The problem with the real estate industry: No one is accountable
I’ve covered the residential real estate industry for more than a decade, writing stories about housing for newspapers, consumer magazines and trade publications. During this time, real estate agents and mortgage loan officers have both complained to me that too many members of the public don’t view working in the housing business as a serious, desirable career.
Well, that’s true. But there’s a reason for this: Many of the people working as real estate agents, appraisers, home inspectors and mortgage loan officers are hacks.
Here’s an example, one from my own experience. My wife and I bought a home in the Chicago suburbs a little more than three years ago. It was small but comfortable. It was located within walking distance of the schools our children attend. The public library is nearby, as are several parks.
So that’s good. I like our house and our neighborhood. I still do.
There’s one big problem, though: Our basement floods. Sometimes severely.
When we bought the house, the previous owners never disclosed this. They lived in our home for eight years. Maybe they were lucky. Maybe it never rained during those eight years. Or maybe they lied. Our basement has flooded about five times in the three years we’ve lived here. Fortunately, we learned after the first flood — nothing on the floor. And, yes, we will have it waterproofed, soon.
Guess what happened when we looked to the real estate professionals we hired to protect us for some relief from this situation? You guessed it, everyone ran to cover their backsides.
First, our home inspector, whom I thought was supposed to discover these things. He quickly informed me that he had no way of knowing if the basement flooded. After all, we had our inspection on a dry day. I’ll be sure to remember to schedule home inspections only during the fiercest of thunderstorms from now on.
Our real estate agent? She sympathized with our plight, but had no idea what to do.
Our real estate attorney? The same attorney we had to pay $250 at closing so he could barely stay awake while we signed our papers? He advised us to chalk it up to bad luck. It’s too hard to prove in court that our former owners had experienced any flooding in the eight years they had lived in our house.
This is just a small example, but it shows how little accountability anyone in the real estate transaction has. We see this on a larger scale when we look more closely at the housing crisis now raging across the country. Real estate agents and appraisers worked together to artificially inflate the value of homes to levels that were far too high. Mortgage loan officers approved people for home loans that didn’t have the financial ability to make monthly payments.
Their irresponsibility led to the housing collapse, which led to the nation’s terrible recession. Now the housing industry wants federal help to stay afloat.
I say they get that help, just as soon as someone pays me for waterproofing my basement.
