To watch a video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/0JY0DoqAt34
In this episode of the Structure Talk podcast, Reuben Saltzman and Eric Houseman joined with longtime Twin Cities REALTOR Michael Bartus about the financial risks of skipping home inspections during the COVID-era buying frenzy. Bartus shares real transaction examples and explains how inspections, proactive pricing, careful preparation, and changing insurance requirements shape today’s housing market.
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Takeaways
I will never consult a client to waive an inspection.
I do sewer inspections on every house.
They make money on their house when they buy it, not when they sell it.
I try to monetize the problems when they’re buying it.
I don’t feel like I’m doing my clients a good service if I’m not there.
I’d rather have more work for me on the front end, have a happy client.
Things are definitely switching to a buyer’s market 100%.
The prep of the home is so important right now.
You have to be extra careful as a seller and buyer with all that’s going on.
You better have twenty-five solutions.
Chapters
00:00 Show sponsors and Michael Bartus joins the conversation
04:09 Bartus’s construction background and 23 years in real estate
08:11 The costly resale consequences of skipping COVID-era inspections
12:10 A $10,000 negotiation threshold and why sewer scopes matter
16:18 The $70,000 sewer-line escrow and the value of finding issues early
20:15 Make money when you buy: pricing repairs before making an offer
24:24 Why Bartus attends inspections and helps buyers interpret reports
31:33 Shorter inspection windows and a market shifting toward buyers
36:20 Preparing listings for longer timelines and new-construction competition
42:41 Low appraisals, negative equity, and the case for patience
47:11 Insurance hurdles: roofs, wiring, trees, and specialty shingles
57:18 A proactive roof replacement earns an insurance discount
01:00:32 Why experienced agents build networks of solutions
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 (00:01.58)
Welcome back to the show. I’m super excited about this one. Man, do we have a lot of good content to go over? I want to dive right into it, but hold on, I get too excited. I’m gonna skip right over our sponsors if I try to do this too quickly. So let me give a shout out to our sponsors right away. Number one, we got IEB, Inspector Empire Builder, longtime sponsor of the show. And what we’re talking about right now is the IEB Fall Mastermind. It’s coming up on November 13th.
This one’s online. You don’t need to travel anywhere. Even if you haven’t signed up, you’re just hearing this for the first time. It’s not too late. this is the virtual fall mastermind. It’s an opportunity for home inspection business owners to learn new strategies, gain insights, connect with others in the industry. We’ve got a bunch of great speakers coming up, and it’s gonna be fantastic. I have signed up myself. If you’re there, I will see you online. That’s gonna be done on Zoom.
We will have a link to that in our show notes. And if you listen to our podcast last week, you heard from the latest sponsors of our show, Home Trace. We did an episode on home inspection software where kind of knocked Eric’s and my socks off. so this episode is also sponsored by them. It’s it’s home inspection software that’s built around AI. Home inspectors get to walk the house, scan each room with their phone, and home trace.
Builds the report room by room, layout, it organizes photos for you. It’s got an AI agent that drafts the findings, fills in the forms, handles the busy work so home inspectors can finish the report faster and get home earlier. It’s built by inspectors friends, priced for real business, and you can get a free trial at home trace.co. Again, that’s hometrace.co, and I’ll have a link to them in the show notes.
So, Eric, how you doing, my friend? We see we got Eric filling in for Tessa. Tessa is still on pregnancy leave. Eric, what’s new in your world?
Eric Houseman (02:08.133)
not a whole lot, Ruben. I just got back from being in Sedona for a long weekend, Sedona, Arizona. And unfortunately, I brought the rain home with me. It was raining there almost the entire time we were there, like catastrophic one in twenty five year rain. And then I come home and it’s raining here. And I’m just I’m I need to see the sun. I’m so done right now. yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (02:31.502)
Yeah. But hey, you know what? On the positive side, it’s not snow. It could be snow right now in Minnesota. Yeah, but I feel ya.
Eric Houseman (02:38.661)
Correct. Yes. Yeah. And I I don’t I also don’t want to you know, complain about my privileged you know, life that I get to travel and, you know, experience other parts of the country. So I’m very grateful that I get to go. but it was just like, man, the rain. I just I need to see some sun right now. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (03:02.784)
Yeah, yeah, I’m feeling the same way. and you know what? I you you may not be alone. We’ve got a repeat guest on the show today, long time real estate agent, the one, the only, Michael Bartas. How you doing today, Michael?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (03:19.058)
Hey yo. Howdy. Yeah, I was just in Maui and experienced the same thing. It was raining all week and little peaks of sunshine here and there. We got enough sun. it as you can see, my glow a little bit, which is partially due to high blood pressure, but also from the sun. So got a little sun there, and I feel very calm and relaxed. So mission accomplished and bucket list.
Reuben Saltzman (03:33.688)
You look great. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (03:34.926)
Radiant.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (03:47.442)
Number like five checked off my list. Going to Hawaii was on the bucket list. So very fun. Celebrated my anniversary with my girlfriend of thirteen years. So it was great, Christy.
Reuben Saltzman (03:51.754)
Nice, nice.
Reuben Saltzman (03:57.451)
my goodness. Thirteen years. Wow. I remember when you first met her. It’s like, where does the time go? that’s fantastic.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (03:58.697)
Yeah. Yeah. Lucky thirteen. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (04:08.112)
I know. It’s it’s it’s crazy.
Reuben Saltzman (04:12.056)
Well, Michael, for anybody who doesn’t remember you being on the show whenever it was last, if you could, just give me a little bit about your background. How did you get into real estate?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (04:24.21)
Yeah, so my dad was a builder and realtor and kind of got tagged along with my dad to the construction sites, all the way from the stakes in the ground to the the last nail pounded on the property. worked for my dad pushing the broom around. So through each different phase of the construction process, I would clean out the properties so when customers would come into the home on the weekends.
The houses looked really nice, even though they were like in the framing stage. And what I I like about my background as a realtor, I I mean I’m very fortunate that I have that background because I can go into a property and I’m not saying I’m a home inspector, but at least I know the general bones of a home and w how they’re put together and and what makes things work. And so having that background has been just invaluable. And I’ve been a full time
Realtor for twenty three years, but got my real estate license when I was twenty one. bought my first home when I was twenty one and bought my second home when I was twenty three. So I really believe in the product that I’m selling and I love real estate, love what I do.
Reuben Saltzman (05:41.475)
Yeah, yeah, and it shows. I mean, you and I have done I don’t know how many home inspections together. It’s been a lot. And I mean, just about anything I bring up where I start to talk about it, Michael can finish my sentence for me. He’s heard it so many times, he knows exactly what the issue is, why it matters.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (05:49.576)
A lot. A lot.
Reuben Saltzman (06:07.658)
And what to do about it. He knows everything we’re gonna say. I feel like if he was ever gonna come work with us, I’d be able to train him for about a week and he’d be able to go out on his own. He could he could do the rest by himself. We just need to fill in a few little gaps for him and and we’d put a tool belt on him.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (06:16.585)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (06:24.06)
Electric panels. Yeah, electric panels I’m not good at. You you could you could stump me on the electric panel for sure.
