To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/GcQUDCQAgsI
In this episode, Reuben Saltzman speaks with film producer George Siegal, known for his documentary Built to Last, Buyer Beware. They explore the hidden risks of home buying, with a focus on insurance coverage, building codes, and purchasing in high-risk areas. Drawing on his background in TV news, George emphasizes how often buyers overlook critical details such as insurance limitations and local hazards. The episode serves as a cautionary discussion, encouraging prospective homeowners to ask the right questions and make informed decisions to protect their investments and families.
Here’s the link to Inspector Empire Builder: https://www.iebcoaching.com/events
Check out George Siegal’s LinkedIn profile here –
https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-siegal/
Complete this short form for access to the special offer mentioned on the show: https://pro.speakerhub.com/speaker-feedback/?qr=980babe6-74ff-48c0-b387-83ec6aa6fe38
For the long version of the film, Built to Last:
movetheworldfilms.gumroad.com/l/kaywco
Takeaways
You have to assess your overall situation.
Don’t think that just because your house burned down, you don’t have to still pay the mortgage.
You need to understand all this stuff, and it’s not fun
You have to ask questions and find out as much information as you can.
If someone tells you you’re being a nuisance or refuses to answer your questions, don’t buy the house.
You should know what they are before you go and ask them the question.
You have to dig into that a little bit.
You have to become a detective when you’re buying a house.
If a builder ever looks at you, puffs out his chest, and says, “This house is built to code,” I wouldn’t buy it.
You want an inspector who does more than just look at the plug rating and say, “Yeah, that plug’s not connected right.”
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction
01:55 George Siegal’s Background and Career Transition
03:08 Overview of the Documentary “Built to Last”
04:25 Understanding Home Buying Decisions
05:22 The Importance of Insurance Awareness
09:24 Assessing Risks in Home Locations
14:17 Building Codes and Their Implications
18:28 Navigating Insurance Challenges
22:38 The Role of Inspectors in Home Buying
30:23 Key Questions for Home Buyers
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben Saltzman (00:01.01)
Welcome back to the show. I am Ruben and I am here without Tessa today. It’s just me and a guest So before I introduce my guest, I want to give a quick shout out to our show sponsors IEB inspector Empire Builder what we’re talking about right now is the biggest event of the year It’s IEB unite coming up this spring. It’s gonna be in Orlando, Florida for March 4th through the 6th and you’re gonna have
of information, sharing real stories from home inspectors, proven systems, and the theme this year is your story. And it’s because every inspection business owner has a story shaped by hard lessons, breakthroughs, and growth. And Unite is about learning faster by hearing what’s actually worked for other home inspectors. So if you want more information, I will have a link to IEB Unite in the show notes, but…
Enough about that. I want to bring on our guest and normally if Tessa can’t make it we just reschedule but I I got this booked with George like two months in advance and there’s no way I wanted to cancel this one. So please please welcome George Siegel. George is a film producer and he he shared a link with me with this documentary made and I watched the whole thing and I was just absolutely fascinated. Normally I’ll say it’s normally
when people reach out and they want to be guests on the show, I don’t even respond to anything because I get so many requests for guests that I have no idea about. But this was intriguing. This was really good. Really enjoyed the documentary. But before we get into all that, George, I want to take a step back and just learn a little bit more about who you are, what your background has been, what you’re doing today and how you got there. Take us back to the beginning, George.
George Siegal (01:55.608)
Well, back to the beginning, you know, I grew up on both coasts in this country. I was born in New York, but I grew up in Los Angeles in Pacific Palisades, by the way, that was destroyed by the wildfire last year. That was my, that was my hometown growing up. And, you know, I went into the TV news business. I was a TV weatherman for 14 years. I was a morning show host, a reporter. So I covered a lot of stories over the course of my career about disasters and things that happened to people just as a news event. When I got out of the business.
Reuben Saltzman (02:04.442)
Yes, my goodness.
George Siegal (02:24.758)
I started my own film company and started making documentary films. And one of the things I was most fascinated about was why people keep making decisions that cost them everything. you saw that in the film, the analogy in the film that we use is a roulette wheel that spins and you put all your chips in, which is everything we put into when we buy a house. And then you have that fear when you look at the wheel a little closer and you realize there’s a lot of ways things can go wrong.
And really very few things, you know, it just has to be good luck for it to go right. And it’s how do you avoid that happening? And that’s what motivated me to make this film to try to really make a difference.
Reuben Saltzman (03:06.186)
All right, now what’s the name of the film?
