Undisclosed Issues? Here’s What Buyers Can Do With Fred Glick Of Arrivva

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

• Why full disclosure is critical in real estate transactions
• Learn why you should watch out for flipped homes and why buyers who waive inspections can leave them with costly surprises
• How to prepare for homeownership expenses beyond the purchase price
• The truth about home warranties and older vs. newer homes
• What to look for during walkthroughs, featuring a real home tour of 1918 Ellen Street in San Jose
• The best and worst times to buy or sell a home, and why August might be the perfect time to make a move

In this episode with Fred Glick

What happens when your dream home turns into a nightmare? 

In this episode of We Fixed Real Estate, Fred Glick and René Pérez Jr. of Arrivva react to a real Reddit post about buyers facing undisclosed issues and serious regrets. Find out what you must do if problems pop up after you buy, why disclosures matter, and how to protect yourself. 

Plus, they reveal the true costs of homeownership, tour a reliable San Jose home, and share insider tips on the best times to buy or sell. Don’t miss this mix of real talk, real advice, and real estate reality checks.

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Fred Glick on LinkedIn
• René Pérez Jr. on LinkedIn
• Arrivva
• 1918 Ellen Avenue, San Jose, CA 95125, USA

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:29] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Welcome to We Fixed Real Estate. We’re rolling out a new feature this week called “This Week in Reddit.” Our top response, well, we’re still workshopping the title.

[00:00:39] Fred Glick: I’m pretty active on Reddit, following in things like the first time home buyers and the real estate channels and mortgage and just kind of whatever is out there.

Reddit’s a great source. Consider the options. What a lot of people do is they put things on there that they really need to go to a lawyer about, and then they get a bunch of reactions. But this one I found, and it’s our Reddit, Reddit of the week or whatever. This couple bought a property about seven months ago, and it ends up that there were problems with the house that weren’t disclosed. And that’s the key thing. And there’s a dog that’s barking, it’s just a whole thing. And she’s having buyer’s remorse is what she’s calling about it. And her question is, “Should We look at buying again or go with new construction?”

And they wanna sell the house because of these problems. But here’s the thing, the answer to this is number one, you gotta fight the problems and it’s not that hard to fight. You go back to your agent, who should go to the listing agent and the listing agent’s broker and say, “Hey. You guys didn’t disclose this, this is a big problem.”

They could get sued for it. The real estate companies have what’s called errors and emissions insurance, and this is something I tell every buyer to do if they’re shopping for an agency or seller, even ask them how many claims they’ve had in the last 24 months. Especially the big companies. And when you’re an agent, another thing you have to pay for is your percentage of the insurance.

So you’re paying for other people’s mistakes in an agency that has mistakes. But anyway, they should try to rectify that. All the repairs should get done. Things like that. Right. Go after the inspection company. ‘Cause if they miss stuff, they’re liable too. They have, or is an emission insurance.

But here’s the biggest problem. If you wanna sell this property and move somewhere else, you as the seller now have to disclose this to the new buyer. So what you’re doing is dropping down the price, the value of your house because you have these problems. Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot to mention the dog.

The dog can be met with the local dog catcher or whoever is responsible for animal control. So it’s kind of more than you think sometimes, but it could be less and just take the time to try to fix the problems before you try to sell, because you’re just gonna get hurt. That’s kind of our Reddit of the week.

We’ll be back for more next week.

[00:03:31] Drew Thomas Hendricks: I’m reading through this post, it says that the, did the kids really need to disclose how the previous owner got to his mailbox? I mean, it seems like when they tour the house, they would see that the mailbox is far away from the house. Whether you take a bike, take a car or walk, it’s kind of up to you.

If these things happen. Try to address them and how you address them. You just can’t ignore it. And there are remedies including going back to these companies and at worst case, suing them.

[00:04:01] Fred Glick: But, you know, and they deserve a very bad Google review. Just be honest in your Google reviews because people forget about that. 

[00:04:09] René Pérez Jr.: I think people sometimes don’t understand what home buying is, especially if you’re a first time home buying. You know, one of the big differences of home ownership, the joy of home ownership, is if something breaks, it’s not, “Hey, I’m gonna call a landlord today to come and fix it.”

It’s, “Oh, now I have to go get it done.” Right? And that’s something that you have to look into when you’re buying a property. It’s not the same to buy a house that was built in 2010 to buying a house that was built in the eighties, right? Yeah. There’s a saying in the industry where older properties have better bones and they’ll last longer, but the reality is it’s just like any vehicle, right?

