Home Owner Maintenance Tips With Realtor Lauren DiMeo

Lauren DiMeo explains the importance of loan pre approval before you look for a home. Don't waste everyones time searching for a home without pre approval its pointless.  Lauren also shares an interesting ice maker story.

Lauren & I discuss common home maintenance tips for current and future home owners. If you live in a home you need to listen to this podcast.

Contact Lauren if you are looking to buy or sell or if you just need honest advice about real estate.

https://www.laurendimeo.com/

https://www.facebook.com/laurendimeorealtor

https://www.instagram.com/laurendimeo/

Transcript

John Laforme: 0:00

Buying a home. Don't panic. Just listen to the rest of this podcast Alright everybody, welcome back to another episode of Home Inspection authoritys Straight Talk podcast with me, John laforme. I'm a CREIA Certified home inspector from Los Angeles, California. And the topics we discuss on this podcast are about buying homes selling homes, inspecting homes. So if you're a home inspector, home buyer, real estate professional, this podcast is definitely for you. Okay, everybody, you're not gonna bleed who's with me? Lauren DeMaio, As in pass the mayo.

Lauren Dimeo: 0:50

terrible dad jokes.

John Laforme: 0:52

Lauren. Lauren is a realtor that hires me all the time for her clients, and refers me to everybody. And most recently, you referred me to you.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:02

Yes, I did. I had you inspect a condo that my husband and I are looking at as an investment.

John Laforme: 1:08

Yeah, no, that was great. So how did that experience go?

Lauren Dimeo: 1:11

I mean, I knew exactly what I was getting into. It was it was fantastic. It's probably a fairly easy inspection. Nothing really scares me. I've seen it all with you.

John Laforme: 1:20

Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, you being who you are. I mean, you've seen everything already. So telling you that this galvanized pipe inside the plumbing area, as it's cool. We'll fix it little restaurant, put some Windex on it and fix it. So anyway, that's great. So Lauren, tell everybody where you're from, what company you're with and all that.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:39

Yeah. So I'm from Los Angeles. I'm with the Alexis Mickey group. I've been with them for the past few years. They're amazing. They also serve a Sacramento. So if you're listening from NorCal we got you there too. Okay. Um, but yeah, I serve as mostly Los Angeles, West LA to the valley. Okay. But I'm originally from Orange County. So I'm also familiar with Orange County as well. The Oh see? Yes, the OC.

John Laforme: 2:01

So welcome to the podcast studio. How was your drive?

Lauren Dimeo: 2:04

It was amazing. You were super close to Porto's. And I think I'm going to have to conclude this day with getting two dozen cheese rolls.

John Laforme: 2:12

Oh boy. I always say nobody needs portos.

Lauren Dimeo: 2:16

Everybody needs portos. Seriously, everybody needs por dos. I can't believe the lines over there. They're really efficient, though. They're much better than they used to be.

John Laforme: 2:24

I just every time I get to the light. I'm like, holy shit. There's people there again.

Lauren Dimeo: 2:27

It's worth it. Totally.

John Laforme: 2:29

I've been in there a few times. I don't I don't I don't frequent there that much. But anyway, it's that's the Burbank thing. So Porto's is in Burbank. Yes. So anyway, I want to tell you, I watch a lot of videos. I watch a lot of social media videos, YouTube, you name it. I'm always on there. Because I'm always posting stuff myself, as everybody knows. But you are so natural. In front of the camera. I see a lot of people and they look like they're struggling like myself. I struggle. You're five. But you are like a natural like watching your videos on that is so good. It's short, but it's bam, right at a point you

Lauren Dimeo: 3:06

just have to commit with just being silly and owning it. Right? Like it's okay. It's fine. I make an ass of myself. That's, you know, only going to be on the internet.

John Laforme: 3:14

Yeah. Yeah. And it's and but it's just so onpoint when you do your videos, you're just either really good or thinking it through. Are you Are you do you think it through a lot of just like do it?

Lauren Dimeo: 3:25

I try not to think too hard. It's, you know, I mean, a lot of the videos that I'm doing I'm like lip synching to audio that already exists. It's not my voice. So it's just kind of, you know, it's like doing an impression, right? So it's like, if you call it a movie, and it's just like that, so just okay. Try not to overthink it too much.

John Laforme: 3:41

I think I think everything. That's my that's my problem. That's your job. I overthink everything. So one of your latest videos was about oh, hang on before we get into that. So let's go back to your Condo Inspection. So yeah, how did that work out for you? Did they get the heater to get the heaters turned on for you? And all that?

Lauren Dimeo: 3:58

Yeah. So we're actually still waiting for a response from the seller. Our inspection was, what? 10 days ago at least. Yeah. So we're I'm trying to get them to be like, Hey, I know you guys are out of town. It's a lot of work. You guys have a lot on your plate. Let's negotiate a credit instead. And I will handle it for you after the close of escrow and you guys can just like wash your hands clean of it. So that's that's what we're leading towards. I just need them to kind of like sign on the line, if that's what they're comfortable with.

John Laforme: 4:26

Oh, got it. Yeah, that was it's funny, because a few days later, I ran into the same situation, really. But it was a little different. This house had this house had three systems and it was a very big house and like 6000 square feet, okay had three different systems and all the systems were ancient. They were all like 23 years old or older, okay. And two of them were shut down. And two of them had red tags on. So I look at the owner who didn't his English wasn't good. So we had somebody there to help me. And I said what's going on had asked him why this is shut down. Is there a known gas leak? Is that why there's a red tag on here? Because don't ever mess with red tag gas stuff? Anybody watching this? Don't ever mess with it all? You know what? I'll just turn it on and check it out. No, you could have a very loud, boom, boom for a day. You don't want that. So this guy was like, oh, no, it works. It works. Then why is the valve off at the each firm are two of the furnaces? Two of them were shut down. When I say shut down. I mean, the valve at the furnace connection was off. That means somebody was either working on it or no, there's a leak. Otherwise, it'll be on. There's no, there's no other reason for that to be off, right? So this guy's Oh, no, no, it works good. And I'm looking at the buyer. And they're looking at each other. Yeah. And the realtor on the buyer side, she spoke the same language as Armenian to the seller. And she's like, John, don't worry, he's not even making sense to me. My god, okay, I'm not crazy. Tell this guy that an H fat company needs to come here and test this because this is a very old unit to move from a very old. So that just a coincidence. Yeah. To like few days later that happened. Yeah, the

Lauren Dimeo: 6:11

gas company. Isn't red tag things for fun. No, it means there's an issue.

John Laforme: 6:16

Right? Right. So don't mess around with that gas stuff. So anyway, one of your videos I saw, which really inspired me to call you again, because I know I've been bugging you about this last year on the show, but I know you've made it. I made it. You recently had a baby. Yes,

Lauren Dimeo: 6:30

I have a toddler. Well, he's gonna be two now. So it's a graduation event.

John Laforme: 6:33

That's a lot of work. So

Lauren Dimeo: 6:36

there's two already. He's gonna be two in April. Yeah.

John Laforme: 6:38

Wow. That was fast. Yeah. And so I think the latest video I saw from you was house hunting without pre approval. Now I was like, well, that's a good topic. Yeah. So let's get started with that. Tell me Tell us about that.

Lauren Dimeo: 6:53

Yeah, I mean, so I like to consider the pre approval, like your golden ticket to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, right like that. That is your entry point. I'm all about being super informed when starting your house search, and your pre approval is what's going to inform you on how much you can afford. That means you've had a conversation with a lender, and you know what your monthly payment is going to be like, nothing feels worse than looking at a house falling in love with it. And then being like, I can't even afford it. That sucks, right? And then if you're gonna make an offer without your pre approval, if the listing agent and the seller are paying attention, and they notice that they're not going to take you as a serious buyer, correct, because you came in unprepared. And you have one shot to make a really good first impression. Right? Yep. Especially if you look back, you know, in 2020 2021, when the market was absolutely insane. It was like don't even submit, like, there's there's 15 people submitting and they're all pre approved, they all have their proof of funds ready to go. If you came in unprepared, you were not competitive period. Right? Then they're gonna look at you, they're not even gonna look at you. And then if you come back, and you're like, Oh, I fixed it. It might be too late. Right? They might have accepted another offer. Right? Sellers are not compelled to take their house off the market on a chance of someone who can't prove that they can actually afford the house.

John Laforme: 8:12

Right? You just wasted people. You're wasting people's time.

Lauren Dimeo: 8:14

You're wasting your own time. Yes. Really? And your time, right. I mean, this is what I do for a living, right. It's it's my job, right? But part of my job is educating my clients. Otherwise, you're driving around aimlessly. You don't know what your budget is.

John Laforme: 8:27

Okay, let me pause. Yeah, sure. Okay. Other Realtors listening, listen to her. She's educating her buyers. Yes, educating. That's something that needs to be pushed a lot harder with a lot of other realtors. They don't tell them anything. And they show up for the inspections. They're like blind, like you weren't told anything? Well, she, if she's scheduling me for you, she's got to give you some kind of input on what to expect when I show up. I'm thinking that you do that? Absolutely. Okay. Give me an idea of what you tell your customers. Yeah.