Reuben Saltzman (06:31.35)
Yeah, yeah, I don’t know. You you you know half of what we’re already gonna talk about. Yeah, you’ve you’ve seen a lot of it. And you know what? I just I gotta bring this up because I appreciate every time you say real tour, because I hear so many people butcher it, and for the record, it’s not real dir. it’s not three syllables, it’s two syllables, and it’s pronounced exactly the way it’s spelled.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (06:49.684)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (07:01.386)
And it’s it’s almost like Michael over enunciates it and I appreciate that. Thank you.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (07:07.378)
Yeah, I I did have the hooked on phonics tape series when I was a kid, so I I I learned how to enunciate and speak clearly.
Reuben Saltzman (07:14.327)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (07:17.804)
Yeah, you do. Love it. Well we
Eric Houseman (07:20.133)
Add that add that to the list of Rubin’s annoyances, which also includes the hot water heater.
Reuben Saltzman (07:27.822)
Yes.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (07:28.208)
Yes, I’ve been hearing about that. Yeah. I’ve been hearing I I actually I had a conversation with another agent and he said the same exact thing that agents call it hot water heater.
Reuben Saltzman (07:31.148)
Yeah, yeah. We don’t like those. We
Reuben Saltzman (07:39.426)
Really.
you know what? It’s not just agents. Yeah. There’s a lot of people.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (07:44.722)
Yeah, it’s just people in general. I think it’s marketed that way.
Reuben Saltzman (07:48.343)
Yeah. I it it doesn’t make me mad, just mildly annoyed, that’s all. But but all right, we’re we’re here to talk about important stuff other than pronunciation of words. W Michael’s got a lot of stuff that he’s gonna be bringing to the table today, and but probably the biggest one on my mind is all of those people who skipped home inspections during COVID.
And the year after COVID kind of like twenty one, maybe even getting into twenty two, and the remorse that we’re seeing and the the financial consequences that people are experiencing from having skipped those. Michael, I wanna turn it I wanna turn it over to you. It’s story time.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (08:37.544)
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, what we’re seeing is exactly what you just said. people that bought during COVID, you know, they paid over asking price often, they were waiv inspections or doing very limited or abridged versions of inspections. And now that you know a few years have passed, you know, some of these people are moving already. And what’s happening
Is they they get the property under contract, and the things that they turned an eye to when they bought are now kind of rearing their ugly heads, and it’s costing them a lot of money during the negotiation time, and it’s turned into in the here in the Twin Cities, and I think most of the rest of the country, it’s turned into a buyer’s market, and so the buyers are now wanting a perfect property, and if you bought during COVID and you didn’t do an inspection.
Basically, all those problems are transferring over now to the new buyer when they get their inspection. And guess what? Just about everybody today is getting a home inspection without any contest from the seller. So you if you’re a seller, unless you have the perfect property at the perfect price and the perfect location, and it’s everything is dialed in. I’ve only had a few multiple offer situations this year where I had to negotiate.
Kind of a clever home inspection. So you if you’re a seller right now, you’re you can expect a home inspection to happen. And so if you didn’t do one, all those problems are going to transfer over. And so you better be ready for negotiations unless you maybe proactively use a company like Structure Tech to get the inspection that you didn’t get before you list your home. So you can be proactive.
And so you’re not caught off guard what those problems are gonna be. And I I had one client, I did not represent them when they bought. they did do a home inspection, but they didn’t really negotiate anything with the seller because they didn’t want to lose the house. And they ended up getting some stucco things fixed in the house post-buying the home to the tune of like 50 grand.
Reuben Saltzman (10:38.925)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (11:05.172)
And that was a much higher number. They thought it would be 15,000 and ended up being fifty thousand to get the stucco fixed. And then when they went to sell it, those problems came back and they had to reduce the price by $70,000 on a million dollar home.
Reuben Saltzman (11:10.742)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (11:23.67)
Yikes.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (11:25.062)
And it was just absolutely brutal. I felt terrible for my client. you know, I, you know, because I didn’t help them buy it, I couldn’t really speak to what they did or didn’t do when they bought it. And this isn’t a plug for me, but what I’m really proud of for me is I I only had a handful of people during COVID waive an inspection of any sort. And so I’m pretty confident.
Reuben Saltzman (11:39.789)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (11:54.931)
When my clients go to sell the home, they’re not gonna have surprises. Like some of these people that waived inspections are are, you know, dealing with right now.
Reuben Saltzman (12:06.616)
Well, and I would bet of those few who did wave an inspection, it was all done under I’m doing this against Michael’s better judgment. Like, I mean you you you did not tell him to do that.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (12:18.096)
Right. It’s ultimately up to yeah. It’s up to the seller. Right. Yeah. I I will never consult a client to waive an inspection. You know, that’s I I always want my clients to do an inspection. now if you’re getting 20 offers and you’re competing with 20 offers, you’re gonna have to get really creative. Something creative that I have done is I’ve said I will do the home we want to do the home inspection, but we will only ask
For issues 10,000 are under or 10,000 or over, sorry. Yeah. So that way, yeah, we’re not gonna deal with reverse polarity issues for $50 an outlet. We’re gonna deal with sewer line issues, we’re gonna deal with wiring issues, bats in the attic or whatever might be 10 grand or more. Bad roof.
Reuben Saltzman (12:51.298)
Over. Yeah. Yeah. We’re not gonna beat you up on this.
Reuben Saltzman (13:11.372)
Yeah, yeah. And how how often do your clients end up getting sewer inspections?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (13:18.854)
I do them on every house. I I do sewer inspections on every house. Sometimes I do it on brand new construction, even, but not always. So I I I had one client in Lakeville. It was a relocation opportunity. I was representing the buyers. It was a newer home built in the 90s on a cul-de-sac. And my client had an unlimited inspection. So he’s like,
Reuben Saltzman (13:20.833)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (13:27.518)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (13:31.672)
And
Michael Bartus REALTOR (13:48.255)
Just get me everything. And I’m like, really? You want to do a sewer line inspection? Like I actually questioned that, which is unlike me, but I did. And he goes, you know what? No, just get it. I’m like, okay, we’ll order the sewer line inspection. Sure as heck, the sewer line was bad. It someone with a botcat ran over when the line was put in and tipped the line. And it was on a cul de sac, so the house is up here and the cul de sac’s down here, so it
Reuben Saltzman (14:09.624)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (14:17.62)
the it was like a shallow dirt grade above it so a bobcat running over that sewer line would definitely have the ability to to flex and that’s what happened. And so we ended up getting that sewer line fixed through our negotiations. And actually ironically I sold that home this year and no sewer line problems. So it it was very little inspection items that were asked.
Reuben Saltzman (14:29.432)
Sure, sure.
Reuben Saltzman (14:40.002)
Nice. Sure.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (14:46.35)
Of the the buyer. And I represented the buyer too. So that was interesting as well. I was in the middle of a dual agency situation. So I had to disclose everything I knew about the house because I helped the buyer buy it, and then they were the seller. And so I I just told them everything I knew about it. And I told them the story of the sewer line. And they’re like, Great, now we know it’s fixed.