George Siegal (03:08.588)
The film is called Built to Last, Buyer Beware. you know, something we wanted to do here is it’s available on PBS, you know, but it’s random stations that roll it out over the course of a year. But we’re going to put a link in the show notes if somebody wants to rent the film, they can go to a website and look at the long version of the film if they want to do that. But we’re also putting in there a PDF and people will learn about this over the course of the podcast. I have a list of things you absolutely need to ask your
seller or the builder when you’re buying a house, things you should have answers to before you purchase that because it all ties into my theme of making better decisions.
Reuben Saltzman (03:48.616)
I love that. I mean, like I said, I watched the whole film start to finish, the list, this I do not know about. I can’t wait to see the list.
George Siegal (03:59.426)
Yeah, it’ll be in the show notes and I think it’s interesting. mean, it’s just things most people don’t think about and we want them to think about it.
Reuben Saltzman (04:03.868)
Okay. Okay. That’s great. It’s very helpful. And if you would just break it down, give me, give me the very short version of what this film is all about. And then I want to discuss more about the, kind of the long version and a lot of your thoughts and what you’ve learned in creating this documentary.
George Siegal (04:25.058)
You know, I think that in a nutshell, it’s about the decisions people make, where you choose to live, what you choose to live in, what we don’t know about what we’re living in. And then when things go wrong with that, we think our insurance will automatically be there to get us back up on our feet. And insurance is a very difficult thing in the part of, in the equation of any damage. You you never know what’s going to happen there. And the goal of a lot of insurance companies is to find ways not to pay you.
for your damage and people end up going years without getting their house fixed or made whole. Some of them lose everything, some of them never recover. And so it’s to get people aware of that. Understand the weight of the decision when you buy that property or rent that property or live in that apartment. And then try to do it based on knowledge that you’ve put in the time, you’ve made the best decision possible for you and your family, and you’re in a position where if something goes bad, you don’t lose everything.
Reuben Saltzman (04:55.999)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (05:22.538)
Yeah, yeah. And you know, you brought all this and I was writing stuff down as fast as I could because I’m just remembering all these different things in the movie that I want to talk to you about. I’m afraid I’m not going to remember everything. But number one, for insurance. What what were some of the things that just blew your mind from that film about insurance companies? Because there’s I know there are a number of them that blew my mind.
George Siegal (05:52.11)
Well, the main thing is most people never actually read their insurance policy. You just assume you have certain coverage. So you’re not on top of exactly what is in that policy and you don’t really read it until you need it. And then you find out you don’t have the coverage that you thought you had. Like in Florida for hurricanes, there’s a 2 % deductible, but it’s not 2 % of the $10,000 damage you had. It’s 2 % of the value of your house.
So if you have a $500,000 house, the first 10,000 bucks of anything is out of your pocket to fix the damage that has occurred. Most people don’t fully understand that. Most people think if their house floods, they have an insurance policy. They don’t realize only if you have flood insurance, insurance policies clearly state they do not cover flooding. And there’s a lot of exclusions that are in insurance policies that people never think about.
Reuben Saltzman (06:23.134)
Hmm.
George Siegal (06:44.364)
And that insurance agent, maybe it’s your friend, maybe it’s a person, man or woman that you just know that sold you a policy, their job is to explain it to you, but you need to ask them. And most of them want to explain it to you if you ask them. They’re very conscientious about what they do. So you got to ask questions and you have to understand what you have in there. And in some cases, people you see in the film, this woman’s father canceled the policy right before a hurricane hit because he had dementia, didn’t even know what he was doing.
Reuben Saltzman (06:57.907)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (07:10.269)
Yeah.
George Siegal (07:11.69)
Another guy didn’t have contents insurance and you see in the film that his contents are all over the street and the neighborhood. You just have to take insurance more seriously and don’t think that it’s, well, you know, this year I didn’t have any problems so I can cancel my policy. I don’t need it next year. It’s like wrong. That’s not what insurance is for. It’s not, you know, when you leave in your car every day, you don’t assume you’re going to get in a car accident. But if you do.
You’re darn glad you have that policy and it could make the difference between having somebody sue you and losing everything, having medical coverage. It’s a huge thing and that’s the way you have to treat your house.
Reuben Saltzman (07:48.328)
Yes, yes. And I love that you brought up about talking to your insurance agent, you know, hopefully a friend or somebody you really trust to get this figured out. Because at first, when you were saying everybody needs to read their insurance policy, I’m I’m kind of rolling my eyes silently, not on the screen, but I’m thinking to myself, are you kidding me, George? I mean, I look at my insurance policy. It’s it’s this thick. I swear. I mean, I can’t make heads or tails of it. I don’t I I
George Siegal (08:12.524)
Yeah, by design.