Lauren Dimeo: 9:02

So I mean, when I first meet them, I give them like the heads up, like just in regards to hey, here are some like out of pocket costs you're going to have, right? Because a lot of buyers don't even know, like, oh, I have to pay for inspection. Like with my credit card, I have to pay for my appraisal with my credit card. That's not just out of escrow. And it's like, yeah, like, some things are going to be paid at closing. But some you have to pay upfront, and here's roughly how much that cost is going to be. Put that money aside. So you're not shocked. Right, right. Right. And also, it's like if I'm not educating or empowering my clients to make decisions that feel good for them. I mean, how does that feel? You're making the biggest purchase of your entire life maybe especially if you're a first time homebuyer and you're like, I guess I'm just going to trust this person. Know feel good about it, right? Like you should feel good about what you're doing. And if you're like, hey, this doesn't feel good. You're like, well, now I know that I made the right decision for me and didn't do just because my agent told me to or not to write right like, at the end of the day, I'm not buying the house. I don't If I don't have a position in the equity of the house, I am not attached to the result of a certain transaction. It's making sure my client gets what they want and need. Right, right. So that is directly tied to them, feeling good about what they're doing and making the right choices. And they're not calling me in a year and being like, we royally fucked up. And it's your fault, because you didn't tell me. I am not the keeper of all of the knowledge. That's super selfish, and like a really weird Power Trip thing to be like, I hold all the knowledge and I'm pretend like it's a big secret. No, it's not a secret. You know what I mean? Here, this is how it works. Like I will be super transparent and lay it out and

John Laforme: 10:40

you being transparent. Right there. That's, that's good. Yeah, that's good. I try to be when people call me like, Oh, you're going to spec my chimney? No, I'm not going to touch your chimney. Oh, okay. Are you going to do my lawn sprinklers? No, not either. It's back to your house. Yep. Not every house has a fireplace. You know what I mean? So I'm like, Well, I draw the line somewhere. And it's just my company policy with fireplaces, because because I believe, personally, that I'm wasting your time and your clients time. If I tell you, I'm going to inspect your fireplace, I just I'm just wasting your time. I don't have the tools. I don't have the training to look up inside that flue and let you know what's going on. Yeah. And that's where the problems are. So that's why I don't do two minutes case you ever wondered?

Lauren Dimeo: 11:28

Yeah. I mean, also, it's like, you get a specialist, right? I tell my clients that when they bring you in, like he is a generalist, he is going to tell you like at a high level, what you should be concerned about what's like a really quick, easy Home Depot, DIY fix, and like, what's not a big deal period? And if something big comes up, like hey, mold, okay, let's like bring in a company that does that, oh, something's up with your panel. Let's bring an electrician to do that. Right. Like, part of our jobs like, yeah, people expect us to kind of do a lot more than what we're responsible for. And I'm very, I try to be, I want to stay in my lane like, right, I'm not going to pretend I'm the lender. So good, right. But that doesn't mean that's not gonna mean that I'm gonna be like, it's not my problem, not going to help you. Right? It's let me point you in the right direction. So you get the person who this is literally what they do all day. And I would be doing you a disservice if I pretended that I was an electrician.

John Laforme: 12:26

Exactly. Same here. You know, I have I do know quite a bit about electrical, electrical, plumbing, the all the five major systems, but they're when I have to draw the line and say, You know what, my line stops here. Now you bring in an electrician over here. So that's all I'm doing. I'm just pushing you in the right direction. You don't have to do anything on my report. Yeah, people need understand that too. I can talk all day. I can tell them whatever they want to hear. I can give them a comprehensive 60 page report. You don't have to do anything with it. A lot of people don't.

Lauren Dimeo: 12:56

They should they just toss please read it. Yeah.

John Laforme: 12:59

So when when there's when people try to file claims against other inspectors and stuff like that. The the insurance companies refer to it as the unread report. And that's exactly why because they just disregard it. Just make him pay for it, then no, you won't.

Lauren Dimeo: 13:16

Yeah. And they have an opportunity to ask you questions. Another reason why like I like working with you so much is you do a post mortem after your inspection post mortem? Yes. I like that. I know. My past life is a producer's coming in. You guys saw him and he's all these weird corporate buzzwords. Yeah, like you take the time to have a conversation with them and open it up for discussion and questions like right there on the fly. And you can point it out and be like, This is why it's like this. Yeah, these are your action items. Oops, sorry. These are your action items, if this is something that you want to take care of. And I think that is super, super valuable. Otherwise, it's just a PDF. And like you said, they're not going to read it. It's if you don't know what you're looking for. It can be a very intimidating document. Right? Yeah, it's long, especially. I'm looking at one. Exactly, exactly.

John Laforme: 14:01

My Report has a lot of just basic information about the house too, which kind of Whoa, why is it so long? Well, because you know, you had a big house. Yeah. It's all good. That's all good. Just keep this as a little, you know, go to sheet, right. What kind of filter do I have? Oh, let me look on John's report. People don't think of that. Yeah, save it in the archives. Don't forget to download it. Save it on your hard drive or wherever you got your cloud wherever you want. And just refer to it. What was my water pressure when John was here, like two years ago? Oh, it was like 74. Okay, what is it now? It's 200. Not good. Okay. So get that regulator changed. But anyway, that's it's a good way. It's a good way of doing it. So just staying in your lane is what you're telling people. And that's what I tell people all the time. I always stay in my lane I always get I do get pushed back quite a bit from different relatives. And I just push right back. They push me and I push him. Nope, that's not what I do. And I'm sorry that you were misled to think that but that's not what I do. Yeah. You didn't get that from me. And if you read anything, I'd meet him Hello, do

Lauren Dimeo: 15:00

you know that? Yes, your emails are very, very clear.

John Laforme: 15:03

And they they look at me, sometimes a customer will comment on that. Like, you know what? I did read that. You're right. It wasn't there. I forgot. Sorry. And then other ones are like, no, of course, I didn't read it. Yeah. It's like, oh, well, so. Well, that was cool. So do you want to add more to your without pre approval?

Lauren Dimeo: 15:25

Oh, um,

John Laforme: 15:26

is there something else you wanted to add? Just because I cut you off.

Lauren Dimeo: 15:29

Oh, yeah. No, it's fine. I'm trying to think like, where I was. I mean, honestly, like, if if that is step number one is probably the most we

John Laforme: 15:36

you left, where you left off? I'll tell you where you left off. I know exactly where you left. Yeah, you left off where you when you mentioned, you were guiding your client?

Lauren Dimeo: 15:47

Oh, yeah. You just yeah, you need to know like, where you're looking. Otherwise, it's like, you're looking blind. And you're, you can't do anything. You can't do anything with that. Right? And it's gonna, you're gonna get frustrated and be disappointed when no one accepts your offer. Or you're gonna waste time and you're gonna lose the house that you really wanted. Yeah. All of those feelings really, really stuck. Yeah, I want to prevent my clients from having to experience that it's an unnecessary stress. Real estate is stressful enough. Let's just eliminate that. Go in prepared. Proactive. Be Yes. Be proactive, be educated. And like, you know, feel good about what you're doing.

John Laforme: 16:23

Yeah. Stay in the neighborhood you can afford. Yeah, yeah. So that's a little crazy. So anyway, today, yeah. A real reason why

Lauren Dimeo: 16:34

not for photos.

John Laforme: 16:37

So I'm actually putting together a home maintenance recommendations for homeowners love it for another real estate company called the local over here in Atwater Village, okay. And I'm going to be doing a, I'm going to be doing a meet and greet with people on the 26th over at their office on a Sunday. So it's couple hours long. And they asked me to come along and just, you know, help current homeowners, potential homeowners, you know, fill them in and what's to be expected maintenance, you know how to take care of the house. Now you got it. Now they went through all that trouble of getting the house. Guess what? Now you're responsible for it? Yep. Now you gotta take care of it. It's like a little baby or a dog. Yeah, you gotta give it some water sometimes, and you got to take care of it, you know? So it's the never ending project. It's a never ending project. So I think my house was listening. Last night. Last night, I went to go take a shower, because I do shower. And my drain was clogged in my shower. So I grabbed the wife grabbed the daughter. Did you guys put something in? I didn't know it was clogged. I thought maybe they were in there. And they poured something in and forgot to rinse it or something. So I'm like, What the hell's going on? Yeah. They're like, No, we didn't do anything. And then some like, oh, you know what? Maybe it backed up. So I started filling it. Sure enough, it just wouldn't drain. Oh my gosh, shit. Here it is, like 11 o'clock at night. And I'm like, Oh, great. I got to do midnight plumbing. And I hate to. I can't stand it. So I poured some Drano down there. I tried to sneak it with anything I coat clothes hangers. What? Whatever you whatever I had, I tried everything wouldn't work. So a wake up first thing this morning with a battle plan. Okay, gotta go to Home Depot. Gotta get one of those really cool. Turn. Those rigid spiral snakes. The hand the hand crank ones. I got one of those. I bought some really heavy duty drain cleaner. Okay. And it took me from eight o'clock this morning till about 1030 to get that thing. And I'm like, oh shit. I gotta get Lauren coming over for the podcast. Here I am doing home maintenance on my house. And we're talking about home maintenance now. So that was that was not planned. Yeah, that was not planned. But I gotta go and it wasn't the snake that fixed it. It was the drain cleaner.

Lauren Dimeo: 18:56

I need to know which drain cleaner you got because my hair destroys every drain. Yeah, oh, yeah. Let me know which

John Laforme: 19:03

two women live two women live with me we're very long hair. And that's that's probably part of the reason. But anyways, yeah, there's going to be pictures of it in the video. And I'll put it in the description of the podcast as well so people can know what it is. So home maintenance tips, exteriors. So, I'll tell you what I what I have and if let me know if you think of anything you know, I want your input. I want you to just let me know you know maybe these clients have said to you hey, how do you do maybe they called you later and said hey, I do this do you not I do this when I call. So you know, exteriors, starting with exteriors is always the best because you know, number one thing is you want to keep your house dry. You want to keep it keep your exteriors weatherproof, painting cocking ceiling doors, all the surfaces between doors, windows and siding need to be sealed all the time. If you have a bunch of stucco cracks, you want to get those filled. There's a lot of things to go over here but I want us to Start with the top of the top of the house. And that's the roof. Now, if you can picture a roof with no skylights, no chimney coming through it, no plumbing stacks, where's it going to leak, it's not going to leak unless the shingle happened to fall off, right? So, the roof penetrations on houses, that's what causes leaks, they're not sealed, you're literally drilling a hole in the roof, cutting a hole in the roof or whatever you're putting up there, whether it be a skylight or whatever. It's got to be flashed properly, which is a metal flashing. And that connects that hides underneath the shingles. Typically, I'm talking mostly I'm talking Composition Shingles, and maybe lightweight concrete tiles and stuff, you know, you can say the same for clay tile as well. But standard residential roofs. So So these vents that come through the roof, to vent out your plumbing and so forth. It all has to be sealed. Yeah, all the time. If you live in a state where it's constantly raining, you got to really stay on top of that. Yeah, we're in California only rains so many months a year. But when it does, it comes down to buckets. And I've seen a lot of a lot of phone calls come in.

