• Lead-based paint and real estate: how does it affect you?

    Tip7
    Reader and regular contributor Joel McDonald – a real estate professional who frequently writes on issues important to those considering buying, remodeling or restoring an older home – submits the following:

    Even though lead-based paint has been outlawed for a long time, it is still a very real issue for both homeowners and real estate agents. In 1992, the Housing and Community Development Act made it so that seller of real estate had to disclose potential lead-based paint hazards to the purchaser at the time of sale.  Lead was used as a paint additive for nearly 125 years before it was linked to health problems around 1978.  That year, it was determined that lead would not be added to paint as an additive any longer. Any home that was built prior to 1978 could potentially have a lead-based paint problem.

    The Hazards of Lead-Based Paint
    The presence of lead-based paint in a home environment can lead to lead poisoning.  Children under the age of six run the greatest risk of developing lead poisoning from lead-based paint because young, growing bodies absorb many of the minerals that they come into contact with, whether it is much needed calcium or very dangerous lead.  Continuously high levels of lead in the body can lead to brain damage, behavior problems, hearing problems, and damage to the nervous system.  These problems can occur in both adults and children, and additionally in children, normal growth can be impaired.

    Any home built prior to 1978 that has cracked, peeling, or chipping paint should be treated as a potential hazard and should be repaired immediately. If paint containing lead was used around the window or door frames in the home, the process of opening and closing these items may be creating a surprisingly large amount of dust containing lead. This dust is potentially hazardous and can be difficult to get rid of.  Vacuuming, sweeping, and dusting can cause the lead dust to reenter the air and dust will be kicked up every time you take a step within the home. The dust can also be tracked outside where it will contaminate the soil around the home.

    Does Your Home Have a Lead-Based Paint Problem?
    In order to discover whether your home has a lead-based paint problem, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends that every home built prior to 1978 receive a paint inspection conducted by a trained professional. A paint inspection will let the homeowner know the lead content of every painted surface in the home and will uncover any areas or sources of serious lead exposure.

    Although there are kits available commercially that allow the homeowner to conduct the testing on their own, the EPA recommends an inspection conducted by a professional inspector to uncover any dangerous areas that may be overlooked by the untrained eye. Some states have very specific rules and regulations dealing with the discovery and remedy of a lead-based paint issue, and the professional inspectors will be able to advise the homeowner of these rules and let them know the next step in the process of removing lead-based paint from their home.

    Article contributed by Colorado’s Fort Collins real estate service, Automated Homefinder.

    image courtesy of the Environmental Protection Agency

  • the 24/7 open house

    Maureen Francis and Dmitry Koublitsky are real estate agents/brokers in Detroit who write regularly on local and national real estate-related topics. This article appeared on their blog last week:

    I’m not the only agent who has observed that there are fewer and
    fewer agents visiting homes during our weekly board of Realtors tours.
    These tours, typically on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Oakland County, are
    designed to invite Realtors to come through the new listings. There
    could be lots of reasons that attendance is fizzling. Certainly listing
    inventory is high right now. And it is summer, so is everyone taking a
    break. I don’t think so.

    But what can we do about the fall off in attendance?  Should we do anything?  The Birmingham Bloomfield Realtor Network
    has gone to truly elaborate ends since last November to coax agents in
    to our listings. Sponsors have given away lots of goodies, we served
    food, we’ve offered shopping. And the results have been good. But there
    is no way we could do this any more than once a month. It is too labor
    intensive, and if it were done more frequently people would stop
    showing up, because it would become ordinary.

  • Redfin: find, buy & sell homes online

    Redfin is a real estate listing service with an integrated blog, which gathers neighborhood information, maps, photos and other information on a particular for-sale property all into a nice neat package. They bill themselves as "the industry’s first online real estate brokerage," and brings the whole web 2.0 package to MLS listings. And unlike customer-hostile realtors and newspapers who hide MLS listings behind layers of logins, security measures and other barriers to a halfway decent customer experience, Redfin puts the listings themselves right there in front of you, to browse and bookmark and share as you see fit.

    A recent listing in their San Francisco Bay Area section shows a small, attractive, and – as usual – ridiculously overpriced bungalow in one of my favorite Berkeley neighborhoods. Unlike other real estate tools, though, Redfin is much more upfront and honest about pricing, forgoing hype for honesty; they point out that $602 per square foot is just short of criminal, and present alternatives like this more expensive overall but only $396 per square foot home with a beautiful view just up the hill.