You have more mileage. You’ve used it more. Things will break. I’m a little skeptical of, you know, people who are like, “Oh, I was not aware of maintenance.” Well, of course, like you’re buying an old house. It will have things that are broken. Right?

And before you buy something, that’s what you wanna get acclimated to. What does a toilet breaking costs? You know, what does X, Y, Z, I mean, there’s just hundreds of different things that can happen with a property. So the idea is for you, before you even get into the home buying purchase, look into, “Okay, if something does break, how much budget am I going to have for that?” Right? Because nobody’s gonna come here and, you know, be able to help you and yeah, you can sue people and you can make claims. But that’s not gonna help you because even with home warranties, right? Home warranties and we try to protect our buyers all the time with requesting part of the contract, we request a home warranty for home buyers.

What that means is that, let’s say that you’re into a new house and once you live in the house for two months, you realizethat the fridge is not as cool as you would expect it. Okay, well now you file a claim with the home warranty. Now that home warranty is usually anywhere between 600 to $1,500.

That’s usually, there’s different tiers, you know, different costs. Different deductibles that they have. But the bottom line is, okay, the fridge breaks, “Oh, I have home warranty. I can go and have someone come and fix it for me or get a new one.” Right? The problem is, even with those warranties, one, the deductible, two, you have to follow a particular procedure.

You have to do it at a certain time or else, guess what? Nobody’s going to pay for it, right? So it’s like any insurance. So even that’s, it’s not a solution because at the end you realize like, “Oh, well I spent the same amount of time and money as me just paying it before instead of just using the home warranty.” Right? It’s kind of the same cost. Yeah. Sometimes with the sewer you might do a little bit better, but, but the whole point is that you can’t depend on warranties. You can’t depend on inspections and because things go wrong. So you want to have a budget for that. And the only, and even, even new construction has broken things all the time as well. Yes, there’s more warranties. And you kind of have the builder being kind of your landlord and fixing things for a while. But it’s the same idea, right? It’s your house. Right? So you’re going to kind of learn, have to learn to, you know, work on the maintenance items.

If you have small kids, the joy of having a small kid who says, oh, there’s a toilet with water. Let me just dump in there toys and see if the superhero swims that that happens. Right. That’s not gonna be protected in a warranty. The new builder is not going to protect you against that. So people do have to kind of realize a little bit more of like, what am I getting into when I buy something?

And maybe as agents, you know, maybe we also don’t do it as well as we, we should, where we kind of talk to them for a couple hours to be like, “Hey, are you ready? Are you really ready to purchase?” Right? Because that’s important.

The process of owning a home was not fully laid out seven months prior. And in the inspections there gave them no clue. But on the other hand, from the post, we have no idea what sort of DIY projects they’re doing.

[00:08:19] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Yeah. Like, yeah. Great point though, on new construction, ’cause the kinks haven’t been hammered out. Like there’s a lot of little, little things that can go wrong with new construction.

[00:08:29] René Pérez Jr.: Yeah.I think maybe the worst position to be in is if you’re buying a property that you are, that was just recently flipped, because now as a home buyer, you kind of, sort of expect that nothing’s gonna go wrong. But there’s just so many buyers out there that see like, “Oh, it’s ready to move in house.” That people in hot markets like the Bay Area, they’re going to waive the inspection contingency, but there will be things wrong with the house, and again,

[00:08:59] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Flippers are putting lipstick on it.

[00:09:02] René Pérez Jr.: Exactly. Right? And then we’ve had some buyers actually, because there is another form of warranty. It’s called Construction Warranty that can be purchased. But developers, they don’t want to deal with that. Developers, they have a project, they remodel it, they put that lipstick, and then they wanna sell it and never hear from it again. Right?

They don’t want to be working with you and be your landlord kind of thing. Right. They’re just. They made it better than what it used to be, and that’s, that’s good enough for them. And that’s good enough for a lot of buyers, right? It’s also a struggle when there’s a lot of buyers who kind of expect like, “Oh, it’s a flip, it’s gonna be perfect.” Those are actually probably worse.

That’s why I, you know, I always, I always say like, you either go new construction or you buy like a, like a really almost a tear down because then, you know, “Well, I know what I kind of got into and I’m gonna put the money in and it’s gonna be how I like it.” Versus buying a fully remodeled property. Sure it’s ready to move in, but you don’t know what they kind of cut corners on and everybody cuts corners on, you know, kind of the developing of it.

