Posts made by author 'Bonnie Wicks Bertalot'

When I recommend a pre-listing inspection to a seller, the first questions are usually not about the cost of the inspection itself. Most sellers want to know what happens if the inspection finds something serious and whether they will be required to disclose what is found. Those are fair questions, and the answer is usually the same. If a significant issue exists, there is a very good chance a buyer's inspector is eventually going to discover it anyway. The difference is whether we learn about it before the home goes on the market or after a buyer is already under contract and emotionally invested in the transaction.

Over the years, I have become a strong believer in pre-listing inspections because I have watched too many transactions become unnecessarily stressful after an inspection report arrives. Contrary to what some people assume, I am not looking for perfection. I have never seen a perfect house and I...

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A professional home measurement is about more than square footage. It helps buyers, sellers, appraisers, and lenders work from the same information and reduces surprises later in the transaction.

When I tell sellers that I would like to have their home professionally measured before we put it on the market, I occasionally get a puzzled look. After all, the county already has a square footage number. The tax records have a square footage number. Previous MLS listings have a square footage number. Why spend money measuring it again?

The simple answer is that those numbers are not always the same, and they are not always correct.

Over the years, I have hired professional measuring companies to measure homes before listing them. Some homes measured larger than previous records. Some measured smaller. What surprised me most was that...

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Terry came home the other day with a story that immediately made me think about homeowners and the parts of their homes they rarely see.

Someone had recently scheduled routine maintenance for their air conditioner. The HVAC technician completed the service, gathered his paperwork, and was getting ready to leave when he mentioned something unusual.

"Before I go, you may want to have a pest company take a look at your attic. I thought I heard rats running around up there."

Now, if someone tells me there might be rats in my attic, I'm probably heading for a ladder and a flashlight pretty quickly. That's exactly what this homeowner did.

What he found wasn't rats.

It was bats.

A lot of bats.

A missing inspector, a crawlspace adventure, and an unexpected plumbing leak became a reminder that some of the most important parts of a home are the parts homeowners rarely see.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a living room with some sellers while their pre-listing inspection was taking place. The inspector had gone into the crawlspace, and after quite a while we realized we hadn't seen him come back out. At first, we laughed about it, but after calling for him several times and getting no response, we started to wonder if we should check on him.

We walked around to the crawlspace entrance and called again. Nothing. I called his phone twice and still didn't get an answer. We looked around the house for another access point but couldn't find one. Finally, I did something that probably wasn't in any real estate training manual. I crawled under the house.

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The closing table may end a transaction, but it is only the beginning of living with the decision.

One of the things I wish more people understood about real estate is that success is not measured by whether a transaction closes.

Success is measured by how the decision fits someone's life years later.

Over the years, I worked with one family through multiple purchases, sales, new construction projects, and relocations. Looking back, their story reminds me that every housing decision creates a ripple effect that continues long after the moving boxes are unpacked.

When buyers are searching for a home, they naturally focus on what they can see. The floor plan. The neighborhood. The garage. The backyard. The location.

Those things matter.

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