Reuben Saltzman (08:17.822)
How am I supposed to read my own insurance policy and figure out what all this is? I’m not a lawyer. Like how long is this going to take me? But saying go to your agent and have them have them explain all this to you if they’re a good agent. That’s really good advice.
George Siegal (08:30.902)
Yeah. And those people want to explain it to you. That’s their job. And most of them are pretty good at it. And you can also take that whole document and dump it into chat GPT and ask chat GPT questions about it. You know, in Florida, one of the biggest problems they have in the area where I live is sinkholes. Well, there’s a line in almost every insurance policy that says sinkholes are not covered under this policy. There are people that live in wildfire areas that certain kinds of fire damage isn’t covered. There are people that live in
Reuben Saltzman (08:39.594)
Mmm.
George Siegal (08:59.7)
in areas where there’s rivers and creeks, they don’t have flood insurance because they think they live a mile away from the river and it’s never going to hit them. So you need to understand all this stuff and it’s not fun. This isn’t the sexy part of buying a property or living someplace, but it may be the difference between losing everything and going on with your life.
Reuben Saltzman (09:18.654)
Yeah. So let me ask you, George, are there places where people just should not live?
George Siegal (09:26.348)
Yeah, I think there’s a lot of places where people should not live. I think if you live close to the water and you’re not rich enough to get back on your feet on your own, you’re crazy because that’s a risk that flooding happens all the time. We see it in the news every year at different times of the year in different places, whether it’s a river, a lake, the ocean, the bay, that water rises when there are problems. Now it happens just if there’s something called a king tide, an exceptionally high tide, people get flooding.
So if you live there, if you live on a barrier island, if you live someplace that is prone to that, if you live at the bottom of a hill, how well do you know that hill and what’s going to happen to it? I grew up with a big hill behind my house and my dad used to always tell us, that hill is never going to come down. A few years ago, and this was in the Palisades, that hill came down and took out part of houses. So you have to assess your overall situation. Are you living someplace where there’s a lot of construction?
where there used to be a lot of open green space and now there’s apartment buildings and houses. Well, where’s all that water going to go that absorbed into the ground? So yeah, there’s places, there’s situations you shouldn’t live in. I wouldn’t live in any place that was prone to mudslides. And here’s the problem. When you say something like this, people go, my God, my house has been here for 40 years. My family’s lived here. I can’t go anywhere. I’m entrenched in this community. Well, then you better read that insurance policy. You better have a great evacuation plan.
Reuben Saltzman (10:28.394)
Mmm.
Reuben Saltzman (10:49.097)
Yeah.
George Siegal (10:49.888)
So there are things you can do if you’re just screwed with the luck of where you are, but I’m talking about all the people that are making the choice now to live there. You know, in our show, in our film, we talked about this young lady who didn’t want to come on camera that bought a house in this neighborhood called Shore Acres. And they didn’t have to disclose flooding at the time. And she bought this house. It flooded twice or actually three times after we did the story in that area. And it flooded for her two or three times. And when she went to get it fixed.
They told her, it wasn’t permitted property last properly last time it flooded. Well, no one had told her it flooded previously. So now she had a house that wasn’t up to date on its permits and it was taking in water all the time whenever it would rain. So you got to ask questions. You got to say, what are the risks of flooding here? And that’s in that document that I’m making available. I mean, you have to ask questions. You almost have to become a detective and say, all right, I’m a reporter.
Reuben Saltzman (11:33.276)
Mmm.
George Siegal (11:46.338)
What am I going to ask that’s going to reveal as much information as possible? And if they tell you you’re being a pain in the ass, we don’t want to answer your questions. Don’t buy the house. Move, run, run away.
Reuben Saltzman (11:56.187)
That’s great So, alright, so you talked about not buying a house where it’s really close to water where it could flood I mean I live in Minnesota. We got a million lakes Do you ever hear about problems with people living too close to lakes? Is that ever an issue?
George Siegal (12:11.82)
Yeah, it depends on the situation. I’ve heard that problem where the lake rises based on a lot of flooding. I don’t know if that in Minnesota is your biggest concern. You know, a bigger concern for there might be snow and ice. Can you stand the cold? You know, you have a house that’s built to deal with that. And I imagine a lot of them are, but every place in the country has its own perils or hazards. Some states have more, you know, in California, you have earthquakes, you have wildfires, you have mudslides.