Lauren Dimeo: 21:13

Yeah, I think I mean, that's an item that we see pop up a lot, the flashing is missing all the time. So like 80% of the inspections you do on single family homes, it's deferred maintenance. And I think, because we're in California, people kind of put it off like, Oh, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine until it's not. Right. So like, that's definitely something where it's like, yeah, we might not be in the rainy season now. But do it now. Right? Because when it starts, when it starts to rain, and Everyone's panicking, guess who's gonna be really busy and can't get to your roof and roofers, the roofers. So do it when it's not busy and be prepared. That's definitely not worth putting off. Just do it. Just do it. Protect your house,

John Laforme: 21:53

and they're going to double charge you when it's an emergency. Just keep that in mind. Same thing with the HVAC company in the in the heat of summer, or the freezing cold winter, and your heater goes out in the winter or your AC goes out in the summer. Trust me, you're gonna pay more for that service call. Yeah. And then whatever they got to repair. Yeah, don't do either way. It's probably just your filter.

Lauren Dimeo: 22:12

Probably. So like, because, you know, we've had the pandemic for the past couple of years and all that stuff. Like I did not call my H back guy to come and service. Our system for like 18 months. Oh, boy. Yeah. So of course, they got a notification that it shut down. It just stopped working one night. And it was it was cold cold for California. But I have kids so I like to keep the Yeah, I definitely deserve that. You get the wild wild. Yeah. And they had to come in they're like yeah, like you need to like do this like no, we No, we just weren't bringing people in and then the kid and then work and I just didn't prioritize but here we are. And yeah, I mean like in December or whatever it just like stopped working. So they had to come out, clean it out for us. But I'd honestly like recommend getting it serviced.

John Laforme: 23:01

Was it the filter? Was it something else?

Lauren Dimeo: 23:05

It was a combination of things. We have a reusable filter so we can actually like take it out hose it out and put it in it make sure it's dry for it makes Yeah, make sure it's dry first. But we on it's ours is in our attic. Like we didn't even bother to do that. So we got we got shamed.

John Laforme: 23:20

You got shamed. Don't be like me

Lauren Dimeo: 23:23

take care of your H vac system. Because when you need it to work, it's probably gonna break. Yeah, so you're gonna take

John Laforme: 23:30

care of that. Yeah, we'll take care of it. But back to the roof. Yeah, sorry, back to the roof. So the exhaust, I'm sorry, the roof penetrations and talking about like Plumbing stacks, exhaust vent pipe stacks, any kind of a flashing on your roof that needs to be done. Now, if you're not comfortable with climbing a ladder of unis, not that person, if you just have no idea of what this stuff is, that's fine. No one said you have to know how to build a house to live in it. So call a professional call a roofing company to come out or if you know a really experienced handyman who actually knows what he's doing and knows how to use the right approved products. Because when you sealing these areas, you want to make sure that's approved, approved sealants and stuff like that for roofs don't get up there with the window caulking and try doing it's not gonna work. So just stuff like that. But like I said, hire a professional if you're not comfortable because you literally have to walk on the roof of this. And if you don't have a accessible roof, like a two storey, you know, if you have a drone, and maybe your kid has a drone nowadays, everyone's got drones. It's like, like having an iPhone. It's like everyone's got an iPhone. So it's like if you can put a drone up there, you can get real close to those things and take a look and see if they need sailing, if not great. If they're holding up. Awesome. You don't have to do anything. Yeah. And it's also a good way to just take a look at your roof. Yes, if you have trees right next to your roof. If they're rubbing on it and high winds, they can rip the shingles right off. If it's a really high roof, you're not going to see that from the ground. So it's a good idea to check on stuff like that. Alright, Any questions? No, no, you're good. Yeah. All right. One more thing about roofs. I'm going to mention the tree thing. Again, if you have a lot of trees above your roof, chances are you have a lot of leaves on your roof. Roofs are designed to repel water. They're not designed to hold water for a long, long period of time, it can actually it can actually damage the materials. So if you have ponding water on your roof, a low spot and it just sits and sits and sits for days on end during the storm or something. It's not helping your roof. Yep. So you want to make sure that leaves are not clogging your drains. And then we're gonna get into roof gutters in a second. But you want to make sure any trees that are too close to the roof, just cut them back. Yeah, not to mention that's how varmints go,

Lauren Dimeo: 25:46

as I say that it invites all of the rodents, they jump, they jump over again. Don't be like me, we actually had this issue last year. And we had a rat, get into our attic. I heard it so what does that sound? What does that sound and they had crossed we had this big tree in our backyard and it needed to be trimmed and they had used it as a bridge got into our roof and there was a little hole which by the way, you'd be surprised how small the space that they can squeeze through. Yeah, you know, like the little UI keep hitting the microphone. So sorry, the little screen that you have if you have like a raised Foundation, like check those two. Like if you have a hole like this big I think a one inch hole is yeah, they can squeeze right through there. It's like you want to make sure all that's taken. Yeah, it's ridiculous.

John Laforme: 26:36

So yeah, that's what they do. We're gonna Yeah, we're gonna get into more detail on that. So now we've got rain gutters and downspouts. Always clogged, always full of dirt. Now the thing most people don't think of, if you have an old roof and it's worn out, and it's Composition Shingles, there's going to be all kinds of granules that are falling off. Every time it rains heavy, it pushes the old vandal granules off, because now the roofs old and it's falling apart. And they all just fill up. I've seen gutters with two inches of granule loss. I mean, it's crazy. And it's a lot of weight on your gutter, too. Yeah. And that will eventually come loose because of all that weight. So you want to get up there. And I would definitely recommend once again, you have someone that knows what they're doing, because it's dangerous. Yeah. Don't take one of those telescopic ladders and put it on the smooth surface of a gutter. If you're on if you climb up too high, and you push that thing will slide I almost fell off a roof because it would Oh geez. Yep. Yes. As of last time, I used a telescopic ladder. Yeah, gutter on a gutter. I only use a Little Giant Ladder. And I put a rubber strip on the back of it. So the slide and it won't damage the gutter.

Lauren Dimeo: 27:42

Yeah, speaking of gutters, another thing, like I see a lot when my clients are looking at houses because we're in California. A lot of homes don't even have gutters. Yeah. That's like super common, at least in Los Angeles. Very common. They don't have gutters. So people think oh, like, again, it doesn't rain. I don't need it. And if I don't have gutters that can't get clogged. And that's great, right? And it's actually, it's not great, because there's nothing diverting the water away from your house, right? So if you don't have gutters, that water is going to penetrate into your foundation and could potentially cause very big issues under your house that you can't see. Right? Until it's a very big problem. So if you are buying house, there's no gutters, it is worth exploring, getting gutters installed on your house, right? So

John Laforme: 28:25

what to expect. Let's say for example, you have a buyer and you find a house tomorrow. Notice the first thing you see is well, there's no gutters here. So then you can probably pre pre pre pre I'm sorry. Let me try that again. Proactively. Yes, tell your client you know what I noticed there's no gutter. So we might see some settling in there. Yeah, we might see some floor deflection in the house, we might spectrum might find a lot of moisture intrusion coming in efflorescence. Or we may find a good amount of cracks. Free possible if it's a really old building. Yeah. Like I mean, like a 1920s. And stuff like yeah, a lot of 1950s houses without gutters. There's really not too many issues except for the efflorescence getting in. Yeah, that's most of my experience. Yeah, that's just how that is. But that's something to expect. Yeah, definitely. Don't seek gutters. Cleaning your gutters. Yeah, like I said, get someone to do it for you if you're not comfortable on ladders. And yeah, it's it's not that expensive. It can't be that expensive.

Lauren Dimeo: 29:24

It's cheaper than the damage it's going to cause if you don't take care of it.

John Laforme: 29:27

When you're when you're when you're in the hospital all wrapped up like a mummy because you fell off the ladder and you broke your elbow your your shoulder whatever. Yeah, no fun. No fun their solar panels. A solar panel. Yeah. By the way, I don't inspect solar panels either. But I do notice when they're really dirty. They need to be cleaned. Yep, purpose of those is to you know, let the sun in and if you put a shade over it, which is dirt, they're not going to work right. So you want to get them cleaned a window cleaning Companies good for that. Yeah, they'll just power wash that. Yeah, the power washing, scrubbing down whatever they got to do. If your roof happens to have like moss on it or anything like that, if you have if one side of the roof is mostly not shaded most of the time, a lot of trees over it, you might see some discoloration. And that's just because it's always in the shade. So window cleaning might have a remedy for that as well. Some may tackle that as well. And skylights, skylights, they just get dirty. Yeah. There's not really a lot of maintenance on a skylight as opposed as aside from just washing it right? And if you keep it clean, it's not going to build a bunch of crud,

Lauren Dimeo: 30:38

right? Otherwise you have to you know you're in your nice bathroom or whatever room you're like. I should take care of that

John Laforme: 30:44

for this one. It was sunny. Yeah. You'll enjoy it more. Yeah, you will enjoy it more. Okay, another windows and doors. That's the one of the biggest things that just get neglected on any house, windows, some rooms, they have couches, blocking the window, no one even no one's open those windows and 20 years. Yeah. And the window is 20 years old. So all the seals are dried up. The mechanical arms are just not working right. Even if you don't use a window, once a year, at least open all the windows. Blow them out. lubricate them, whatever you gotta do. Wipe them all down, get the dirt out. That's most of the time I go to houses. I see that a lot. I came in open the windows you should be in most cases you should be able to open a window two fingers.