Reuben Saltzman (14:48.162)
Nice.
Reuben Saltzman (15:08.45)
Yeah. It it it reminds me of a situation long time ago. I w we were doing a home inspection on this slab on grade town home, and the guy buying it was some type of doctor and he wanted radon tested. And I’m like, You don’t have a basement, you know, you probably don’t need to test for radon. I mean, we never find radon on slab on grade. It’s a basement thing. He’s like, I want radon. I’m like, okay, you know, I’m thinking, all right, it’s your money, whatever, I’ll test it. And it came back at, you know, seven point two or something.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (15:37.992)
Right. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (15:38.551)
And I just felt like, okay, I just stuck my foot in my mouth completely. And that was the last time I ever tried to talk somebody out of an inspection service like that. Like, you want it? You God bless. Let’s do it. I mean, and I bet you probably had a similar experience with sewer inspections. Like, all right, I’m not talking anyone out of this anymore. You don’t know.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (16:02.532)
Y you really don’t. anything is possible. You know, it humans make these things, humans put them in. Humans are flawed. We make mistakes. And, you know, you’re driving heavy equipment over these lines and you know.
Reuben Saltzman (16:20.994)
Yeah. Stuff will break. Yeah. What you you got any other stories for me around that before I switch gears, Michael?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (16:21.31)
Problems happen.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (16:30.866)
Well, I did have a client and this is kind of maybe a shame on me situation, but it it’s interesting. So had a listing in kind of downtown Hopkins, kind of near Main Street, and the seller who was an older guy, who had lived in this home for a very long time, said, Well, my sewer line it you know, it goes kind of straight out to the to the street.
And he goes, then I think it kind of like jogs over, you know, down to the next street somehow, some way. And I should have just done a timeout right then and said, you know what, you’re getting a sewer line inspection. And I and but I didn’t. So that was kind of my mistake in a way. And so get the property under contract. The buyer says I want to do a sewer line inspection. And once you know.
Reuben Saltzman (17:12.771)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (17:30.612)
It’s cast iron or whatever from the house to the street, but then there was a clean out in the street, and from the clean out to the manhole cover, which is a whole entire block away at like a couple hundred feet, it’s that orange stuff that collapses. Orange bird. Yeah. And of course it was obstructed about thirty yards out.
Reuben Saltzman (17:49.994)
Orangeburg, yeah. Okay.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (17:59.923)
We had the line jetted, we had it, you know, we tried to clear it, and we couldn’t push through. So we had to escrow seventy thousand dollars on a $325,000 house. Because the city of Hopkins is saying you’re gonna rip up our street, and because the cleanout is in the street and it’s 200 yards.
Reuben Saltzman (18:11.94)
No
Michael Bartus REALTOR (18:29.746)
I mean it could be end up being a hundred thousand dollars. We don’t know. We
Reuben Saltzman (18:33.336)
That that might be one of the most expensive sewer issues I’ve heard of. Is that the most expensive you’ve come across, Michael?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (18:38.598)
It is. It is. Yeah. It it it again it’s another situation where yuck. You know, just terrible. I hope that maybe like a fiber optic line got pushed through the line. I’m hoping that some utility company damaged the line because then it would be covered and I could get my client that seventy thousand dollar escrow. But basically the buyer is holding seventy thousand dollars in escrow hostage.
Reuben Saltzman (18:59.726)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (19:07.818)
the line is getting cut open this week. So I I really want to go over there and see, you know, what’s going on. Because the city of Hopkins actually, depending on the condition of the Ornsburg or whatever it’s called, they may require that it gets fully replaced or fully relined.
Reuben Saltzman (19:24.79)
Now, now you say, you know, maybe this was your bad and maybe you made a mistake, but I mean if you had told your client, all right, I’m listening to your house, you say you got something funky with your sewer, let’s get it inspected. If you had gotten it inspected, you would have found the same thing. How would this have changed anything?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (19:47.315)
Yeah.
Well, we would kind of know like up front what we were getting into for the next buyer. So maybe I could have had the sewer line fixed for let’s say ten thousand dollars instead of having to escrow seventy thousand dollars and have that money held aside. So, you know, fortunately my clients don’t need the money today, but you know, heaven forbid they did need the money, then they would have been held ransom until that line is fixed.
Reuben Saltzman (19:56.151)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (20:08.576)
I’m tracking. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (20:14.477)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (20:18.37)
Gotcha, gotcha. So it’s all you you’re just saying it’s so much better when you can find out about this ahead of time, get in front of it and deal with it on your own terms, not scrambling when you’re under contract.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (20:25.628)
Yes.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (20:32.968)
Exactly.
Reuben Saltzman (20:34.368)
Okay. All right. Yep. I’m tracking. Now, you and I were having a conversation on the phone the other day, and I I remember you telling me about how when you’re helping your clients to make money on their houses, you you said something I thought was really interesting. You said that th they they make money on their house when they buy it, not when they sell it. Can you can you elaborate on that?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (20:58.738)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (21:03.324)
Yeah, so it’s a little Sensu Art of War, you know, every battle’s won before it’s fought, you know. So I will tell my clients as we’re looking at homes, I’ll try to monetize the problems when they’re buying it. So again, that’s my construction background coming through. Where I’ll walk into a home and say, Did you notice the windows are fogged? Nope, I didn’t. The buyer might say, I no, I didn’t know that. What is that? Is the windows dirty?
No, it’s the seal’s broken and it, you know, the windows basically shot. I mean it’ll still have its, you know, it’s still be functional, but just not as functional as it should be. And new windows might cost you $35 to $50,000 for this house. Wow, I didn’t know windows cost that much. Yep. So maybe we should not buy this house based on the windows, because you’re gonna have to buy this house and and know that you’re gonna have to
Put in new windows. So if we can find you a house where you don’t have to put in new windows and the seller’s already done that, I just saved you $30,000 to $50,000 of future expenses. So I’m always when I’m helping my clients buy their homes, I’m looking at if this were me and my money, would I buy this house? And that’s really the responsibility of a true fiduciary. That’s what we are as real tours.
We’re supposed to be a fiduciary acting on behalf of the buyer. We’re supposed to keep our clients out of trouble, you know. And to me, having bad windows is trouble. Having an old roof. If you if I if I walk up to a home and it’s got single tab, you know, shingles, I’m like, they don’t make these shingles anymore. So pretty good chance that this roof is gonna need to be replaced in let’s say five years potentially or even sooner. So therefore
That might be fifteen to twenty thousand dollars. That’s really an investment you’re not gonna get back if you’re gonna resell it. So
Michael Bartus REALTOR (23:06.93)
I would say maybe we don’t buy this house or we negotiate the price down. Maybe we get some closing costs paid so we can cover the roof. I I just negotiated a deal down in Waconia. you guys inspected it and we got the buyer a brand new roof. $25,000 roof. now now the seller kind of tipped their hand and said, We think we have a problem, but you guys verified it was a problem.
Reuben Saltzman (23:24.406)
Mm.
