then we had to raise the price enough to cover their commission. We just wanted enough to break even. The first thing every realtor wanted us to do was to lower the asking price anywhere between 10 and 25 thousand dollars. That's a lot to come down on for a house that's already under $100,000!

We gave up on listing it with a realtor, since we couldn't find one that was really working for US. I bought a large, high quality For Sale sign with a metal frame, put a length of 3 inch pvc pipe on top of it to store color flyers, and sold the house shortly thereafter for slightly under the price I wanted to list it at in the first place!

Oh, to keep this on topic, I stripped off four layers of shingles from my garage roof before we listed it. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
Not a fun way to spend a hot summer day! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[btolle]

First, a DISCLAIMER: I am a licensed Texas Real Estate Salesperson and a former licensed Texas Real Estate Inspector. None of the following is to be construed as legal advice.

No one can predict how much longer any roof will last. Not possible. And, I have never seen a 15 year shingle, 20 year shingles are the minimum. In some areas like Texas where the sun really beats down on them a 20 year shingle will last 15 years if you are lucky. In other parts of the country a 20 year shingle may last 25 years.

Your obligation as a seller is to reveal the age of the roof and any know leaks. You are not required to estimate how much longer the roof will last.

If the real estate inspector decides it is bad or the buyer wants a new roof it is perfectly acceptable (at least in Texas) to put a second layer over the first layer but I would use 30 pound felt as someone recommended. The 30 pound felt will not only make the new roof lay flatter but it will last longer and the price difference is insignificant.

Secondly, the price of a home is determined by what is known as "fair market value". Fair market value is defined as "The price that a willing buyer and a willing seller, both given full information, and neither under pressure to act, would agree upon."

A good real estate agent will bring pages of data with him to showing similar homes in the area that have sold in the last 6 months to a year. This information will include the actual sales price and the square footage of the sold homes.

Using this data he (or she) can calculate the price per square foot that homes have actually sold for. Then he/she will multiply your square footage by that number and make adjustments up or down for items you may or may not have that the other homes had or for other conditions such as your 16 year old roof compared to a similar home with a 1 year old roof.

The data will also show the asking price of the homes that sold and you can see what percentage of the asking price that the homes actually sold for.

Invite 3 or 4 agents (at different times of course) and tell them to bring the "comparable sales date" with them.

Now, I will let you in on a little secret: Read the sheets yourself. They will have lot of information on them. What you want to look at is who listed the largest number of homes that sold in a reasonable length of time. The MLS sheets should show that information. The length will be shown as "Days on Market" or a similar term. You want to find the agent who sold the homes in the shortest length of time and at or near the asking price.

Beware of any agent who is willing to list the home for a large percentage above the established fair market value. An overpriced home will sit on the market for a long time and a study done in Louisiana several years ago showed that homes that were listed too high ultimately brought less than they would have is they had been listed at a realistic price to start with. And, they took a lot longer to sell.

A good real estate agent will not list your home if you are not willing to list it at a realistic price. He/she will also not list it if you are unwilling to get the house ready to sell. That means they are going to point out some things that need to be done and you should follow their advice.

After 16 years there are some things that you no longer notice that a buyer will spot immediately. A good agent will also spot them and tell you to fix them.

I will agree that there are some poor agents out there but there are also some excellent agents. As in any profession, a percentage of the people are lazy, incompetent, or just plain crooks. But that is true of any profession.

The last 4 houses that I have personally owned and sold all sold within 10 days after they went on the market. The key was that I was willing to spend the money to get them ready to sell, even as much as $4,000 in one case, and they were priced within 5% of fair market value.

A home that is ready for the buyer to move into and priced fairly will sell quickly. Do NOT kid yourself into thinking "The buyers will want to repaint it themselves". Hogwash, the buyers have likely put every last cent they have into the down payment and closing costs and won't have the money to fix up.

Beyond that, who (besides me) is willing to buy a "fixer-upper"? For every buyer who is willing to do a bunch of work there are 50 who want a home they can move into, set their furniture down, and invite their friends over. They don't want to spend the first 6 month painting and patching.

BTW, I do NOT list homes for sale, I only work for buyers.