Lauren Dimeo: 31:28

Yeah. Your whole body into it.

John Laforme: 31:31

Yeah. So I'm like, Okay, I gotta use two arms and my back right get this window. That's not right. That means it's, something's going on there either wasn't installed right? Or it's really really dirty. Yeah. And it hasn't been open until super long time. Let's see windows and doors. Okay, as I mentioned a little while ago, exterior walls, windows and doors. All those surfaces need to be sealed between each other. So, so no water gets in between affects one or the other. Okay, lawn sprinklers. I don't expect of but I'm gonna tell you about them. Rule number one do not water your house. Yes.

Lauren Dimeo: 32:13

It doesn't make it grow bigger, right doesn't work that way.

John Laforme: 32:15

Don't get extra square footage by watering. water your lawn instead. That's what these sprinkler systems are for. A lot of times, they're installed right up against the house within two inches. Sometimes I've seen the heads literally touching the foundation. I'm like, Who the hell put this in here? Oh, it's gonna spray away from the house. Yeah, when it's working, right? Yeah. But as soon as it stops working, it's spraying over the bottom of the stucco or the wood siding. And it causes a lot of damage. So me, I think the sprinkler head should be at least 12 to 24 inches away from that foundation of the wall. And of course, spraying in the opposite direction. Not towards the house. But that's a big problem. And I've seen houses where it's so bad. I mean, this has been going on for years and no one corrects it. You could see the spray mark on the stucco. Yeah, it was like this to spray much from this spray sprinkler head and this one. Yeah. And it's like, wow, no one's noticing this. Why is my house look like that? Yeah. How do you not know that? That's not your sprinklers.

Lauren Dimeo: 33:16

That's like out of sight, out of mind things you just you don't really think about it until you have a very big problem

John Laforme: 33:23

which will be in Kenya if that wall gets so saturated with water. That moisture is eventually going to work its way into the wall. Yes. And then guess what? You get mold. Yep. That's always fun. Yeah. And that because that's that's that's kind of Trent just gonna transfer right to that wall eventually. And then right into the interior. Yeah.

Lauren Dimeo: 33:44

So then you opening up now you're opening up drywall,

John Laforme: 33:47

all because of because you're ignoring your sprinkler heads. Now keep in mind sprinkler heads mostly on when we're sleeping or late at nights. No one sees them when they're on. And that's mainly the reason. So you got to turn it on. And don't put so much faith in your gardeners. Oh my god, I've had gardeners screw up shit on me. So really

Lauren Dimeo: 34:07

silly. There's a story there. Oh, there's

John Laforme: 34:10

a story there. I had a pool at a past house I owned and it had bushes all around it. And it had a railing around it had like, you know, it's probably chest high. Okay, metal fence. And the bushes. Were kind of my privacy from the neighbors. Okay, so the bushes were like probably three feet above the metal fence. I just wanted to cut them down to the level of the metal fence. I got home from work and they were all gone. Oh, he cut them completely down. No. I'm like, fuck this happened. I looked at the guy. And he looks at me because he sees the panic on my face. Yeah, I'm like, What did you do? I did what? His English wasn't great. Yeah. And I cut I caught him. I said Yeah, I told you To trim to the to the metal fence, I walked you through this before I left. He got fired on the spot. Oh boy, his daughter was calling me for a week after that. Hey, can you give him his job? Get a second chance he'll replace all the cheese like, replace the trees. It's not that easy, man. You think you can get that kind of money? These are like, this is a lot of them. Yeah, that's probably 40 of them. Oh, it was a big area. Oh, no. I said no, man. I said this, this language barrier. I can't do this. Yeah, I just couldn't speak his language. You couldn't speak mine very well. Yeah. And it was just unfortunate. But yeah, that's, that's what happens when there's a language barrier. Yeah, that's, that's rough. Yeah. So anyway, that was a lesson learned. Yeah, there. So I'm really, I'm really hesitant hiring anybody that is not on the same page in mind as far as speaking wise. Yeah, just language wise. If they're broken English and not getting everything I hear, I really won't hire them. Because of that, unless they have somebody with

Lauren Dimeo: 35:57

or you bring in someone else to do specific tasks, right? If it's just like basic, like, hey, like, mow my lawn, pick up shoe leaves and things like that. It's one thing they're like, Hey, I'm gonna bring in, like a landscaper or someone who like specializes in like tree maintenance and things like that. And they can, you know, manicure your yard and kind of keep those things up. Yeah,

John Laforme: 36:16

you just got to keep it separate. But anyway, you know, you're back to the back to why don't put so much faith in them on a weekly basis, because they're just trying to mow and go. You know, these guys have a schedule. Yeah, they're probably cutting 30 lawns that day. A lot. You know what I mean? Like, these guys are busy. Yeah. I mean, they're they hustle, they hustle. Yeah. So they're, so I'm not saying all of them. I'm not trying to generalize every one of them. Yeah, but I'm saying check it yourself. Once in a while. Check your sprinklers. Make sure they're working.

Lauren Dimeo: 36:48

It all just comes down to communication and setting expectations. Yeah, full circle. Yeah, don't munication expectations.

John Laforme: 36:55

It's your house. Manage it. Yeah. Let's see what else is on the list here. All right, citing the ground clearance is a big one, too, that you can do yourself. If you're a homeowner, you can fix this yourself. If the dirt on the soil next to your building. Your house is touching the wall. It's too high. Unless it's a really old building where the stucco goes all the way into the dirt because that's how they built them back. Yeah. The best thing you can do is slope it away. Yeah. Just regrade the dirt. So here's your house. It's going this way. sloping it away. easy thing to do. Most people can do that on their own. Yeah, unless it's a really tricky landscape. And you may need to hire someone. Yeah.

Lauren Dimeo: 37:35

If you wanna get like fancy get like into like, French drains, put it and it'll all just kind of drain away. Yeah,

John Laforme: 37:39

if you get that kind of money. Yeah, you want to be fancy. You're standing on your wallet while you're listening to this podcast. Maybe you can maybe you can have French drains put in the French

Lauren Dimeo: 37:53

sounds fancy, right?

John Laforme: 37:54

It does sound we let's see. So negative grade. If the if your buildings here and so and you're so the land on your house is going right toward your house. That is not a good thing. That's a negative grade and that's going to let water sit at your foundation every time it rains. And I feel like that's something when you sprinklers

Lauren Dimeo: 38:17

that's something that comes up almost every time you inspect a house for me like that's a very very common thing that pops up so I have make sure my buyers like understand me like look like it might not look bad, but it's it's compounded over time. And it could create an issue. Again, this is something you're probably going to want to consider taking care of.

John Laforme: 38:39

Yeah, it's it's not like you can't move in your house. It's like right take care of it. Just get it right as before the big rain and is a really important tip too for everybody. When it is raining, put your rubbers on. Put your hat on and get out there and see what your property is doing with the rain. Yeah, see what's coming how it comes off your roof. Is it hitting your windows pulling anywhere? Yeah. Is it hitting your doors? Is it bouncing off the concrete and it's slamming right into your doors if you have wood doors and windows that will cause your problem yeah, I've seen that many many times. So take a look outside spend about 10 minutes out there walk the whole property and to see what that I'm only talking about when it's really heavy raining right not when it's sprinkling when it's really heavy raining and it's been going on for like a couple hours. Go check. Yeah, I've been I've showed up the houses when rainy season. Yeah, and I show up. I am walking around everything seems to be kick okay because it just kind of started raining. And I'm there for one a couple hours typically. And then I come back around the house I go I go inside first finish my interior I did the exterior first went inside and this one house came back out and the driveway was in two inches of water. Oh, and then I go in the garage and it was in the garage Oh came into the garage at least five feet. That was that's something I never would have caught. Yeah, if it wasn't raining. Yeah,

Lauren Dimeo: 40:07

yeah, I actually we were in escrow for a condo with a client of this, you know, property ended up not working out because of a lot of issues that came up but we went and did an inspection right after the rain and the ceiling had a soft spot. We're like, why is the ceiling squishy? That's not normal you guys ceiling you should not be squishing you know, you

John Laforme: 40:28

just can't help yourself by not touching it.

Lauren Dimeo: 40:30

You just want to touch it. So another you know, if it is raining heavily and you're like, you know, again, doesn't rain a lot in California, you probably don't know if you have any vulnerabilities in your roof, right? If you have like an attic space, that's probably a good opportunity to poke your head up there and be like this anything up here look wet. Right? Right. So again, because things left on your roof, the water pools you just you don't we're not built for rain. Oh, that's yeah, you just that's a good opportunity to check before you get a squishy ceiling.

John Laforme: 41:01

Yeah, best remedy is just like I said, Walk outside when it's down pouring and just look at what's going on in your property all over all over your property. The front, the back the sides everywhere. Yeah. And just see what's going on. You'd be amazed at what you see. Yeah. Ah, okay. Let's get into plumbing. Told you. I don't like Plumbing your favorite? I don't like doing but I'm going to talk about it. Water pressure? Yes. On a house. Very, very important. On every house. The regulator is there to regulate the excessive pressure coming off the city. Yeah, city connection. So the regulator's themselves on most residential homes is set. This set the setting on the actual unit as labeled as 25 to 75 Max psi. So that's how I determine when it's doing good and when it's not. So in my mind, when I'm inspecting, I'm looking for anything at 75 or over. I call it out, it may be time to replace this. Now some people push back like that. That listing agent who's just in denial cannot believe that the house she's trying to sell has high water pressure that to me, I gotta tell you that kills me.

Lauren Dimeo: 42:23

Call a spade a spade, guys.

John Laforme: 42:25

I'm doing okay, it's

Lauren Dimeo: 42:26

all fixable.