Yeah, that’s a lot of money.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (23:34.995)
And then I negotiated a new roof in the contract. My clients got to pick up the shingles and everything. you guys also found with your blue light or your purple light or whatever you use for pet urine and that sort of stuff, there was like pet urine everywhere in the basement. We could kind of smell it, but you know, I don’t care a a purple light around with me. I I may start doing that now if I suspect it. But so we ended up negotiating like fifteen thousand dollars off.
Reuben Saltzman (23:59.033)
Ha yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (24:05.046)
for new flooring. So right there there’s forty thousand dollars. Now had you waived the home inspection, there’s forty thousand dollars of expenses that you the s buyer are gonna get stuck with in the future, you know, when you go to sell your home. And what if you get relocated in two years? You’re gonna be writing a check at closing because you over invested in in things that don’t really get a return.
Reuben Saltzman (24:13.28)
gosh, yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (24:34.418)
Or much of a return. Like a new roof, it’s great, but that’s deferred maintenance. That’s not value add. It’s not like a new kitchen, right? You know, people expect a good working roof when they buy a home.
Reuben Saltzman (24:34.594)
Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (24:42.9)
No. No. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (24:49.868)
Yeah. No, no, I want to ask you though, what prompted our inspector to take out their black light? Cause I mean, I can count on one hands the number of times I’ve used a black light on a home inspection. It’s just not standard procedure for us, and I don’t want anybody to get the idea that that we normally do this, but something had to tip them off. What what was it?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (25:01.683)
No.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (25:13.266)
Well, there was smell and there were stains. So it it it it was pretty capped and obvious that something was going on in this house with pets. But I try to go to all my home inspections when I can. And in real estate school they say not to.
Reuben Saltzman (25:15.756)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (25:26.412)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (25:30.866)
But I do, I do. the reason why they they tell us in real estate school to not go to our home inspections because if I tell the buyer, the water heater’s shot, don’t worry about it, that’s only $250 to fix a water heater. And you and I all know that it’s more than that, right? So I’m financially incentivized for this buyer to move forward so I can get a commission check.
Reuben Saltzman (25:33.101)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (25:59.783)
If they turn an eye to the water heater. Right? So I’m basically nudging them. Hey, buy this house, buy this house. It’s it don’t worry about it. It’s only a couple hundred bucks. In reality, it’s maybe two thousand dollars. So maybe they wouldn’t bought the home if they had known it’s two thousand dollars. Well then I don’t get a commission check and I have to wait longer to get a home sale. So you but your inspector suspected something was going on, and because I was there, I said, Is there anything you can do?
Reuben Saltzman (26:02.7)
Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (26:29.416)
To give me a smoking gun to prove that there is pet urine all over this carpet. And so your inspector did that for me. And then in the report, there were photos of this carpet all lit up in purple with all these urine spots. And it wasn’t just one spot, it was like 25 spots. So it was that hammer that I needed.
Reuben Saltzman (26:35.651)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (26:53.207)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (26:56.692)
to negotiate with the listing agent and the seller. Like this isn’t just a whoops. This is like a this is going on all the time and there’s no way Yeah. Yeah. This isn’t just getting the carpets cleaned.
Reuben Saltzman (27:05.272)
This is chronic. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And you know, I I I love what you talk about about not going to inspections and how at real estate school they tell you don’t do this. And I I’ve heard that argument over the years and and I firmly believe that it it it should be reworded to say
Eric Houseman (27:07.108)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (27:32.214)
If you’re gonna do stupid stuff that is completely self-serving, don’t show up to the inspection. But if you have your client’s interest in mind and you’re trying to help them, by all means go to the inspection. Wouldn’t you agree with that, Michael?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (27:49.517)
yeah. I mean, I I’ve had cases where I couldn’t be present for the home inspection. and and so you guys do the inspection and I get your glorious 70-page inspection report with you know the how-tos with the how the house works and all that, but let’s say it’s an older house with problems, it it might be like a 70-page report, and now I have to digest this report and
Converted into an amendment, if my buyers want to negotiate on what was found in the inspection report, there’s conversations that would have happened with your inspector and me to go over these things in the report that maybe aren’t as bad as they appear in the inspection report. And so if I have to digest what’s in the report in a form of an amendment, and usually it’s at 10 o’clock at night and it’s the night it’s due.
because we you know we’re doing shorter inspection windows to to get deals done quicker to move things along because sellers don’t like their house tied up for two weeks. it just makes my life so much harder. And then the buyer is freaked out because they’re getting this you know longer report that they don’t really know how to understand what’s there. I love your reports they’re very thorough but
Sometimes I I like to just be there to explain it like, hey, this is a $50 problem, not a $5,000 problem. So let’s focus on health, safety, things that maybe don’t get a financial return. I mean, it all comes back to me helping my client you make money when you buy your home. So like I don’t feel like I’m doing my clients a cer good service if I’m not there.
Reuben Saltzman (29:21.55)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (29:31.256)
Yes.
Reuben Saltzman (29:44.193)
And you know, I I just wanna hammer on this just a little bit more and talk about how how much of a liability is this really? Michael, you’ve been at this a long time. How many houses do you think you’ve represented buyers on? How many transactions would you guess?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (30:05.726)
seven hundred and fifty maybe or so.
Reuben Saltzman (30:08.394)
Okay, that’s a ton. That is a ton of houses. How many times have you been sued because you did something stupid showing up at an inspection?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (30:22.584)
never. I’ve never been sued for anything. Yeah. Well, I was trying to be honest and just think about have I ever. yeah, I never have. I I’ve never personally been sued. I had one time I had a client that sold a house in a multiple offer situation. There was 30 offers. And guess what? The buyer waived the home inspection and then they came after my sellers because they said they didn’t disclose.
Reuben Saltzman (30:24.424)
I thought you were thinking about that for a minute.
Reuben Saltzman (30:31.49)
How many times have you gotten in trouble?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (30:51.592)
There was water in the basement, even though they had.
Reuben Saltzman (30:55.35)
Okay. Yeah, that that doesn’t count.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (30:57.532)
And and I was there to be the voice of my client to help them, but it came down to a technicality, and you learn your lesson. But yeah, but otherwise, no. I’ve never had it where I’ve been sued for being, you know, there on an inspection. And and to me, you know, structure tech does such a thorough job that it does create.
Reuben Saltzman (31:07.65)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (31:26.452)
quote unquote more work for me. I’d rather have more work for me on the front end, have a happy client, and then when they go to resell the house, they’re making money. That’s a good thing. I mean that is why I do what I do. It’s a total long game. You know, I’d rather peel the the the band aid off and let’s let’s just deal with the the nuts and bolts of the house, the facts
Reuben Saltzman (31:29.496)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (31:38.21)
Yeah. Yeah. You’re playing the long game.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (31:55.477)
Hey, if it’s a clean house, you should buy this house. Let’s move forward. Don’t ask for anything. But if there is problems, you know, let’s talk about it and let’s see if we can negotiate.