I’ve never done a walkthrough with the developer and we don’t find items to go fix and get that.

[00:10:13] Fred Glick: Lemme give you an idea of a house you kind of should buy. If there’s a house that has been remodeled down to the stud, say five years ago or more.

That’s something where everything that could go wrong should have gone wrong already. So that’s kind of an example of a house we’re in right now, we have for sale a house in San Jose. It’s 1918 Ellen Street. And we’re here, we just happened to be near and we thought we’d do the podcast from here and kind of give you a walkthrough.

But the good thing was this was done like seven, eight years ago. We, I usual did all the inspections beforehand. Really just found some minor things. ‘Cause you’re always gonna find minor things, but you know, it’s kind of like, okay, it’s lived in for a while. It’s used. Somebody, cooked in here all the time, used the bathroom, they had kids, they played in the pool.

it’s a great house. So we’re gonna do a little walkthroughs and just to give you an idea and just go over some stuff.

 So anyway, the back of the house, there’s a little pool house here, got some stuff in it and it’s cute.

 So lemme go outside. Now what’s nice is they have this, which is required by law of this fence, and it’s a portable one. So you can see maybe down here there’s some holes that the fence goes in. It’s nice and relaxing.

Quiet back here. You got some tall palm trees. The lights look really cool at night. Pool’s small, but what we did, if you look at the Redfin link or Zillow link, you’ll see that we did a virtual of taking the pool out and replacing it with the same kind of cement here, or even putting grass back down here. That’s something to think about when you’re listing a house. You may not want to just put that yes, it has a pool and have that as the only option because let people take a look at it to see if it has or not. Just because they may not want a pool. So back here it’s the air conditioner that goes out to the front.

[00:12:21] Drew Thomas Hendricks: They actually have two different compressor units for each place, and this is nice that they hung it on a wall. Or the hose.that a little pool room?

[00:12:35] Fred Glick: Let’s see if this is open. You know,, it’s a California ADU, all 100 square feet of it. Oh, it is open. Just storage. You know, you could fit a single bed in here, get 800 bucks a month. Also down this side, it’s just nice. Those trees are great out front. They go to a hundred feet and they provide shade and they’re low drought tolerance plants. Very cool. Back into the house and we’re back in here.

Now I’m going out here and maybe I have feedback and maybe I don’t. So this is very cool. This is kind of the dining area. They’ve set it up with a, a nice sized table. You can get a bigger table in here if you really wanted to. And then this bar, bar sink in. Look at that. They got double taps ready to go and compressors under there, and you got a refrigerator that you store.

Everything in looking back into the living room, lemme just go here. The pantry, gigantic pantry.

[00:13:51] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Huge pantry.

[00:13:53] Fred Glick: I know. Tons of room. Tons of room that leads out to the garage. And you know, it’s got the push button thingy dingy to open it up and it’s even got a little fan there, which is really nice.

[00:14:11] René Pérez Jr.: It’s pretty cool in here. One car plus, I’m sure he’s taking that with him, but you could see how that fits if you’re into fixing stuff. The idea and the idea is, so as you do the walkthrough in the first floor is you have one bedroom, but theoretically you have three bedrooms downstairs because the family room that walks into the pool can also function as a bedroom and the garage is actually converted into an office that can also be a bedroom.

[00:14:39] Fred Glick: A little crazy, but here’s what he was talking about. So this is a full bath with a shower, very nice. That connects here to this bedroom that, that’s actually a Murphy bed.

If you know what a Murphy bed is, is one of those pull down things as a space saver. But yeah, it’s nice. Now if you want, you could put a door here.

So this can be, you know, private but still got a full bath on the first floor. Okay, so now this is the actual entrance. This sofa, by the way, I’ve done open houses here. It’s drives me crazy ’cause you really can’t sit on it. It’s so deep. You have to lie on it. And I’m in an open house. I can’t lie on it with people coming in.

Anyway. We got fireplace with a remote control mounted TV there and here’s the kitchen. Whoops. Didn’t get it perfect there. Much better. So they got a three door refrigerator. I don’t know what that’s for, to be honest, but freezer, fridge and whatever that is. Two door oven. Dishwasher. Another little extra sink here with a garbage disposal, which is nice.

And then the main sink and the fancy wolf stove with the red dials. So, and take a look out front. And there’s some more storage here that’s for glassware and silverware down here. So it lays out really nice. Oh, I forgot this. The microwave, the below waste microwave. So yeah, it’s a nice house.

[00:16:33] Drew Thomas Hendricks: It is nice.