John Laforme: 42:27

I'm just like, really? You pushing back that hard? Because I said the water pressure was high. That's what I get at work. It's crazy. Yeah. Like, What planet are you from? Yeah, it's like so what? You just replace it? Yeah. A lot of people think oh, no, you can just adjust it. Are you a plumber? Yeah. No, you're not a plumber? No, I guarantee the person who said that's not a plumber. Yeah. Is it possible? Yeah. But typically, they're designed to be adjusted when you put them in? Yeah. They're not meant to be adjusted. If they're really old, and you try to adjust it to probably going to break gonna make? Yeah, probably gonna make it worse. So I had a plumber on Robert Dell plumbing. I think you might know, Robert, I think I might refer to him maybe. Anyway, we talked about that. And I'm going to reiterate what he said. And he said, you know, typically, adjusting them is going to make it worse. Yeah. Set them and forget them. When you're putting them in. You set it to about 65 to 67. Max, and that's the shower pressure is going to feel great in your bathroom. Everyone, every one of my clients, well, I shouldn't say everyone, most of my clients refer to water pressure as how it feels on their body while they're in the shower. They're not referring to the regulator in the street. They have they have no idea about that. Yeah, they're only worried about what comes out of the showerhead. And I'm like, well, it'll still feel good at 65 to 67. Yeah. Now, if you buy it a water conservation showerhead, it's not going to feel as great, right? But a rumor has it that you can actually take a drill and drill those out and then put them back in and then you'll have that 65 That's really just a rumor I heard. Interesting, just a rumor. So I'm sure there's some YouTube videos on that. Probably. I'm sure I'll make one eventually. But I did that my own house. Yeah, yeah, and it definitely helps. Nice, so it's still so my water pressure is under control for the house. Oh, by the way, you know the bad water pressures above 75. Your faucets and fixtures are only designed to handle about 80. So it's safe to say anything over 80 is going to be problematic. Over time your faucets will start leaking, your toilets will start running your temperature pressure relief valves on your water heaters can start leaking the relief valve if you have one at your water main at the front of your pipe property where your main shutoff is. If that's leaking, that's another indication that your regulator is gone. So there's a lot of little symptoms that go with. It's like a common cold. Yeah, you start seeing these things around your house, it's letting you know that there's a bigger problem. So don't mess around water pressure Matic, I've seen it. I've seen it cause major flood damage. Yep, it can burst pipes too, by the way. Yeah. So there's a lot of negatives to it. So you want to make sure you take care of all that. And this is something you can do on your own. As a homeowner, you don't have to hire someone to come check your water pressure, go to Home Depot, or Lowe's or just get on Amazon and just order a Rainbird or flow Doctor pressure gauge, they're like 15 bucks, maybe. And you just do it from your hose. Take Take one of your hoses off the hose bib, and then just put it on there and turn it on, but you want to make sure that you're checking that on a hose bib that's coming out of the wall of the house. Don't do it at the watermain in the front, because it might be before the regulator and that's gonna give you a false reading. Yeah, so I do have videos on this on my YouTube channel. I'll put a link in there. So I have a link a video explaining that nice. And let's see water heaters get experienced water heaters? Yeah,

Lauren Dimeo: 46:23

I've the our first property that we got. We had just moved in. We were there for less than a year. And our water heater took a shit. And it started leaking in our garage. Again, this is why I know people say home warranties don't work. And they're bullshit. My Home Warranty got me a new water heater. And it worked it did we got a replay. I mean we had to Yeah, give them a bit. You're a unicorn. Yeah, but we they did they came in and they actually replaced our water heater. So yeah, you definitely don't want your water heater to go out when you're trying to take a hot shower. That is not fun. No, yeah. And another thing is I actually in the condo that you just inspected for me. We have the retrofit inspector come in. And you know, I know when we talk I was like hey, we're going to rip everything out. You know, you're looking at it through a slightly different lens sure, because of the needs for that particular unit. But we were taking a close look at the water heater and he goes whoever installed this use drywall screws for the braces you have to brace they just need to straps on your water heater for earthquake safety. And um, I'm like yeah, I mean, if there's an earthquake it's fallen out of a wall.

John Laforme: 47:30

I think I called out above Yeah, good call. Because I don't think I could see the see the screws but yeah, the mounts but I remember calling

Lauren Dimeo: 47:40

Yeah, there was missing kind of like the it was touching this touching the ceiling on like the top part where it vents out into the attic. And yeah, you had a

John Laforme: 47:49

combustible clearance issue is a bunch of other issues with it, too.

Lauren Dimeo: 47:53

So it's definitely not something you guys want to go cheap on. Because having your water heater fall out into the wall and tip over or not having a pan and then leaks into your house. Right? So for example, this particular unit is on the second floor, and there's no there is no pan if there's an issue with this water heater. So if it starts to leak, and I'm not there, right, and it seeps in to the unit below and causes damage gets us on the hook. Yeah, me. Yeah. Right. So it's not even just your property damage you would have to worry about it's potentially if you have neighbors below you or maybe next to you depending on where your water heater is situated. Like it can be a really big issue to neglect those items. For sure. So

John Laforme: 48:34

how much water can possibly come out of a water heater tank? A lot. Let's give everybody an example. So it puts a 40 gallon tank for what a gallon 40 gallon that's probably

Lauren Dimeo: 48:46

average about 40 to 50 gallons is average for house. Yeah, that's a lot of water. Yeah, especially if it's like not in your garage. Or if it's not on the side of your house. If that's in your house. That is a lot of water that can cause a lot of damage. So let's talk

John Laforme: 49:00

about flushing the water heater. You know some people are good about some people are good about this. I hear other people's don't recommend it. Some people recommend it. That's all I can say. Yeah. So if you want to if you want to do it if you want to heaters not that old. Yeah, you can you can get on that if you just bought a house in the water heaters, like two to two to maybe five years old. Maybe a little more than that. You know, you can start flushing it.

Lauren Dimeo: 49:29

Yeah, it's probably worth it at that point. Yes. If I didn't finish like 15 years, just replace it if

John Laforme: 49:34

it's 10 like over eight or nine years or something I wouldn't mess with it might cause more problems more bad than good. So understand these anything related to Plumbing has comes with rubber seals and valves and those valves tend to fail after a while they've been sitting because no one's been using them. So that's something you want to be very careful of I would recommend if you if you're not good at this stuff, you don't know anything. About this have a plumber do it for you. Yeah, I would do that. But like I said this thing called YouTube, all kinds of good stuff on there. There's some very helpful videos on there. Yeah. But if you're not comfortable with it, get a professional to do it. Don't flood your house,

Lauren Dimeo: 50:13

right. And then usually the work comes with like some sort of warranty too. So if something does go wrong, they can they'll come back and they'll take care of it. If you hire a licensed plumber. Yes. And I will always advocate for like hiring someone who is licensed. Yes. Right. They have insurance recourse? Yes. So I know everyone. We all want to save money. I totally get it. owning a house comes with a lot of expenses. Yeah, but you will spend more money over time putting band aids on things than just doing it correctly. Right? Buy once cry once, right? Otherwise, you know, you have to you have to bring them back or it can cause another issue and there's a domino effect of one maybe bad call, right? It's it's probably worth it. You're you are investing in your own house. It is it is worth to protect your investment. Take good care of it. Take good care of it. Right.

John Laforme: 51:08

Don't forget, always go back to the day you are trying to close escrow. Always go back to that day, when you're thinking about fixing something in your house. Man, I fought so hard for that escrow. I outbid everybody. Yeah, I took every cent in every dollar under my mattress and put it into this and emptied all my change drawers. Jars. Yeah, I did everything to get this house sold two of my cars to get this house. Always remember that, when it comes to having to take care of that house that you've fought for? Yeah, that's a really good way of looking at it. It's like, you know what, I need to take care of this place. So don't forget, you might sell it someday. Exactly. And somebody you know, who really gives a shit is gonna be like, You know what, this guy really takes care of his house. I'm gonna buy it from you. Yeah. Yeah, if you don't take care of it and walk down the aisle, this place needs a ton of work.

Lauren Dimeo: 51:53

Yeah. And then you're gonna you that's where you start to see price reductions or requests for credits or repairs and things like that. So either way, at some point, right, you're gonna pay for it. Right? You know what I mean? So So that brings up

John Laforme: 52:05

a good, off topic real quick. What's the value of a home inspection report?

Lauren Dimeo: 52:11

So I mean, it's, it's invaluable.

John Laforme: 52:13

So what is an average standard credit? On any house?

Lauren Dimeo: 52:18

So it depends on like, what you're asking a credit for. Right? So one of the conversations that I have with my buyers is, let's say, for example, something comes up on the inspection report, like the water heater needs to be replaced. It's, it's busted, you know, right. And let's say maybe you have some, like, flashing issues and some like minor plumbing things. And the heater, right? Well, like the heater is, depending on your loan type, and how good of a mood your appraiser is in, that's going to have to be fixed, right? If the appraiser sees a red tag, they're typically going to like halt your loan. That's, we'll keep that one separate. I usually get quotes, right? I like to be data informed. I do not pull numbers out of my ass and ask a seller be like, hey, like, we want $50,000 Because that's the number that feels good for us. Like, they're going to be like, Go kick rocks, it doesn't work that

John Laforme: 53:10

way. So you sat down and 50,000 felt good.

Lauren Dimeo: 53:12

Yeah. Right. Like, how did you come to that number? Well, that's just like what we want. And I'm like, Cool, the seller is not gonna go for that. So let's, let's take a step back. And like, let's get some quotes. Let's get some data. Yeah, right. So let's say whatever those items are, it adds up to like, $10,000. Right? So I go, Okay, let's prioritize the things that are those need to be fixed or like we're willing to deal with it or whatever. And you just ask, but it's never gonna be like a one to one. Like, you know what I mean, if I'm like, it's gonna cost me $10,000. Seller you owe me $10,000? They're probably not, they're probably not.

John Laforme: 53:48

My question to you is my question to you is, do you have like an average is an average grand, 10 grand?