Reuben Saltzman (32:05.708)
Yeah. Yeah. And s something else you mentioned. You said that we’re getting shorter inspection windows. What what are you seeing right now? What’s the average that you’re asking for?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (32:17.094)
Yeah, so it varies on each house. So if the house has been on the market for a while, they’re probably more likely to accept a 10-day inspection window. Right? Because if you’ve been on the market for six months, is 10 more days gonna kill you? Probably not. But if you’re the brand spanking new listing that’s in the right area,
Reuben Saltzman (32:31.702)
Okay. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (32:38.444)
Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (32:45.828)
at the right price and it’s in really good shape and it and and you got an accepted offer in one day and there was multiple offers and I did run in I’ve run into this a few times this year, you’re probably doing five days.
Reuben Saltzman (33:02.774)
Okay. Okay.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (33:04.708)
And you know, then that’s where I’m contacting you guys right away to say, hey guys, it’s looking like this is gonna happen. Can I get you penciled in, which I love that you guys do that, so I can make sure that I can get in there sooner so I don’t miss that deadline.
Reuben Saltzman (33:23.586)
Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, the next day, if it turns out your offer wasn’t approved, you’re very good at calling us back saying, Hey, you can cross out that hold I had. We didn’t get the offer and it’s it’s no skin off our backs. I mean, happy to hold stuff for good agents. Like, why wouldn’t we?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (33:33.288)
Right.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (33:41.512)
Yeah, and I appreciate that because that is actually part of the negotiation. Sometimes a good listing agent will say, Hey, we like your offer. You’ve got seven days in your inspection window. Can you shorten that to three?
I don’t know. Let me call Structure Tech and and I’ll tell you if I can do that. And and that’s maybe how I get a deal done is how quickly you can get in there to inspect.
Reuben Saltzman (33:59.341)
Yeah. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (34:07.608)
Sure, sure. And can you touch on what the market is looking at looking like right now? I mean, how how are how are home sales right now compared to how it’s been last year, the year before? I mean, I’ve heard people saying I I just heard someone, and this is more on a national level, that a lot of agents are saying, I’m having to work twice as hard as I ever have, and I’m getting half the deals. Like what what what’s it looking like here in the Twin Cities?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (34:37.982)
Yeah, so things are definitely switching to a buyer’s market 100%. unless you have, like I’ve said before, the perfect house, perfect location at the right price. We are still seeing multiple offers on that. So you you have to be careful that you don’t sit on your laurels too long on good properties. You still want to get your clients to know those homes as quickly as you can. But
I mean, I have listings right now where we’re just getting a handful of showings here and there. And so I’m doing a lot more open houses, doing more social media posts. You’re we’re seeing more communications agent to agent where we’re actually picking up the phone and we’re calling the agent that showed your property and say, Hey, you know, you you g you left feedback, but maybe you didn’t leave enough. Can you tell me more about your buyer’s situation?
And and really try to get more creative because maybe there’s something on the other end of the transaction where had you known a few variables, maybe you can put a deal together that you didn’t know was out there, right? Like, for example, I have a client building new construction, they need a longer closing time. And we’re talking to a buyer right now where they’re like, hey, that actually works out for me because I want to get my house prepped.
And ready because I’m gonna be selling in the spring market. So actually a delayed closing actually works well for me. Now had the buyer’s agent and I not had that conversation, I wouldn’t have known that’s possible. And so I’m seeing more agents communicating with each other versus 20 offers, your communication is through showing times, through mass emails, and there’s no you know, personalized touch or anything like that.
I’m seeing some agents’ strategy is just to keep reducing the price till it sells. I think that’s a little dangerous. personally, that’s n I’m telling my clients expect it to take up to six months to sell your home versus hey, it’s gonna sell this weekend. And it could sell this weekend. You know, let’s plan for that. You know, get out of town, let’s do the open house. Let’s plan that we’re gonna have offers on Monday, but
Reuben Saltzman (36:46.465)
Wow.
Sure. Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (37:00.22)
reality is, you know, three to six months I think is a good window to expect to sell a home. That’s that and and the prep of the home is so important right now. Like so I have a couple of handy people on call. I have like arborists cutting trees back from hanging over the home because insurance company now are
Reuben Saltzman (37:06.848)
Wow. Okay.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (37:26.108)
Flagging homes with branches hanging over the roof that you can’t get insurance on the home. Yeah. age of roof. Insurance companies are saying you can’t buy this house unless there’s a new roof on the house. Well, that’d have been nice to know up front. So now I’m getting roofers over to my listings ahead of time to to make sure that the roof’s okay.
Reuben Saltzman (37:31.757)
Really?
Reuben Saltzman (37:44.044)
Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (37:52.565)
So there’s a lot of proactiveness. There’s a lot more work that we’re doing as Realtors to get houses prepped and ready. You can’t just slap up a house on the market, use your iPhone and expect 20 offers. I mean, those days are gone. I mean, it it the house better be, you know, prepped and perfect, or it better be priced under market to encourage a buyer to make an offer.
Reuben Saltzman (38:08.844)
Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (38:21.044)
And then we’re also seeing a lot of sellers are sweetening the pot to buy down interest rates. So you’re you’re seeing a lot more seller paid closing costs on transactions. So when I look at sales, you’ll see ten thousand dollars buyers’ closing costs. We’re seeing builders. I have a listing in Atsego. We’re competing with a builder out there that’s giving $25,000 towards buyers.
Closing costs to buy their interest rates down. Well, if you’re a consumer and you’re a regular seller and you’re competing against a corporation that’s giving $25,000 away, how do you compete with
Reuben Saltzman (38:54.518)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (39:05.708)
Yeah. Yeah, that’s that’s tough.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (39:08.262)
So you so you really have to like when you when I’m meeting with clients and I’m looking at their homes, I’m like, okay, your competition in your immediate area might be new construction. So if I’m walking into your home, how do you compare to new construction?
And this this one house, they have like their cats chewed up the carpet and we lost three buyers just because of chewed up carpet. And unfortunately my clients don’t have the money to to repair the carpet. And we just couldn’t work through the you know, you know, kinda shame on us that we couldn’t figure it out, but we just couldn’t figure it out. You know, just the the buyer didn’t want to give in and you know, so yeah, it just
Reuben Saltzman (39:34.978)
Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (39:40.337)
That sucks.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (39:53.619)
It’s really frustrating. But you’re if you’re competing against new construction, that’s a tough one right now.
Reuben Saltzman (39:59.149)
Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever had situations and I’m and I I think I already know the answer to this, but just for anybody else who’s hearing the story and thinking, Well, Michael, why don’t you help them out? You know, why don’t you buy them new carpet? You’re gonna get a good commission, and then that can just be, you know, added on to your commission later. They can pay you back after you sell the house. I think I know the answer to this, but why wouldn’t you just buy them new carpet?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (40:29.812)
It’s a great question. And I was going to do it. Unfortunately, with this particular client situation, I’m not sure they’re going to be able to sell the house for what we need to get out of it. And the and and this just happened where we got our it’s pretty much my first low appraisal of the year, where we sold it for four ninety and it came in at four seventy-three.
Reuben Saltzman (40:45.186)
Hmm, okay.