Bill Tolle

 

[Bird]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( the real estate agent is your enemy )</font>

Bob, it's like any other business; there's good and bad. When we had to sell our place in the country, I signed with a realtor from one of the national companies (independently owned offices, though). And he did absolutely nothing other than putting his sign in the front yard; ran no ads, brought no one to even look, and in fact never even called. I learned that he's semi-retired, he gets people to sign a contract, sticks his sign in the yard, and collects his commission if you sell the place. When his contract expired, I called a guy who owns a big fancy ranch, retired from a major utility company, and went into the real estate business, working out of his home, but I'd heard good things about him from someone else. Man, he put a bunch of signs up and down the road, ran ads in major newspapers, told me he'd pay to run ads anywhere else that I could think of that might help, so I told him to run an ad in The Thrifty Nickel and he did. And he sold the place, arranged financing for the buyer, etc. Sure he got a good commission, but he did what he was hired to do, and besides that my wife and I enjoyed visiting with him and his wife. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Bob_Skurka]

Bird, not sure that I totally disagree with you but I think you give RE agents more credit than they deserve. There are good and bad. I, however, feel that the laws and the contracts protect and foster the bad. I think the greed factor also fosters the bad. The profession is often staffed by folks who do the job part time for extra income, they don't have their hearts in the job. I'm not saying all of them. But I think as a profession, there are far more bad RE agents than there are good ones. Sellers need to be very careful. Bill cited several examples of why sellers need to be very careful with agents. I go back to what Eddie Walker wrote, interview at least 5. Assume 4 are low life swindlers and the 5th is just a friendly liar.

DISCLAIMER: Did I mention my brother and sister are both in the R.E. racket or that I derive a large portion of my income & net worth from R.E.?

 

[OkeeDon]

There are probably more real esate agents per capita in my area of Florida than there are anywhere else; we are one of the fastest growing areas in the nation. I was a real estate salesperson and a broker in the late '70's-early '80's; I only got out when interest rates were so high no one could afford to buy, then I found something I liked better.

My son, while working professionally as a real estate appraiser (and a regional appraisal manager for a national bank) is a licensed broker. My best friend is a Realtor, and has been since 1977. I know buyer's agents, listing agents, dual agents, residential, commercial, farm and land, beachfront specialists, and just about every flavor of agent you can think of. Our Mayor is a Realtor, our state senator is a Realtor, and my barber has a real estate license.

I have never met a low life swindler, an exceptionally greedy or crooked real estate agent! I have met some dumb ones, and some incompetent ones, but I have never met an agent who would deliberately do anything to hurt the client. The dumb ones can lose the client a lot of money through bad advice, but they don't make much themselves, and they don't last in the business.

Why? This area lives and breathes real estate sales. If an agent did something to screw up a deal on purpose, it would be common knowledge very quickly. It has happened, but only rarely. It's much more common for builders to accept down payments then abscond without building anything.

Bob, I'm afraid that either agents eat different food up there or something, or you have been very unlucky, for you to get such a jaundiced view. With so many of my friends working so hard on their ethics, it hurts to see you make such blanket indictments. I agree that you should interview several, but that's only to weed out the dummies.

 

[Bob_Skurka]

Don, I'll agree that Lake county Indiana is the home of graft, corruption and crooked practices and I'll hope that RE professionals in other areas are better than they are here.

Here one of our elected officials just fled to Switzerland and now is believed in his native country, his dual citizenship prevents extradition back to the US to face charges. Yup, a RE deal, the agents he scammed with are under indictment. Another RE agent, who was also an elected official, (in the Propety Assessor office) convinced his elderly in-laws to sign over their property to him in a multi-phase RE deal that screwed several others out of their homes too, is sitting in Federal prison as I type this, the whole thing involved the sales of single family homes, not some big land transaction or billion dollar development. A union official, a couple politicians and some RE agents are all currently under federal indictment for a huge swindle that involved pension funds, city money and private ownership of a developement . . . Up here, that is just the tip of the iceberg. Even in the sale of single family homes I've seen horror stories.

I go into every real estate deal with my lawyer and my accountant even if I buy without using a mortgage. Maybe it is just my area. But wait, just a few posts up, AndyM was asked to reduce the price of his house $25,000 by lazy agents, when he sold it without dropping anything close to that amount, he proved a point and kept over $20K too. Then look up at Bill's post suggesting that looking at the MLS data would ferret out the RE agents who sell homes quickly, at/near asking prices and that says a lot too (about all the other agents).

Based on what I see, Garry needs to interview lots of agents!