Florida, everybody knows what our problems are with weather and what can happen here anywhere along the Gulf Coast. So a lake might be a little safer, but what happens for the drainage in that lake? Is there any kind of dam involved in what made that lake? Is there a dam a mile upstream that fills that lake? And what happens if that dam breaks and throws too much water into that lake? So there are questions that are relevant to every place. It’s just a matter of whether or not you ask them.
Reuben Saltzman (13:09.236)
Sure, sure. Okay. And you you talked about Pacific Palisades and I’ve been listening to one particular podcaster really complaining about how expensive it has become to rebuild everything. And I was in Hawaii not too long ago. And where was the area where they had all the fires? That was Lahaina, right? Mau, yeah, yeah.
George Siegal (13:33.974)
It Maui. It was Maui, wasn’t it? Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (13:37.034)
They had the fires and I mean it just it Decimated everything and they’re they they’ve rebuilt a ton of it and they’re still rebuilding a lot of it But I mean the prices of those houses now are just insane I mean, they’re all multi-million dollar houses for what seems like a shack and it’s at the point where You you used to be able to afford a house there. You could live there now you can’t
And I think a big part of this is just our building codes are so much stricter. What do you think about that? Is that a good thing? Should the building codes be this more much more strict?
George Siegal (14:20.226)
Well, it’s a, it’s a tricky question. And so I’m going to give you a kind of a long-winded answer to that is when you have a house that’s a legacy house, it’s been there for years. You know, like the Palisades very unique example, somebody might’ve bought a house in the area of town that burned down that originally was a $50,000 house. might’ve even been less back when they bought it. Well, the property is just skyrocketed there. So rebuilding that house house now might be two or $3 million.
You don’t insure it for two or $3 million. You have it insured for what you paid for the house and what that house is worth, but not what it will be worth if it burned down. The problem with building codes is building codes look backwards and then they go, okay, what’s historically, what data do we need to make this code and to make this house safe? But it’s the minimum standard for safety. So my philosophy is if a builder ever looks at you and puffs out his chest and says, this house is built to code, I wouldn’t buy it. And my reasoning would be.
What did you think about looking forward? What did you think about global warming, sea level rise, climate change? What factors did you put in to thinking about how this house will age over the years? The problem with all these older houses, and it happened in my neighborhood here in Tampa, from Helene and Milton, we had so much rain and so much flooding. All the one story houses in my neighborhood pretty much flooded. Now those houses were the older homes that were probably worth anywhere from $400,000 to $800,000 because this area has really exploded.
Reuben Saltzman (15:37.801)
Mmm.
George Siegal (15:45.89)
When they tear it down, they rebuild a house that’s three or $4 million. Now those people can’t afford to build a three or $4 million house on whole, but they lived in an area where they were taking a huge chance. The flood level is 10 feet here. That’s what they say is the warning. It’s a flood. It’s a, it’s considered a dangerous flood area. So if you’re living in a one story house, you’re taking a huge risk. It’s not built to what should be needed to withstand the hazards that happen. So all those people took a beating. Some of them.
are just fixing their house and moving back in. To me, that’s crazy because you’re not improving your chances of it happening again. You’re just assuming it’s not going to happen again or you’re betting it’s not going to happen again. The people that are tearing it down when they build the house, they’re starting with an elevation of 10 or 11 feet to be above where the water is, but the garages are still at the bottom level. So if you build a garage, you better build it to withstand flooding because every time you have that problem and you have the water rise, everything in your garage is going to get ruined.
Reuben Saltzman (16:30.463)
Yeah.
George Siegal (16:44.352)
So in the palisades or other areas, yes, it’s not fair to those people. It sucks that they have to spend more money to rebuild it. But what’s the alternative is the whole thing I’m talking about is the problem is you’re gambling. Nothing bad is going to happen, but statistics show you that’s not true. And it shows you what life is like when something does happen that’s bad and what the cost is to people. People’s lives are changed forever. Some people never recover. If you think just because your house burned down, you don’t have to still pay the mortgage.
or you’re not paying for whatever that lot costs, those people still want their money. They’re not going to go, Reuben, hey, we feel really bad. So you can not pay your mortgage for two years while you’re rebuilding. You one of the challenges in California is if you’re near the coast, the coastal commission has very difficult standards for people to rebuild and how you have to get certain plans and change things. And people are really frustrated. So what do they say? Let’s make it easy to rebuild. The danger of that is are you rebuilding with fireproof houses? Are you
Reuben Saltzman (17:31.592)
Yeah.