Lauren Dimeo: 53:53

I mean, I've done I've seen some for like five grand. I've done I've gotten eight grand. Yeah. Okay. I mean, it just kind of, again, it just been an average. Probably between, I mean, also, depending on the market to Yeah, right. So if you're looking at 2021, right, and there's, there's a, there's a line of 20 buyers behind you waiting for you to fall out of escrow and you go in I'm sorry, do you say credit? Yeah. And you go in and you're like, hey, like, I want $15,000 to fix these things. The seller is gonna be like, cool. Like, you can go ahead and walk. I have some Swedana here. Yeah. Yeah. Crickets. Yeah, exactly. Right. So it's definitely kind of dependent on like, what's going on right now the market is not as hot. Right? Sellers are probably a little more motivated to work with buyers to get the deal done. Because, you know, interest rates are high, it costs more money to borrow money. You know, so there's just there's less people in the market.

John Laforme: 54:53

Well, hang on. Let's think about that for a second. It costs money to borrow money. Yeah, not crazy. Yeah. It is. is right and wrong with that sentence.

Lauren Dimeo: 55:02

I mean, and also, you know, another is kind of like another sidebar, you know, because a lot of people are like waiting for that market crash, right? Or they're waiting for interest rates to go down. I've

John Laforme: 55:11

been hearing that for the past four years,

Lauren Dimeo: 55:12

right? People, I worked with people that wanted to buy in 2018 2019. Like, you know what, I'm gonna wait. And then 2020 and 2021 happened, right, and they are completely priced out. Right. So timing, the market is not advisable. Just do what makes sense for you when it makes sense for you focus on what your monthly payment is and what you can afford. Right. But typically, when interest rates go down, prices go up, because it brings in more competition. Right. So again, it's just a, that was a sidebar. Gotcha. That's probably the most common question.

John Laforme: 55:50

Right now. I mean, to get you going, I didn't mean.

Lauren Dimeo: 55:53

But yeah, but like right now is, it's a great time, if you if something pops up, there's a high chance that the seller is going to agree to some sort of credit, right. And I always recommend to my clients, like, ask for a credit over the repair, if that's something you're comfortable with. And the reason for that is you then have control of who you hire. And like you can price it out. Yeah, you can bring in a licensed professional. If you ask a seller, Hey, I just need you to fix this for me. And you don't specify with a licensed contractor. Right? They can bring in whoever they want, make it look pretty just long enough to close escrow. You're like cool, it works. And then you get in there and you're like, Oh, like that was a half assed job. But they technically did what they said they do. Because there's no guarantee on the quality of that. So it's a little more work for you guys. But asking for the credit really benefits.

John Laforme: 56:45

You I'm 100% there with you. I've always told customers out if they if they're really one of my opinion, and like, you're better off, get it fixed yourself, do it yourself, because you're going to make sure they do it right. And the other person is just trying to get you satisfied. They want to close the deal. Yeah, they want to move on. They're already falling out of the house. This is old news to them. Yep. There's nothing wrong with that, just so I understand it. Yeah. Tankless water heaters. Let's talk about those. Yeah. Do not mess with tankless water heaters yourself as a homeowner, you're going to do nothing but damage it. Yeah. They do need to be serviced. Depending on the manufacturer, they're going to recommend how often that should be serviced. And if you choose not to service it at all, and it fails, it shuts down and won't work and you get a call a plumber. Chances are they may not warranty it if it's still under warranty, because you did not take care of it like you're supposed to. So that is the case with my understanding most tankless water heaters. There's a lot of mechanical parts in there. And depending on how bad your water is, you know,

Lauren Dimeo: 57:47

we've really hard water hard water. So Los Angeles. Yeah,

John Laforme: 57:50

if you have if you have that situation, you know that that manufacturer may say, Well, if you have really hard water, really bad water that you know, do it have it flushed at least once a year. And a plumber has to do that they have to come up with a solvent and they have to flush flush right through the pipes. And then clean it out. Basically what they're doing is cleaning out all the buildup inside there. So it's so last a long time. And tankless water heaters just haven't been around long enough to really know how long they really last. Right? Everyone said, Well, it's 20 years and like, have they been out for 20 years? So sure.

Lauren Dimeo: 58:24

20 years ago was might be 2003.

John Laforme: 58:26

It might, it might be on the cusp of that. Yeah. Here's my favorite topic. HVAC systems. All right. This is the one problem I find in just about every house. Because, you know, like I said, You're not required to know all these things about a house to own one. But when you buy a house, you really should know what needs to be maintained and what doesn't. Heating and cooling comes with a filter. If you have a central cooling and heating system, even if you have just a forced air furnace, that's, that's no AC, you're still going to have a filter. The filters can be in the wall, they can be in the ceiling, they can be underneath the furnace, let's say it's in a closet, or up in the attic. There's many different places that can be so my advice to anybody is familiarize yourself where your filters are, how many you have. And how many you have doesn't mean that's the correct number. So what I'm trying to say is you may buy a house and Joe homeowner before you said you know what? I want to add two more filters to my system that only needs one I

Lauren Dimeo: 59:43

think we had that recently. There was two filters. Yep. And it was impacting how effective I found three in one

John Laforme: 59:49

house. Yeah, so long ago. Three, three filters. I put a video up of that because I was like what within three feet. There's three filters Okay. Wasn't one like on the other And to the house. It was like 123. Yeah. So it's crazy. So the filter, that one little thing, that cheap, inexpensive little thing can shut down your system. And here's a fun fact for everybody. The filter is not for your air quality in your breathing, whether you think so or not, I know you can go to Home Depot and Lowe's and look at that mile 20 feet high of filter choices. And it's like, I go in there, and I'm like, holding my head going, What the hell am and there's so many choices. Yeah. So they sell fancy ones hyper allergenic, this that the other thing. It's not helping your breathing. It's all marketing. It's all marketing. Okay, so sorry, HVAC companies. But a Filter Filter makers shouldn't I should say, the filter serves one purpose. And that is to keep dirt out of the system. Yep, that's all it's for. So that filter has to be clear. So in order for you to have a properly running, heating and cooling system, the filter needs to be clear. So that enough air that that system requires to come in as it's pushing out air through the supply registers. So air comes in or goes out, it's got to have a certain amount of air to perform correctly. Each system is balanced and set to perform a certain way. So it's really important to keep your filter changed to make sure that that systems always getting the amount of air it needs through their return plenum. That's all you have to do with an H vac system. Don't do anything else to it. Don't do anything else to it, because you'll just screw it up.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:01:48

Yeah, you'll void your warranty. Just get someone in Yeah, do it right before the winter and right before summer, like the chain of seasons, right? Do your heater, your AC service that for you to clean it all

John Laforme: 1:01:59

out? Yeah. And you can you can set up a scheduled maintenance with with a with a reputable HVAC company, real easy to do, they'll be more than happy to take your money. But the good thing about that is, they're always going to let you know when it's time for them to come. So you can forget you can forget about it. Now they're going to let you know, Hey, we gotta come service. Oh, great. And I guarantee you, you're gonna have minimal problems every six months with your system, because you're actually having it looked at now if you are having problems, then you may want to get a different service, different company, because I've seen too many people. Oh, we just had the guy come last week. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, he did. He walked past the 20 feet of AC land with no installation on it. They do not see the third filter. I've seen that. Now I've had people telling me that was just here. He just serviced his receipt and want me to call him back and get you back. So that happens. So anyway, check your filters. If it's a regular one inch filter, typically, you know 24 by 18, or whatever they are. Just change them every two to three months. Especially if you have pets. Oh, change them more than that every two

Lauren Dimeo: 1:03:08

pets. Yeah, it's like every other month because you pull it out. It's just hair. Yeah. And here, just log everything you want to get that out. That's not great. If you have

John Laforme: 1:03:19

a real thick media filter. If you notice underneath, it's really thick. It's like four inches tall. Those are typically suggested to last every six to 12 months. So at about the six month mark, I'd just take a look at it and see if it's really dirty. Yes. slightly dirty is a lot more surface area on those. So they last longer. Yeah. So. So that's that H fac very important. That little filter can cost you 1000s. When you have to call the each bag Company A my system don't work. And oh, because someone didn't change their filter. So you just pay 250 bucks for an emergency service call in the middle of summer and they say oh yeah, we just changed your filter.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:04:03

Yep. Take the time to do it. Guys. I know life gets busy, but just just do it.

John Laforme: 1:04:07

No excuses. Alright, so that covers that. All right, so something you brought up yesterday? Yeah. Was, you know, explaining to homeowners how to test proof their house? Yes. So do tell. Yeah. What do you know about that?

Lauren Dimeo: 1:04:27

Yeah. So I mean, you know, we didn't really talk about you know, termite because that's another inspection. Right. So when you're buying a house, you want to get your general home inspection. And I usually recommend you should also get a termite done. Sure. Right. And people do that you care if it's not a big deal. And they think, Okay, I did the termite. I'm done. And they never think about it ever again. You're not done, especially in California, where they're super, super common, and they swarm and it's really gross. It is recommended that you actually check for termites annually. And do spot treatments right if you do Couple of spa treatments here and there, it's way less invasive and time consuming than having to tent and fumigate your house. The treatment should last a couple of years, right? But if you just let it go for years and years and years, and then you check, and they're like, hey, like you have a really big problem, or you have dry rot, or whatever you have going on was like, Well, now you have to vacate your house and tent for a couple of days. Right? That sucks. So just just get it checked. Like that should be a part of your annual maintenance, you know, or if you want to spray for bugs, right, things like that, right? There's options, you know, like, I'm very, like, worried about what sort of chemicals are brought to dogs in the kid, right? So when I get my, you know, pest control guy over, I'm like, hey, just remember, I have a kid and two dogs, like, please don't poison my family. Right? And they're, you know, there's Yeah, thanks. There's a couple of different, you know, options that they have, if that is something that is important to you, and something you wanna be super mindful of. But you know, bringing that in, it's just do it otherwise, you know, when it gets really, really hot, like, that's when all the ants come in. Yeah. And you don't want to have to deal with that. Just dance before Get it, get it on a schedule, like when you know that seasons going to change, just have someone come, it's really not that expensive. They'll do your whole house. And they check your house for vulnerabilities for rodents, right? You don't want to deal with mice or rats getting into your attic or under your foundation. And it's a whole thing. Just

John Laforme: 1:06:27

yeah, let's explain to everybody what, what attracts termites, unpainted wood.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:06:33

Yep. Or, you know, when wood is in contact with the dirt, we talked about the siding that goes all the way to the ground, right? Like that is going to create a vulnerability in your house and attract termites and rot.