Reuben Saltzman (40:53.186)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (40:56.962)
Mm.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (40:58.226)
And I told my client it was worth 475. So it you know, it was kind of like one of those things where I was right. We try to push the number. Appraisers aren’t pushing numbers right now. Like, like, hey, you have comps that sold for 490, we’ll just push it through at 490. They’re no, they’re actually getting a little more pickier. the lenders are and the appraisal companies. So it’s a situation where
Reuben Saltzman (41:19.96)
Okay.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (41:26.78)
If I know for sure I’m gonna get my money back and I I’m not afraid to a bet on myself, I do it every day. This is a situation where financially it’s just so tight all the way around that I just I’m not certain I can recoup my money.
Reuben Saltzman (41:43.031)
And could there be a situation? No, that I guess that’s not what I was thinking. What I what I was thinking was you could replace the carpet for them and they could just turn around and say, thank you. but you know, we really haven’t sold it with you. It’s been three weeks. we’re gonna go with another agent. And you you’re just out, right? I mean, there’s nothing you could do.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (42:04.348)
Right. Yeah. You’re out the money. I mean, I’m I’m always out. Yeah, I mean, every listing I have, because of the the marketing that I do, I I hire you know some of the best photographers that do HDR photography. I do virtual staging if the house is vacant, which I did on this house. So that costs me X amount of money per photo that I virtually stage. So if you if you do 10 virtual photos, that’s you know four hundred dollars extra.
I do full motion video, I do the Matterport 3D tour. So I’m like fifteen hundred bucks in just before I even put the for sale sign out front, you know. And then it’s your time, you know. So you do 10 open houses or whatever. I mean you’re just you’re out that time, you know. And so yeah, I this is just a situation where
Reuben Saltzman (42:52.429)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (43:01.652)
Paying for the carpet’s probably not in the cards. And I that’s pretty rare while I’ll ever do that or say that. I I usually am on board to help a client out, you know. but this is a situation where I’m just not certain of what’s gonna happen. It it’s the reality of it is it’s probably gonna become a short sale. Just because of some hardships that this client has gone through, and they’re they’re just kind of behind the eight ball.
Reuben Saltzman (43:11.702)
okay. All right.
Reuben Saltzman (43:19.625)
that sucks.
Reuben Saltzman (43:25.858)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (43:29.294)
Now let me just ask you, when you when you have an agreement all right, the buyers are gonna pay four ninety, you get an appraisal, it comes in at four four seventy-five, what happens now?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (43:42.441)
Well, you have a few options. you can you as the seller can reduce your price if you’ve got equity. In this case, my client doesn’t have much equity. So they they basically can’t sell the house, so they have to cancel the deal. Or the buyer could say, I’ll just come up with more cash to cover the shortage and throw more money at it.
Reuben Saltzman (43:54.698)
Uhhuh.
Reuben Saltzman (44:00.025)
Okay.
Eric Houseman (44:08.1)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (44:09.048)
Because the mortgage company will only give them four seventy five and they gotta come up with their own fifteen grand to make the difference. Got it. The minute they buy the house. Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (44:16.708)
Then your negative equity. So then you’re you’re walking into a deal 15 grand upside down. So again, you make your money right now. If if you’re in an appreciating market, which we haven’t really been in in the last year or so. I mean, generally speaking, it it the market is not up that much in in certain areas. Some areas it’s actually down year over year. So
Reuben Saltzman (44:23.766)
And you wouldn’t let your clients do that.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (44:47.686)
In the olden days during COVID, people were paying $25,000, $50,000, $75,000, $100,000 over asking price to get a property. Well, if you’re appreciating 10% a year on a $900,000 home, that’s $90,000. So if you overpaid $100, I’ll get my money back in a year. And that’s the cost of entry to get a home during that time. Now it’s not that way.
Reuben Saltzman (45:07.798)
Yeah, it only takes a year, yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (45:17.338)
And so you have to be extra careful as a seller and buyer with all that’s going on. You you really have to thread like a very thin needle. And at Sotheby’s we have this one one of one kind of marketing campaign. And you know, to me, it’s like you’re marketing to that one person that might be the perfect buyer for this home. So let’s try to find that buyer for this home. And and sometimes
That’s all you have. Is what you you maybe you get one showing in three months, but then but they’re your buyer. And you just have to kind of bank on that you believe in yourself, you believe in the product, everything is ready to go. And then it really you just have to be patient. I think that’s the number one thing I’m talking to my clients about is patience. Is just you have to be patient. And some people are on some tight
Reuben Saltzman (45:48.248)
Sure.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (46:16.648)
Deadlines and timelines. And so then you have to get more creative with financing, like with bridge loans and things like that. If you’re moving out of state and buying a new home, can you take the equity out of your current home to buy that one? It’s a little dangerous, but if you got to keep moving quickly, you know, otherwise you’re just gonna keep reducing your price to incentivize the buyers. But if the buyers aren’t there, you’re just
giving away the farm for no reason. If if if you look at what your holding costs are, if you’re at a two two and a half percent, two point seven percent interest and you’re looking at like two thousand dollars a month mortgage payment.
Two thousand dollars, I mean, if you have to reduce it twenty five thousand dollars, you could have hung in there for a year.
Reuben Saltzman (47:05.602)
Sure. Wait around for the right offer. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (47:06.398)
Comparatively speaking, right? So just wait around for the right offer, you know, and you know, yeah, we all want, you know, quick sales and this and that. It’s good for everybody, but I don’t want to do that to, you know, cannibalize my clients’ equity.
Reuben Saltzman (47:24.418)
Sure, yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (47:25.748)
I mean, who is that serving? All it serves is the realtors getting quick sales. If you just keep reducing the price, I mean that’s you know.
Reuben Saltzman (47:28.13)
Yeah, it it
Reuben Saltzman (47:35.149)
Yes. Yeah. Agreed. And you know, th the one other thing I wanted to have time to get into, and maybe you already said what you had to say about it, but you told me earlier how you’re seeing more problems with insurance. You already mentioned like the low hanging branches, you know, and and roofs at the end of their life. But what where does this show up? I mean, is this is this before people even close? What where where are you running into these problems and what else are you seeing?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (48:04.744)
Yeah, before I forget, let me tell you the other one I’m hearing a lot of lately too is knob and tube wiring.
Reuben Saltzman (48:11.481)
yeah. Okay.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (48:14.768)
I’m hearing and these are not my clients by the way, but like at let’s just say I’m at some sort of networking event and there’s a bunch of people and people are like, you’re a realtor or you know, what do you think of this or that? And so just in conversation, I heard someone say, Yeah, we just had to get all of our knob and tube wiring replaced because our insurance company made us.
Reuben Saltzman (48:36.684)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (48:38.33)
I’m like, really? Cause I’ve sold houses with knob and tube wiring that we didn’t have to do that. So why are you yeah. So why are you replacing all your knob and tube wiring? Yet I’ve had clients buy knob and tube wiring homes and didn’t have to have all the knob and tube wiring replaced. So I think that one to me personally, and and I’d have to talk to an insurance agent, but
Reuben Saltzman (48:47.18)
You sold the houses, okay.