George Siegal (17:42.018)
doing things differently than what burned down previously? Are you building defensible spaces in around the house? Are the roofs going to be fireproof? Is the access where embers can get into your house going to be more difficult? You know, if you don’t put that thought in, who should pay for that? Who should bear the responsibility of that cost?
Reuben Saltzman (18:00.468)
Sure, sure. And people just lean on their insurance companies to pay for this over and over again. I mean, at some point, what are insurance companies supposed to do? Because we know that they’re just paying out tons and tons. We’ve done podcasts about this before, how the rates are just going through the roof and there are insurers leaving areas and the insurers who are willing to keep doing it are just charging skyrocketing prices.
What are insurance companies supposed to do about this?
George Siegal (18:31.596)
Well, you know, it depends on the state that you’re in and yeah, it is a lot more difficult. You know, the regulations here in Florida, for example, they took away a homeowner’s best last line of defense. And that is my insurance company is not paying me. So I have to go get a lawyer. can sue my insurance company. Now, if I win, I don’t get attorney’s fees. They took that away. So most of the decisions that have been made regarding insurance here benefit the insurance company. And I would argue that’s because they have deep pockets. They have
Reuben Saltzman (18:49.962)
Hmm.
George Siegal (18:59.414)
huge lobbying industries working with them. And so they get to the right people to have the decisions made favorable for them in insurance. A lot of those companies shuffle money around and are making money hand over fist. They’re not losing money. They’re making a fortune. Yeah. Are there people that try to game the system? I have a 25 year old roof. I just had a hail storm. I need a brand new roof because my roof was bad. Well, those people shouldn’t get away with that, but there’s a lot of people that
two years after a storm still have a blue tarp over their roof because the insurance company won’t pay their claim. And so it’s a tough road to navigate, but I think the way it is right now, the odds are still stacked against the homeowner and in favor of the insurance industry.
Reuben Saltzman (19:43.978)
So you got these people who have been displaced from their home, their home is destroyed and the insurance company is fighting it. They still need to pay their mortgage. And how do they pay for where they’re living now? Who pays for that?
George Siegal (20:00.396)
You know, sometimes you have temporary housing in your, in your insurance policy, but I don’t think it’s going to pay for two or three years of housing. If you’re, if you’re waiting to rebuild your house. So a lot of these people just give up. A lot of these people just move on and start over somewhere because they can no longer afford to fight that battle because it’s, it’s a total uphill battle that you against, you know, there’s, there was, it’s been, this has been on 60 minutes where somebody goes through the adjuster.
tells them, yeah, your house is covered for $700,000 and they send it into the company and the company changes the adjustment and says, no, you’re only insured for 200,000 and that’s all you’re gonna get. Well, that person is screwed or they put you through the adjusting process and then they switch adjusters on you and make you start over to try to outlast you. Now, if there’s a reputable insurance company out there, because I’ve never had to be in that position, they should be waving the flag and telling people, hey, look, we don’t do that.
This is how we take care of our people. don’t see a lot of commercials doing that. You know, you see Allstate, you’re in good hands, but in our movie, you know, one of the gentlemen we interviewed said that’s not completely accurate. That, you know, you see Flow and the Gecko and all those things. It’s advertising. Do they really do that? Well, then you have to read their Google reviews and see what people say about them. What is the customer experience like? And the reality is, if they really did care about us,
we would have more positive stories, but you don’t hear a lot about those. But I can also hear the argument, well, the happy people don’t usually come out and dance around about it. It’s only the people that are unhappy. There’s a lot of unhappy people.
Reuben Saltzman (21:35.614)
Yeah, yeah. Are there some insurance companies that just don’t have these complaints? Like they charge a premium and they do a really good job? Are there any that you know of?
George Siegal (21:47.342)
I haven’t heard of that. I, you hear companies that have better reputation and then somebody goes, no, no, I had them. That was horrible. My experience was bad. So I don’t really know the answer to that of who the best company is to use. And the idea is to just make sure that you understand everything you have and what they are required to do for you and make sure you pay the policy on time. Make sure it’s always in effect. I believe everybody should have flood insurance. If you live in an area that’s not a flood zone, it’s
a lot less expensive. you know, even if you’re in an apartment, if some kind of flood coverage you want to make sure you have, I believe in having every kind of protection you can. And I recommend highly that in December, you don’t sit there and analyze, well, we had a good year, so we don’t need it next year. Because that’s when you get it.