John Laforme: 1:06:43

So if you have wood trim around the house, especially by your roof edge, if it's looks like it's like bare wood, get it painted, because they're gonna the paint, the paint is gonna give them a little, you know, little challenge to get through, they can still get through it, but bear wood. They're right on it.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:06:57

Yeah, like an area where people don't see. And we see this most commonly is under the house, right? The posts in your foundation. They're just in the ground. They're old, right? Let's say the house is built in the 20s. And it's like, no one's been under there, right? You're like, oh, cobwebs, and there's there is a piece of wood just directly into the dirt. And this is going to be a huge potential problem. Right? So subterranean

John Laforme: 1:07:21

termites. I've seen them from the dirt, like 18 to 18 inches up. Just build a little tunnel. Yeah, tubes. Yep. And then went right into the wood framing. It's crazy. I was like, wow, look at all that I see one house that had like five or six of them in the same area of like, wow, I said in my terminal, how long it take them to build that. Maybe a couple days. That's gross. Like, Wow, that's crazy. And for

Lauren Dimeo: 1:07:44

anyone who's like reading a, like a pest report, if you get like a termite inspection, you're gonna see section one and section two termite section one means there is an act of infestation, there is something going on. Typically, the seller takes care of this before closing. Section two is this, this is potentially going to become a problem, but you do not have like an active thing. Don't put on the backburner for too long, because it will become section one eventually. Typically, customarily, the buyer is on the hook to deal with that. Right at their leisure, but I wouldn't hold off for too long. Because then it's it's gonna become a bigger issue.

John Laforme: 1:08:20

Yeah, yeah. So and then we got the you know how to avoid getting rodents inside your house. So I got a few pointers for that. Yeah, the first thing I would do, when you're done listening to this podcast is go outside to your house look, look for your air conditioning unit on the outside and follow the hose that goes into the wall. And if you could stick your fingers in through the opening, where the hoses go into the wall, that's too much. You want to get some steel will in some spray foam from any one of your home stores. And fill that in. Yeah, like today, because they can just get in there. And that thing goes typically up to the attic. Or if it goes into a garage, it'll go right to the furnace. And that you just given them a little walkway, you have a custom walkway to get right into your attic. I see this all the time. It's a very easy fix. If you already have a rodent problem, and you seal that up, well, you may be trapping them inside now. So then you're gonna have to have somebody come over to set traps and kind of do some remediation. And the bummer of that the worst part of the rodent issue is they're nasty and they contaminate all your attic insulation if they get up there. And you don't want to be breathing that yeah, I would not leave that in my house if I found that. Yeah, get rid of that immediately. Yeah, have that. And nowadays has tons of attic companies out there. It's like a new thing. Oh, five years? Yeah, they're just like attic cleaning companies. They rip out all your infested insulation. They vacuum it all out, restart and re insulate.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:09:54

I mean, that's worth decontaminate to. That's I feel like when you look at all these old houses, there's like no one insulation left, or it's you know, it looks really bad and like that's ultimately going to save you the homeowner a lot of money because if you have poor insulation, yep, you're running your AC more, you're running your heat more can't regulate the temperature in your house. So you're like, Okay, well, I want to save money and I don't I'm not gonna deal with my installation, but you're gonna pay up the ass on your electric and gas bill. Yeah. So I don't know if anyone's paying attention with what's happening with the gas prices right now. Yeah, but bills are doubling, tripling.

John Laforme: 1:10:28

I've been buying deals waiting for my gas bill.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:10:30

I won't look at it. I'm just like, You know what, like, I can't even I mean, what am I going to do? Right? Like we gotta do we adapt as, as responsible as we are with how much gas we use. It's like, we have to use it. And I just

John Laforme: 1:10:48

propane. Yeah, yeah. Maybe in the backyard barbecue, or often. Yeah. So. But yeah, so there's a groat Rodin company that I had as a guest called Green Road and restoration, okay, there were just a few months back. And they do all that they'll if there's a rodent infestation, they're going to first of all are going to try to correct the problem. They're not just going to throw down a box outside, right? To give them a place to sleep. Right, the trap in it,

Lauren Dimeo: 1:11:17

right? And they're, they're supposed to come back and like check periodically to bring all that back. So you're not just like sitting there with a trap that was sprung. And you're just kind of dealing with the aftermath of that, like they need to be coming back and check every couple of days and clear stuff out.

John Laforme: 1:11:33

I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you a true story now. years ago, I did his really big house and believe it was Hidden Hills. Okay. Very expensive neighborhood. This place looked like a castle. I was there all day. Oh, wow. It was exhausting. That's why I remember so anyway, I grew up in these addicts This house had like four different addicts walk in WoW, four different walkable addicts. That's how big they were because the roof was so pitch the pitch on the roof was like, probably a 10 or 12. Oh, wow. Slate slate roof tiles the whole thing. And every attic had rat traps with rats. And nope. That rats with hair still on him. So it was it was recent. Wasn't like skeletons of some of fully fully. All the hair was still on him. Ratchet and and contaminate insulation everywhere. Yeah, everywhere. I mean, this is probably the worst case I've seen. And this is very expensive home. Yeah. So I make my notes. I'm going down. And to get my overview at the end. What do you call it? My overview, which would determine

Lauren Dimeo: 1:12:43

your your report, or even at the end your post mortem post more? Yes. Fancy buzzwords. Yes. This

John Laforme: 1:12:50

was a true post mortem, because there was a lot of dead things. I think I kind of like six or seven dead rats and traps, and this whole house. And so I'm going to give my post mortem to everybody. By the way, there's an active rodent problem here and it's pretty bad. Yeah. The listing agent, what do you think she said to me? Not a big

Lauren Dimeo: 1:13:14

deal. Don't worry about it.

John Laforme: 1:13:16

Think bigger than that. Bigger than that. Oh,

Lauren Dimeo: 1:13:19

man, would you say what he or she say?

John Laforme: 1:13:21

She said, All houses have rats? No, that was her response. No, they

Lauren Dimeo: 1:13:27

don't you guys, not all houses have rats. They don't. That is incorrect. So

John Laforme: 1:13:36

I was thinking so if I bought a house, can I pick my rats? Can I get white ones? Or some cute gray ones? You know, black ones? Which one? Should I get to go with my house? That is the stupidest thing ever fucking heard. Yeah. And I knew the realtor on the buyer side pretty well. So we kind of looked at each other like, Fuck, what do you do? And we both just like so she knew what to do. Yeah, the realtor. I knew I knew what to do he just deal with it. Yeah. So obviously they're getting in somewhere. Right? On a regular basis. Yes. So no one's treating. Well, they have a service. Like, what do you mean, they have a service where they come out and feed the rats? Yeah. Is that the service? And she's like, Well, no, they have you know, they said, Sure. I'm like, Yeah, ma'am. They're in the building. So they're obviously coming and going at their leisure. So whoever's doing the service is not giving you a true service, right? Because all they doing is renting you bait traps on the outside of that building. That's terrible. So your house should not have pests in it. If your house has pests in it, I mean, when I say pest I'm talking about right? rats, mice, maybe something bigger like a raccoon or a skunk. You shouldn't have that happening. Right? If that's happening, there's a spot on your property that you're not aware of. That's a big opening and they're going in so if you have a deck look under it, which means you may Need to crawl under it? Yeah, put its crawl space suit on so you don't get all dirty and stuff and just take a good look with a flashlight. Yeah. Because you'd be surprised what they can get into.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:15:09

Yeah. And like buy like a big hole doesn't mean it's like this big like they can get into a space like this big. Yeah, right? Yes. Yeah, you might not think it's a big deal. They can squeeze into these itty bitty little spaces. And you don't even

John Laforme: 1:15:21

that spray foam goes a long way. It'll help. Yeah, it'll help. So don't if you have rats, it's not normal. Yeah, you know,

Lauren Dimeo: 1:15:29

but there are some houses that might be a little more vulnerable to that. So if you have fruit trees, yes. Or garden, right. You know, people got really into having backyard gardens over the past couple of years. Having food is going to attract rodents. Like it kind of comes with

John Laforme: 1:15:45

compost. Yes, is the worst thing you can do property composting in your backyard will track them. Yeah, like you and boy. So

Lauren Dimeo: 1:15:52

you just want to stay on top of it. And be proactive in making sure that your house does not have any vulnerabilities if you have fruit trees and gardens and things like that, because it's a big neon sign telling them free food.

John Laforme: 1:16:04

Yeah. And there's some great videos on YouTube about setting traps with those five gallon buckets. Oh, really? Rats and mice. I'm actually gonna do it for my mom next time I go visitor.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:16:18

Take a video of like setting it up. Yeah, these

John Laforme: 1:16:20

guys get these people do it all the time. It's like, wow, it works. It works nice. They fill it with water at the bottom. They crawl on top. And whatever's on top is very, like, loose God. As soon as they hit stock they get they fall right in. Yeah, they can't get out. So it's one way to get rid of them if they're inside. Yeah. So that's one way to deal with it. So as far as maintenance goes. I know there's a few other things I'm going to mention here. Yeah, it is like, did you know that your dishwasher actually has a filter in it? Yes. Okay. Most people don't know

Lauren Dimeo: 1:16:55

that. Take it out your answer, dude. We'll do the whole thing. Yeah.