[00:16:34] Fred Glick: Yeah. Really nice. So René, you’re upstairs.

[00:16:38] René Pérez Jr.: I’m actually from the staircase. I’m in the smallest first bedroom up here, so this is good for a younger kid, baby. Closet space. Then as we go up the stairs, we do see the one bathroom here. Our double sinks. They have a closet area for the washer and dryer and you know, I’d put a door here versus the curtains, but this works. In the primary bedroom, really spacious and actual walk-in closet. This should not be a problem to putting all your furniture in or all your clothes in, I should say.

And then, I mean, this is what you would expect from a primary bedroom, right? You do have a tub. You have a walking shower in the toilet and double sink, so.

And then you can look out the window here. It’s not unfortunately a, a view to the ocean or a view to the mountains, but this is a, a extremely quiet street. It is not on a main road. If you look on Zillow or Redfin or any platform where you look at your properties, what you’re gonna notice is that a lot of houses that are on the market right now are in really, quote unquote banned streets.

Because they’re on streets where cars are always driving by. If I stayed here for 10, 15 minutes, a car would likely not go drive, drive by.

 I’m the car right there. But if you look across from where I am, there’s no other cars parked, right? And so everybody here, it’s, you know, one or two cars, but they have ’em in their garage, so there’s always plenty of parking.

[00:18:40] Fred Glick: And then as they walk in here. The front, the front of the house, there’s going to be another bedroom, another little closet here, and then a small little deck area. The owners used to have a little chair and tables out here. On the warm days. You can come here, take a peek. This house has pretty much everything except for a sauna. And they can be bought and plugged in nowadays.

[00:19:13] René Pérez Jr.: Oh, yeah.

[00:19:13] Drew Thomas Hendricks: You can convert that ADU into a sauna.

[00:19:16] Fred Glick: There you go.

[00:19:17] René Pérez Jr.: Yeah. Actually you could.

[00:19:19] Fred Glick: That’s a great idea.

[00:19:20] René Pérez Jr.: When people are looking to upgrade into a home, usually they start with the property that’s somewhere around like 1300 square feet.

That’s usually either a small three bed, one, one and a half bath, or a three bed, two bath, sometimes a two bed, one bath. But then people are trying to upgrade and getting into a 2000 square feet. This is 2,500 square feet. Anything above that, yes, it’s great, but it does need a lot more maintenance, right?

So you really won’t see a lot of people trying to get a house that’s bigger than 3000 square feet.

[00:19:59] Fred Glick: Yes, it’s more to clean, it’s more to have go wrong. It’s more to furnish, you know? I mean, if you have a need and you know, you have seven people living with you, it’s different story.

[00:20:11] René Pérez Jr.: Yeah, no, this is at a, at the golden number of 2,500 square feet. So yeah, and it’s well used space. 

[00:20:19] Fred Glick: Yeah, it’s a wonderful house. Our clients hated to move, but they had to unfortunately. But I’m outside now and here’s, you see this tree here? It’s amazing. I forget the name of it, but I was looking at some information about it. It grows to a hundred feet. And will really do a nice job of shading the house.

So right in the front here, like I was sitting on these Adirondack chairs. It’s just really nice. There’s a balcony that René was talking about, but you can see so much of the house, and we’re doing this at the street 40 ish on a weekday. But eventually that tree is going to provide shade for that deck.

 As you can see on the street, it’s pretty chill here. There’s literally nobody and no cars, so. Yeah, while we’re here, we’re in the area. We thought we’d do this as part of the podcast. Just Google 1918 Ellen and the word Arrivva, and you’ll get to our website page for it or look on Redfin or Zillow and everything’s there.

We got all the disclosures done, the inspections done. There’s a 3D walkthrough you can do. And hopefully by the time this gets broadcast it’ll be sold. Anyway, yeah, we had some good activity already on it, so even for July.

Let’s talk about July and August. So August is basically. The equivalent of December when it comes to real estate.

Not as many people are out there. The junk that’s been lying around on the market for months is still there. Even some really nice houses might get on, keep, stay on the market a little bit at time because people are away, people are doing other stuff.

They’re having summer. And I was talking to a buyer today who’s looking at a price point that it was like a little lower than what’s out there, but I said, you know what, we, you might get lucky on something. Get something for 50 grand cheaper just because it’s August.