Reuben Saltzman (22:32.522)
my goodness, Yeah, yeah, okay. And,
If there’s something that would need to change in the building codes, I mean, cause you said you would never want to buy a house from a builder who just said proudly, I built this to code. What do you think should change in the building codes? I mean, and let’s talk about specifically flooding.
George Siegal (23:04.482)
I think it’s very difficult to affect change in that area. And the only way I think it’s going to change is if we stop buying those houses. And I’m seeing a great example of that in my neighborhood. There’s a brand new house built on a creek that floods every time it rains. And they started the price at over $3 million and now they’re down closer to $2 million. They keep dropping the price because people aren’t buying it. That’s how things will change. When builders building spec houses stop passing off this garbage on us that is not
Reuben Saltzman (23:12.319)
Mmm.
George Siegal (23:34.382)
worthy of spending that kind of money. And I see it in my neighborhood all the time, because the building code, this is not required to build concrete block on both floors here in Florida. But a lot, so a lot of these houses are wood on the second floor. Now there’s not an expert that I talked to in my film that doesn’t say that’s a bad idea. It’s not as strong as building a concrete house or an ICF house. It’s not going to last if you have a category four or five hurricane. In our film, we talk about Mexico Beach, which had Hurricane Michael,
Reuben Saltzman (23:51.914)
Hmm.
George Siegal (24:03.616)
several years ago and right after the hurricane, they did a good thing. They made the building code tougher. And so many people complained and argued about it that the building code now in Mexico Beach is lower than it was before Hurricane Michael because people complained about it. That makes me very unhopeful of the future because those people are all taking a huge risk. When I was driving around that area, I was there right after Hurricane Michael and I was there recently.
And it looks like a community that the next time there’s a major storm is going to get wiped out again. Boy, I hope I’m wrong. I don’t wish that on anybody. But if you don’t demand higher standards, you’re not going to get them. Now, statistically, most houses are built on spec. So builders have a different goal than we do when you buy a house. My goal is to take all my money. putting it in this house. I want it to last forever until I’m done with it. Their goal is to make money. They’re a business. So I don’t think that a lot of the builders I’ve known over the years.
Reuben Saltzman (24:57.758)
Ahem.
George Siegal (25:01.868)
Don’t always get the best subs. They don’t always have the best team under them. They have the team that’s available and gives them the best deal at the time. Well, that’s not what I want. I don’t want the air conditioned guy that happened to be sitting around and nobody was hiring him that week. So he put in crap in my house and did a terrible engineering plan or the plumber who might be doing those insurance claim plumbing jobs that, you know, pay them nothing, but that they go ahead and that’s who did the plumbing in that house. No, I want the best people doing it.
And so the only way to do that is if you’re involved early in the build, ask the builder, is the, who are the people working for them? Tell me about this team of people that are coming in, working on my home. how long has the superintendent been with you? You know, you want to know what, how solid that organization is at building houses. I mean, I’ve been to construction sites where there’s been flooding or houses and when they have to rip open the drywall, they find food wrappers, beer cans, all kinds of crap in the walls. And that’s not to say everybody does that.
There’s very conscientious, I have friends that are builders that passionately care about building good houses. Those are the people I want to hear from. But if you Google some big name builders, you’re going to find neighborhoods around this country where they have not done their job. I won’t name anybody here, but you’ll find them if you Google it. And you’ll see that people are suing them left and right. And in the most states, you can’t go even go to court with them. You can only go to arbitration.
Reuben Saltzman (26:18.996)
What Yanu?
Yeah.
George Siegal (26:26.83)
Because what builder wants to sit down with a homeowner in front of a jury? I wouldn’t want any part of that, right? You’d go, I’m not going to win that. So you go to arbitration where maybe some retired judge is sitting there evaluating what your chances are of getting what you think, you know, getting your problem solved. And then most of the time when you have that kind of problem with the builder, you have to sign a non-disclosure. So you can’t tell everybody how bad you were screwed. So they get a mulligan on what they did. So that’s why you have to do your part as a buyer.
because it’s really hard. Building codes, they should all be stricter. They should all be South Florida standard building codes, concrete, first and second floor, certain requirements for wind ratings and for flooding. There should be more of a guidance on that. There’s people in Mexico Beach, there’s a community there that’s all built slab on grade on the beach. Now it’s a part of the beach that may not have been in the flood zone of Hurricane Michael.
But I’ve had flood experts tell me the water doesn’t know to stop at the end of the zone. If the storm hits right and they’re on the beach, that’s going to flood. And they’re all directly on the sand on a slab. That’s crazy.
