Mama Liz's Blog: Can You Believe What Some Real Estate Agents will do?

In my office, we have an educational session (which we call Focus Groups) once a week instead of "rah,rah sales meetings".  At a recent session, the speaker was talking to us about what we should tell our buyers regarding "mold" and "radon". 

In the Charleston,SC area, we have never really had to worry about having radon tests before. However, now with the new EPA concerns about granite counter tops putting out radon in the home, it is suggested that buyers have a radon test prior to purchasing.

The Charleston area has a lot of mold as you might expect because of our wet climate and flood areas. The speaker told us about a real estate agent who hired him to conduct a mold test on a listing that he had.  The test showed rather severe mold ---- the agent decided that he did not want to see the test results after the inspector verbally told him of the mold issues.

A another real estate agent brought an offer on the property --the listing agent did not disclose that there may be "mold issues".  I suppose in his mind, since he never received the written report, he didn't "know" about the issue.  A first time home buyer purchased this home without the knowledge of the issues.

When the inspector saw that the home was sold, he checked into it and discovered who the agent was that had brought the buyer.  Since the listing agent had never paid for the report or picked it up, the inspector told the buyer's agent about the report.

Would you believe that the buyer's agent told the inspector that he did not want to know about this -- that he had a ratified contract?  Well, that is what happened.

This is the kind of stuff that gives us Realtors a bad name!!!! Thank goodness neither of these agents were in my office --- I could not tolerate this type of behavior.

Liz Loadholt