We in the middle of July, but still. It’s been a little, little quiet. Not as many people go to open houses Saturday, Sunday. You’re busy doing summer things. There’s so much going on, but this might be a really good time of the year if you’re serious about buying. To jump in right away. Depending on your market, depending on everything else, and you know, we’re, we’re not the type to say, “Oh, it’s a great time to buy.”

You know what, every market’s different. Every house is different, every area’s different. Everybody’s situation’s different. If you’re comfortable with it and you’re ready to go, fine.

[00:23:15] Drew Thomas Hendricks: Just don’t be swayed by somebody saying, oh, it’s a great time to buy. You should buy now. Just gimme a reason. The reason right now is there’s a possibility it might get something cheaper because it’s quiet time of the year. It’s like the shoulder season for traveling. Now’s the shoulder season for home buying.

I think the last five years we’ve been working in a environment that has not been quote unquote normal, right?

[00:23:40] René Pérez Jr.: You’re dealing with the pandemic, you’re dealing with 2% interest rates. And dealing with interest rates going from 2% all the way to almost 8%. I think at some point people did reach 8%, and those are averages, right? Because there’s some people that are dealing with like 15% interest rate. But anyway, we won’t talk about those.

But I think finally you’re looking at a market that is functioning the way it usually functions. Even in markets like the Bay Area. Right?

Where the, I mean if you talk to anyone who knows even slightly a little bit about real estate, they will always say that Spring is the best time to buy. Why is that it?

It’s the best time to buy and sell really, because in the spring people are then thinking about their New Year’s resolutions, about what they thought about in December, January. They’re now wide awake from the winter. Right. They receive their bonuses and they know what to do with it now, if they haven’t spent it, but also they are, they are ready for new life changing things. It’s when people are graduating from college, from elementary schools, from high schools, from all that. So there’s people that are saying like, “Ah, okay, finally my kids are out of the house. Now I can downsize.”

“Oh, my kids are going into high school, but the high school that we live in is only a seven outta 10. I want them to go the best high school in the city. We need to move before the next school year.” Right? So, you know, you people are planning way ahead. So April, I’d say, other than that being my birthday, it’s probably the best time to put a house on the market.

And then, you know, once the summer rolls by, it’s like, “Okay, well now it’s might be a little too late for our kids to get into those schools. Now we’re gonna get into the wait list.” Now it’s, people are taking vacations. Right? And this, you know, during the pandemic even and after the pandemic, people weren’t really taking vacations on just June or July.

They were like, “Oh, I’m working from home and I can do this.” Now it’s a little bit more of a normalized environment where people are more on a hybrid schedule. People are a little scared about layoffs, right? People are getting new jobs and promotions. So it’s a new environment where it’s more of a normalized environment of you know, there’s enough inventory now.

I mean, there wasn’t more than one house in a particular street even two years ago. And now if you’re looking at properties, you kind of have multiple options now. Now the options that you have are quite limited. For example, this house on Ellen Street, this one has a pool. If we look at the property that’s in the other street next to us it is a, a house that doesn’t have a pool, and it’s a little bit less, it’s more of a different style of home, right?

It’s enough to create a environment where buyers can actually pick a little bit more. Whereas just having to buy whatever’s left. December is like the worst market to be in if you’re a seller because everybody’s on vacation. Right? And yeah, August as well.

So when people are like, it’s the last chance for them to go and travel and go abroad before they have to go back to school. And we’ve been told by one of our agents actually, that these days people go, their kids are going to school like August, like fifth or something like that.

[00:27:11] Fred Glick: Yeah. It’s insane. Yeah. I think it was August 8th, but the point is going back and that’s in Sacramento, so her kids go back that early.

I’m old obviously, but growing up Thursday after Labor Day is when we started school. But now going so early, we could have a whole, I’m sure parents out there right now are, you’re getting mad.

But anyway, we’re not gonna get into that. You know, weather has its factors. Obviously California, it’s not as bad as in Philadelphia or, you know, Chicago, et cetera. So, you know, the spring market is important ’cause that’s when you can come outta your house without shaking to death. So.

[00:27:53] René Pérez Jr.: I guess I’ll give you guys like the ten second, 12 second reel here. If you’re a seller, the best time to put a house on the market is anywhere between early March to April. The worst time as a seller is to put a house on the market in November or December. Horrible times. As the buyer, the best time to purchase is in August and December because of the way the environment is for buyers and sellers.

[00:28:27] Fred Glick: There you go. All right. I think we’ve talked ourselves out.

[00:28:32] Drew Thomas Hendricks: You’ve reached the end of this episode of We Fixed Real Estate with Fred Glick and René Pérez.