Reuben Saltzman (27:37.162)
Sure. And I, you know, I want to go back to something you said about how there’s so many national builders and they’re known as good, good builders. we’ll, we’ll have people ask us all the time, you know, what’s the best builder? How do I know I’m getting a well-built house? And it all depends on the subs that were being used that particular day and what they were doing the night before. And I hate to say it, but what the weather’s like, nobody does their best work.
when it’s negative 10 outside and you’re out there working or when it’s pouring rain and you gotta be doing work. mean, nobody’s gonna be doing their best work. I’ve done my share of working construction growing up. And when you’re comfortable, you just do a better job. It’s a fact. So, I mean, there’s just way too many variables for you to say, well, this builder always does a good job and this one doesn’t. A lot of variables.
George Siegal (28:24.333)
Yeah.
George Siegal (28:32.044)
Yeah. And let’s say there’s a builder that you kind of like and you go, yeah, they seem to build a really nice house. And then they give you their list of references of the people that they want you to talk to other people that have bought their houses. That’s not the list you want. You want to try to find the list of people that sued this person. And how do you find that out? Walk around the area and find houses that look like yours. Go knock on the door and say, Hey, who was your builder? Can you tell me about what your experience was? I did that in a place that I lived after I lived there.
Reuben Saltzman (28:44.585)
No.
George Siegal (29:01.068)
And I started hearing horror stories about the people that we had used. so, but I could have found that out beforehand, but I was lazy. And laziness is going to cost you when bad things happen. So don’t put yourself in that position. Walk around, find out what people’s experience was who are not on that list of friends and family that they’ve given you. And then also go over to that house after it’s rained. Go over to that house and see where’s water in the street.
There’s houses here. There’s some houses across the street near the water where I live that are six, seven million dollar houses that have a lake in front of them every time it rains. Those people, did they ever go by there and see if the street drained properly? I’m guessing they didn’t. know, most people when you’re looking for a house, you have a couple days if your work flies in and you quickly find a house so you can move down and get your family settled. That’s a big mistake. If you can avoid it.
walk around the neighborhood and don’t do it on a Wednesday in the middle of the day. You gotta go on a Saturday or Sunday when there might be people home and talk to people. Don’t be afraid to meet the people in the neighborhood and find out what their experience was. That could save them and it could save you, because you might run into somebody else that wants to know about what your experiences have been. So I think people need to talk a lot and ask a million questions and find out as much info as you can.
Reuben Saltzman (30:18.516)
Sure. And you you said that you had this doc that you were gonna share. We’ll put it in the show notes about questions to ask your builder. Are there any teaser questions that you’d wanna share with us?
George Siegal (30:30.326)
Yeah, I think one of the most important ones is what local hazards did you consider in this area? So you should know what they are before you go and ask them the question like, okay, it floods here. Ask them what did they put into this house to help with that? What did you do to build this house to withstand 150 mile an hour winds? What, know, ask, put them on notice to have them say what the safety features are. So that way the builder that put wood on the second floor,
and has the wrong vents on the garage that won’t allow the water to not make the whole house fall apart. Make them explain why they don’t have those things. Make them explain why the pool equipment is at ground level in a neighborhood that can get 10 feet of water. Because every time it floods, your pool motor is going to fry. It’s just things that, and if they push back at you and look at you like you’re some kind of asshole, they’re doing you a favor. That’s like dating and you find out what somebody’s like on the first date so you don’t
Reuben Saltzman (31:27.242)
Yes. Yeah.
George Siegal (31:29.112)
do a second date, you know, it’s kind of the same thing. Don’t fall in love quickly. Get to know the situation. Learn as much information as you can. And that’s what the document kind of has. I mean, a few other things are obvious, but overall, when people look at it, they’re going to go, yeah, I got to ask that question. I never thought of asking that question. It’s kind of obvious.
Reuben Saltzman (31:48.99)
Yeah. Well, I can’t wait to look over that document. Is there anything else that you wanted to cover that I didn’t ask you about today, George?
George Siegal (31:57.836)
I’d like people to seriously think of themselves, and we did touch on it briefly, as a detective when you’re buying a house. And if that means calling the local floodplain manager, calling any local official downtown, if you’re buying a house that already exists, I know you do title searches, but maybe dig into that a little bit. If you’re buying a condo, check the reserves. you have to pay a lawyer to read the association documents,
You need to know that they’re adequately funded if there’s a problem. In our film, we talked about a community down by Sanibel Island called Punta Rasa. This was a 2022 hurricane. They still haven’t moved back into this building because they keep having to fix things. And the people that live there have been assessed a hundred, $150,000. That’s crazy. Nobody has that kind of money sitting around, especially if you’re retired and you buy a place like that. So ask a lot of questions.