Reuben Saltzman (48:59.168)
Yeah. Okay.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (49:08.424)
What it seems like to me is if you have knob and tube in the walls, but then where you can see it, let’s say in the floor joys, you know, is that Romax in a in a junction box, and the junction box goes to the knob and tube up the wall. If you’re an insurance agent and you’re going into the property, because now insurance agents actually go to the property to look at them. They weren’t doing that before. yeah. Yeah, they’re going to the properties.
Reuben Saltzman (49:32.984)
Do they? Really? I’ve never had that happen on a house I own. Holy cow.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (49:39.316)
Yeah, they’re starting to go they’re starting to go to the homes now. Yeah. And look at things that they can flag that are things that have been coming up as claims. So knob and tube is is one thing I’ve seen. And I I mean I heard like someone pay like thirty five thousand dollars to have all their knob and tube replaced.
Reuben Saltzman (49:42.569)
Interesting. Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (49:59.353)
That sounds right in line, yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (50:01.712)
And so was that a good investment or not? Somebody freaks someone out that hey knob and tube can catch on fire. I don’t know, all of St. Paul and Minneapolis would be burning down if knob and tube wiring was catching on fire all the time. You know. I that that’s just my opinion. But so I’m I’m seeing knob and tube wiring is a is a flag. older roofs are a flag, so single tab.
Reuben Saltzman (50:04.94)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (50:31.698)
you know, curly fries, shingles, curling, you know, hail. They’re actually getting up on the roofs, the insurance agents are to just peek at And so they’re they’re basically saying, if you don’t get a new roof, we won’t insure the property.
Reuben Saltzman (50:42.2)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (50:48.14)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (50:50.0)
And then the tree branch thing, I actually had it was a transaction in Minneapolis. You guys did the home inspection and it came down to all right, we’re about to close on the property. It was a week before closing, and in the you know, the client orders the insurance binder and all that, because that’s a condition if you’re financing the home. And the insurance agent declined the insurance because it had a big tree branch.
going over the property. Well the problem was it wasn’t in the property, the whole tree. It was the neighbor’s tree branch encroaching over the property line onto the property we were trying to buy.
Reuben Saltzman (51:20.067)
Mm.
Eric Houseman (51:32.109)
Mm.
Reuben Saltzman (51:35.223)
Okay.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (51:36.871)
Well, it was at a time of year where we could kill the tree if we tr if we trim the tree branch off, right? So I had to have an arborist go over to the property that was my guy. He went over there that day, and then he he’s like, We can definitely do this. We can definitely chop the branch off, and we can put the little tar, you know, on the tree so it doesn’t kill the tree. But then
Reuben Saltzman (51:44.536)
Okay.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (52:06.258)
The seller or the owner of the home next door, she’s like, You’re not doing it, you’re gonna kill my tree. So we had to talk to her arborist to get approval in writing that we weren’t gonna kill her tree. This is a week before closing. And I’m like, I didn’t see that one coming. Like, I like to really be prepared for, you know, when I’m looking at a home, like this is an older home. Okay, what’s gonna come up?
Reuben Saltzman (52:16.172)
gosh.
Reuben Saltzman (52:23.19)
Wow.
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (52:36.82)
You know, where am I gonna get flagged on something? You know, so now I’ve got to add insurance companies to the mix that that wasn’t a thing a year or two ago.
Reuben Saltzman (52:46.444)
Now that that’s that’s such an interesting thing you bring up about the tree branches, because it’s like in theory, this neighbor could have stonewalled and just said, You’re not touching my tree, period. I don’t care what kind of guarantee you give, you can’t touch my tree because it’s my friend and you will hurt it. And and then and then what do you do? I mean, d is it is it just the transaction is blocked? How do we proceed?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (53:15.144)
Well, good question. So if your thing is encroaching on my thing, I can do whatever I want. So do you want to play nice or do you want me to get dirty pool?
Reuben Saltzman (53:20.771)
huh.
At what point? but but but where can you do whatever you want? Is it right at the property line? Straight up? Okay. All right. That’s what I’ve heard. Okay. All right.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (53:32.219)
Yes. Correct. Yeah. So hey, if you you don’t want to talk to us, I mean we’re trying to be friendly here and kumbaya and all that kind of stuff. But if you don’t want to play ball here, you’re you’re getting in the way of progress and you know now you now you’ve created some animosity with your neighbor, right? Now you’re moving to this home.
Reuben Saltzman (53:58.839)
Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (54:00.003)
Mm-hmm.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (54:02.3)
And my client was a reload, so they weren’t from here. So right off the bat, you’ve got, you know, potentially bad blood. Luckily, it it worked out, and we we got through the transaction and trimmed offer branch and all that. And you guys always put in your inspection reports anyway, that tree branches and vegetation shouldn’t be touching the house anyway. So you guys are already kind of in front of that. But now with the insurance companies.
Reuben Saltzman (54:05.614)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (54:26.076)
yeah. yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (54:32.71)
We as agents r really have to because it the insurance companies are deal killers right.
Reuben Saltzman (54:32.93)
Now it’s got teeth.
Reuben Saltzman (54:39.138)
Sure. Yeah.
Eric Houseman (54:40.343)
Is there have you heard any I I think I’ve heard this maybe one or two times, is there any evidence talking about insurance where companies insurance companies are more hesitant or not willing to insure a home that has a roof covering that’s not really common or native to Minnesota, like wood shingles, slate, clay tile, that type of thing.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (55:06.332)
I haven’t run into that one yet.
Reuben Saltzman (55:09.987)
Good.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (55:10.46)
what I do run into like I have a house that I’m selling in an Eden Prairie, which hopefully closes next Friday, has cedar shake shingles. And so it’s one of those Eden Prairie neighborhoods that it’s a covenant of the neighborhood that you you had to have cedar shake shingles. And those things just don’t age well. They you know after a year or two they f you know they fade or whatever and
Reuben Saltzman (55:18.51)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (55:36.04)
We were kind of potentially losing buyers because people were saying, Well, the roof is old and it’s cedar shake and I hear they’re really expensive roofs to replace. And so insurance companies are starting to say
We don’t want to maybe insure a cedar shake roof because of the replacement costs. So now you’re dealing with another variable, which is the association. So is the association still in play? Because if the association requires it to be cedar shake, then if the insurance company’s saying, well, we’re not going to replace cedar shake, now you violated the association rules of that neighborhood.
Reuben Saltzman (56:04.662)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (56:21.232)
So the more you can do as an agent to get the association rules up front, which is again more work that we’re having to do as agents.
That will help maybe dictate maybe you can put in, you know, architectural shingle. So a lot of the associations have loosened up on that, where you don’t have to have cedar shake, because why are you forcing me to put a $75,000 roof on when I could do it for $45 with you know architectural shingles? So it it is a factor. So associations are yet another thing that we’re dealing with, that are killing deals as well.
Reuben Saltzman (56:40.845)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (56:52.024)
Sure.