Reuben Saltzman (32:40.105)
Oof.
George Siegal (32:54.796)
Get the information. you’re not, if don’t feel you’re competent to be able to read it and it’s two or $300 or $400 that you have to pay an attorney, that may be the best $400 you ever spend because the $400 may save you $50,000 or $150,000. And I think we worry sometimes when we’re buying a house, we go, yeah, I don’t, this home inspector is cheaper. I think I’ll just hire that guy. Well, that guy might not go up on the roof. That guy might not crawl into the attic and see if everything’s vented properly up there.
Reuben Saltzman (33:10.036)
Sure.
George Siegal (33:22.818)
That guy might not know anything about air conditioning and tonnage and how the house should have been done right to distribute the air properly in the house. But the guy that you pay a little more for the woman that costs a little more, they might be worth every penny of it because they’re actually going to dig into that.
Reuben Saltzman (33:36.896)
Amen. Yes, yes. my goodness.
George Siegal (33:40.812)
And that’s who you want. You want the inspector that’s not just sticking the plug rating in and going, yeah, that plug’s not connected right. Well, thank you. Now tell me about the things that I really care about. Is the thermostat in the right location? How old are the air conditioners? You know, what is the crawl space like? I’ve seen people buy houses where the fan in the bathroom doesn’t exhaust out to the roof. It just goes into the crawl space above the…
Reuben Saltzman (34:04.362)
We find that every week, every week, almost every day, and that’s in Minnesota. Now in some climates, it’s not that big of a deal. I mean, it’s not right, but it’s not the end of the world. In Minnesota, this is really bad, and we find it all the time. Yes.
George Siegal (34:07.33)
That’s insane. Yeah. Wow.
George Siegal (34:19.948)
Yeah. And to me, it’s like when you find something, like just if you’re walking around and you look at the floor, the hardwood floors, and you see the panels getting more narrow as you get down to the end. Wow. That room’s not squared off. So who was building this house that didn’t do that? And once you find little things, it makes me wonder, okay, what am I missing? Because they screwed up on something as obvious as looking at the floor. If that tile floor they put in looks like a cobblestone street,
What does that tell you about the quality of workmanship that they put into that, putting that floor down? That should tell you that, okay, there’s probably 20 other things that just aren’t right under my nose that are gonna go bad that I just don’t see them yet. And those are the things that worry me and keep me up at night. And I want people not to make those mistakes.
Reuben Saltzman (34:59.998)
Yes, yes.
Reuben Saltzman (35:06.282)
Sure, sure, that’s real good. Appreciate it. Well, I’m looking forward to going over that list. And if people wanna reach out to you, is there a way that they can contact you directly if they got further questions or follow up or any of that?
George Siegal (35:21.718)
Yeah, and I’ll put my, if you put my LinkedIn in the show notes, they can always reach me on there. That seems to be the best one. You know, Facebook and Instagram, I dabble with them, but it’s, know, LinkedIn is what I primarily use. And then also on my website, builttolastmovie.com, if you go to my website, there’s a form on there if you had questions. And I tell people, I’m not an expert, okay? There’s a lot of experts you should hire to get answers. I’m the person who talks to the experts and then forms my opinion after, after talking to all of them.
Reuben Saltzman (35:25.64)
Okay.
Okay.
George Siegal (35:51.072)
And, but I have a lot of strong opinions about it, having owned a number of houses and I’ve had everything happen to me that could happen and I should know better. It’s like, I keep learning a lesson every day. So I want people to not have that happen to them.
Reuben Saltzman (35:59.743)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (36:05.628)
Love it. Well, this was great. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on here, George. And I wish you the best of luck in the next doc. And for anybody out there who’s interested in watching it, I thoroughly enjoyed it. This is very enlightening. certainly, and for the listeners, if you’ve got questions for me, for Tessa who couldn’t be here today, feel free to email us. We read them all. We love hearing from you. I’ve got some follow-up emails.
George Siegal (36:22.072)
Thank you so much for having me on Ruben, I appreciate it.
Reuben Saltzman (36:34.484)
that I’ve gotten over the past month that didn’t have time to get to today. I’ll do it next time Tess is on the show. You can email us at podcast at structuretech.com and we will catch you next time. Take care.