Reuben Saltzman (57:02.348)
Yeah. Yeah. Well I’m glad it’s not just us.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (57:05.876)
Yeah, it’s it’s getting more and more complicated. In Minnesota, I heard just last month, we’re the most claimed state in the country. More than Florida, California, Hawaii, you name it. Just because hail creates so much damage and then the winters people are sliding around in their cars, you know, all winter. So we’re we’re just
Reuben Saltzman (57:30.798)
Mm. Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (57:35.604)
And and some of the nationals have pulled out completely where they’re not insuring Minnesota at all. So so having a good insurance broker is key right now. And so you’re you’re starting to hear insurance companies insuring homes that you’ve never heard of before. Like they’re not names that are like are on TV. And so it’s like, well, I need insurance, so I’ll just take whatever I can get.
Reuben Saltzman (57:40.428)
I’ve heard that.
Reuben Saltzman (57:54.648)
Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (57:59.151)
Yeah.
Eric Houseman (58:00.026)
Yeah, I know when my wife and I moved into our house ten years ago, our three tab shingles when we bought it, I know they were fifteen to twenty years old when we bought it. And Ruben knows this, but in I just had our roof replaced in the last three to four weeks. Cause we’re like, might as well proactively do it. We’re gonna do the siding too, like let’s just do it. And I know over the last ten years, I’ve watched at least a dozen houses in our immediate neighborhood get.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (58:09.437)
Yep.
Eric Houseman (58:30.457)
New roof after a storm has come through. And I’m like, how are you getting that? Like, my roof isn’t damaged. I know it’s not. Because I get up there and I look at it. There’s no dam. So we know that this is still happening. yeah. And it’s it’s interesting because I can now I can confidently say, like, I haven’t had a conversation with my insurance company about my roof because I knew it was old, but now that it’s been replaced, I actually called them the day after.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (58:36.499)
Right.
Reuben Saltzman (58:44.268)
Yes, yes.
Eric Houseman (59:00.579)
They sent me paperwork where I can get a 20% discount now on my homeowner’s insurance because my roof is replaced, it’s class three shingles. All I need is to give them the manufacturer and get a signature from the installer, and we’re good. So there’s definitely incentive to potentially doing it proactively in some cases.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (59:06.28)
Right.
Reuben Saltzman (59:06.51)
That’s great. Nice.
Reuben Saltzman (59:16.098)
Nice.
Reuben Saltzman (59:23.149)
Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (59:24.22)
Yeah, and we as agents that are listing homes that have newer roofs, that is now a marketing feature that is being more highlighted than ever before because you’re basically saying to the world, hey, you can actually buy this house.
Reuben Saltzman (59:41.73)
Yeah, yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (59:42.206)
Which is like what? But it it’s now a factor.
Eric Houseman (59:48.238)
Interesting. Michael brings up like you know the knob and tube wiring and and insurance companies getting smarter and smarter and smarter. And this is something that I’ve talked about when I’ve done our four point CE class. I’m always wondering, like in the back of my mind, what’s the next thing that insurance companies are going to find out about or glom onto? Like, is it going to be aluminum wiring? Is it going to be polybutylene? Because those aren’t conversations that we’re having right now, but
Then again, five to ten years ago, knob and tube wiring wasn’t part of the conversation, and now it is. So what what’s next?
Reuben Saltzman (01:00:24.354)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Michael, this has been great.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (01:00:29.054)
Yeah, I I had a transaction where sorry. There was like a stone veneer on the property and the insurance company said it or actually it was the relocation company said it had to be taken off because there was they did a there was a pre-inspection that was done for the relocation process and they kind of flagged the stone veneer as possibly having some issues with it.
And so the the employer said to the seller, hey, now that you have this under contract, you need to replace the whole front of your home veneer, take it all off. And I said, that doesn’t sound right to me. So I had to get a stone veneer expert over to the home and get her to write up a report that said, actually, that’s a huge mistake. You’re actually gonna create more of a problem.
Here’s what we can do to kind of repair what’s there. And so we did that. So I saved my client like 20 grand because I had a contact that was able to talk the employer off the ledge that just because this says this doesn’t mean it’s what you should do.
Reuben Saltzman (01:01:35.726)
Wow.
Reuben Saltzman (01:01:48.354)
Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (01:01:49.909)
So I I just I have so many resources and and I know you guys have a approved vendor list, which is so helpful to have, but I’m just finding I gotta have like twenty five people in my back pocket to get through deals these days. Otherwise th it’s just there’s twenty five ways to lose a deal. So you better have twenty five solutions.
Reuben Saltzman (01:02:03.864)
Sure, sure.
Reuben Saltzman (01:02:10.88)
And you know, and that’s what you don’t get when you’re hiring your cousin to sell your house for you who has a real estate license and they do two transactions a year. I mean, you you don’t get any of this. You get someone who can fill out the forms. You’re not getting an expert. Yeah.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (01:02:31.912)
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I some agents get into their metrics for the year and I want to sell this many houses and all that kind of stuff. And I’d be lying if if I would say that I don’t pay attention to it. But to me, I lead with taking care of my client first, and then the business just follows that. So, you know, if if I have to do a lot more work and I sell 50 houses a year.
Reuben Saltzman (01:02:51.947)
Amen. Love it.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (01:03:00.094)
versus doing little work and selling seventy-five houses and and then I’m setting my c you know seventy-five clients up for failure. All day long I’ll take fifty. I’ll do more work, happier clients, because I get a lot of referrals. I don’t have to market myself. The my clients fine me because they’re not having to write, you know, twenty-five thousand dollar checks for new sewer lines every day. You know, just
So you guys give me so much peace of mind when you are working with my clients. And again, you create a lot of work for me, but you know, I I take that as a badge of honor. You know, like, hey, this is this is gonna be some work here to do, but I wanna do the hard work now so that my client can enjoy their home later and hopefully make money when they go to sell it.
Reuben Saltzman (01:03:55.928)
Yes, yes.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (01:03:57.64)
And that to me is why I do what I do.
Reuben Saltzman (01:04:00.93)
Yep. Love it. Well, Michael, we are at time. always great to have you on the show. Love these insights. And if if people wanna reach out to you, if they wanna find you, where can they go?
Michael Bartus REALTOR (01:04:11.028)
Thank you guys.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (01:04:16.232)
Home twin cities.com is my website or Michael at home twin cities dot com. Or my cell nine five two four hundred seven thousand.
Reuben Saltzman (01:04:24.12)
Perfect.
Reuben Saltzman (01:04:29.164)
Such a good number. I love that. So good.
Eric Houseman (01:04:30.341)
Did you did you have to pay for that cell phone number? Like that’s so easy.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (01:04:30.556)
Such a good number.
Michael Bartus REALTOR (01:04:35.644)
I did. There there is there’s a story behind it and we may not have enough time for it, but yeah, there’s a story behind my phone number.
Eric Houseman (01:04:43.193)
Write that down for the next one, Ruben. Yeah.
Reuben Saltzman (01:04:43.597)
good yeah yeah yeah we’ll cover that all right and for the listeners if you want to email us we read them all it’s podcast at structure tech dot com and we will catch you next time take care
Michael Bartus REALTOR (01:04:44.974)
Yeah, exactly.