John Laforme: 1:16:59

So that's your dishwasher does have a filter. So if you have a dishwasher check it is a little device that goes with your dishwasher. You should have it if you don't have one installed. It's called an air gap. Yes. And that is that silver thing that in most cases, it's silver. Sometimes it's just white. And it's like a little cap that you can turn it's got these holes on it. And you always want to turn it away from the sink because you don't like the holes. Yeah, let me tell you why that's a problem. Because that there is to drain water into the sink, as opposed to around your house. Yeah. If the hose gets clogged

Lauren Dimeo: 1:17:34

or back into your dishwasher, right with all of your clean dishes, right.

John Laforme: 1:17:38

So the purpose for an air gap is twofold. Like Like Lauren just said, it's if it prevents, if your disposal gets backed up, it doesn't push that dirty water right into your dishwasher, it's going to push it up to the air gap. And that's going to come right through. So whatever side of that hose gets clogged up, it's going to force water out those out of that air gap. So make sure that air gap is facing the sink at all times. Because if you leave the house on vacation, I'm sorry, not a vacation for the day. Yeah, if you leave your house for the day, you set the dishwasher, we all put the dishwasher before we go when we're not home, you shouldn't have to babysit it just like you shouldn't have to babysit your oven. So you turn it on, you come home, you got a flood, because you had that thing and it flooded your countertop and all went everywhere. And now you have a mold problem. Most likely,

Lauren Dimeo: 1:18:29

if water is coming out the air gap, that's that means you to clean out your

John Laforme: 1:18:33

means you want to go blocked, disconnect the hoses, disconnect the hoses. You've maybe just cleaned them out with a brush for hoses or hose them out or just replace them. Yeah. Yeah, that's something that a lot of people don't understand. I've seen those on islands. Oh, air gaps on an island sink. And I turned it on. And I don't typically leave the kitchen. Yeah, when I run the dishwasher, I'm pretty much in the in the vicinity. So if I hear something I can do run back in once I did that, and I stayed in the kitchen while I turned first thing I did was turned on the dishwasher. And that thing was kinked and it sort of flooded. That kind of water had nowhere to go but everywhere. Oh no, it was it went everywhere. But I stopped it quick because I was right there and I grabbed towels and I was able to contain it. But if I left, like went upstairs or went outside oh my god, that would have been a nightmare. So gotta be careful with those. Yeah, they'll get you. And what else interior? There's something most people don't know about GFCI GFCI receptacle? Yes,

Lauren Dimeo: 1:19:37

they've married to every inspection report.

John Laforme: 1:19:41

Manufacturers the manufacturers of those actually have it in their, in their paperwork. When you buy him that they recommend that you push that button at least once a month.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:19:54

Really? Yep. So rarely did not really get

John Laforme: 1:19:58

the test and then the reset Add on those, you know, over time, just dirt that gets in there. And it just messes up those little moving parts. And they stop working. So they want you to test it. Just keep that to make sure and once in a while not to do it every month but just like your windows. Yeah, just test it, push that button once in a while, make sure it's working. If that thing's not resetting, it's bad. Get rid of it's not gonna protect you if it's bad, right for can't reset. It's bad. So you want to take care of that with GFCI receptacles. But that's that's the research I did a while back. Yeah, I was like, Wow, no kidding.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:20:34

Yeah, that's definitely something that, you know, I encourage my homebuyers like, hey, get electrician. It's an easy fix, right to do that, right? Because we commonly like they won't have them in the kitchen, or the bathrooms or the garage is probably where I most commonly see them not installed. And if there's anywhere where there's moisture, like you really you really want those like it's to protect you. Yep. Don't skip out on that. It's worth the upgrade. It's to protect you and your house and your appliances and all of that.

John Laforme: 1:21:01

Cool. Okay, so one last thing. Yeah, I like to ask my guests. You have any great horror stories, horror stories regarding your real estate business?

Lauren Dimeo: 1:21:12

Oh, man. Well, it's not really a horror story. It's more of like a funny story. Okay, so we were like comedy. Yeah, I'm more of like a lighthearted comedy. It's no emergencies in real estate, but there's a lot of shenanigans. We were inspecting. We were inspecting this condo. And it was, you know, it needed a lot of work, right. My client was going in there knowing it was a fixer. And we were just kind of like checking everything out and the inspector was doing their thing and we had some time to kill and she was really interested, like, oh, like, I wonder if the icemaker works on the fridge. Like, the inspector is not going to check that so let's just grab a cup real quick. And you know, we'll test it out to see if you know the water lines working and all of that. And what do you think came out of the ice machine? Water? No. It was a cigar. A full asked cigar, came out of the icemaker. And we're like, wait, what's a cigar bar came out of the icemaker. There was no ice. Yeah, I mean, I have to show it to you after this. I have a photo of it. So this whole cigar.

John Laforme: 1:22:17

Somebody's trying to prank you.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:22:18

I have no idea. But that's I guess maybe I am not a smoker. So someone correct me if that is the I thought you needed, you know, a humid environment for cigars, but they put it in the freezer doors.

John Laforme: 1:22:29

Yeah.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:22:31

That was That was interesting. I think like the other crazy one was this squishy, squishy ceiling, which we caught on like the second inspection. Because we went back because of the rain. That's what would happen because we did the inspection. And then there was a big rain. And my client was just like, I feel it in my gut. I want to go back. Well, yeah. And we went and we're like,

John Laforme: 1:22:53

oh, gotta weather rain. And it's good.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:22:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or I was actually the listing agent on this one property. This was a couple of years ago. And the inspection came in and the property was being used as a rental. So the tenants had moved out and a new homebuyer was coming in and checking it out. And it was vacant. And I came back to check on the property in the middle of the night for I can't remember I had to do something. I did take something or drop it off or whatever was keeping an eye on the property. And the sink on its own, had backed up. I mean, there was black water. Oh, yeah. Everywhere. It was, it was disgusting. And I was it is disgusting. I was actually pregnant as a child. I was pregnant time it came and it smelled like sewage. I mean, there was backup from I don't even want to know where and it's dark. I am super pregnant. I do not want to deal with this. And we had to you know, we had to fix it. Like, you know, we're like, okay, let's deal with it got, you know, got a plumber in there. And we had to drain it and clean it up, like disinfect the entire kitchen. It was a whole thing.

John Laforme: 1:23:57

So what was running the dishwasher?

Lauren Dimeo: 1:23:59

I think the dishwasher was tested, but I know that particular building, it has older pipes, it was a condo, right? It was it was three levels and

John Laforme: 1:24:08

have a disposal. Sometimes if those ain't working, that'll happen.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:24:13

I'm trying to remember I'm trying number like what prompted that? Because the unit had been empty for probably about three, four weeks at that point. I guess

John Laforme: 1:24:23

if I had to guess. Yeah, I would say you guys ran the dishwasher. Yeah. And that there was a disposal wasn't working. It just backed up. And that's why it was all just sealed.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:24:32

I mean, it was gross. But yeah, the inspector had found evidence of mold. So we brought in a mold remediation company. They come and they check it out. And they're like, Yep, there's mold. So it turned into this whole thing of like, oh, it's not just a leak. It's we have to rip out the cabinet's that's remediate and bring in fans and do all this stuff. Oh, and by the way, the cost of remediation does not include the cost to rebuild the stuff they destroy to get rid of the mold. Yep. So again, like, don't you slack when it comes to plumbing issues, because it's very expensive, the ripple effect of a dripping pipe is massive, right? It's massive. So that was another one. And, oh, I had a client, they bought a house, they ended up needing to sell the house, and they were moving to some really awesome opportunities elsewhere. And so this is just kind of like a buyer beware, if you're gonna get a flip, right. There were some foundation issues that, you know, my client wasn't aware of. And I don't know, I think I don't think the seller knew either. Maybe they figured it out. And they made it right. But the, it was a slab Foundation. And basically, it started sinking. Oh, shit. Yeah, they had a brand new, beautiful, you know, wood floors. I mean, his house was gorgeous. And like, right after they moved in, I didn't represent them on the buyer. I ended up selling it for them when they were. They were in the house for maybe two years. But shortly after they moved in, they started seeing cracks up the walls and doors were closed. Did you say it was a new construction? No, no, it was a flip flip. Yeah. But like they you know, they had redone everything. It looked beautiful, beautiful house. And yeah, the foundation was it was thinking so we, they in order to sell it. We actually had to go through their floors, because there was no crawl space to go under the house. Right. So we're, there was a trench along the entire hallway. This project probably took like six weeks. And they had to do 13 steel pylons to prop the house back up because it was caving in what city? Was it? This is in Woodland Hills. So like

John Laforme: 1:26:43

a liquefaction problem over there or something? I can't remember. That's interesting. Yeah, it

Lauren Dimeo: 1:26:48

was. I mean, it was it was it's it was common for that area. Well, I shouldn't say common, but it wasn't the first time they had seen this in that area. The person who had sold my client's house and they bought it initially felt awful. Right? You obviously can't go under a house if there's no crawlspace. And they fake.

John Laforme: 1:27:06

The confusing part of that is that you say it's a flip. So the house was already there. Yes. And then they remodeled they did they did they add on more square footage. Now and that. And that just got back to be it was maybe it was just timing.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:27:21

It was it was just really bad. Bad timing, and then to top on like now then, you know, my clients are moving on to another opportunity. So they're trying we're trying to figure this out. They're already up. Luckily, they were out of the house. They're not living in this. Man. It was a it was a war zone in there. So who paid for it? The previous the flipper. put money towards the fix they they made it good. They made it right. Wow. Yeah.

John Laforme: 1:27:49

Did you have to take them to court over this valance? I was

Lauren Dimeo: 1:27:52

not involved in that process, because it probably took them about, you know, a year or so to figure it all out. You know, and at that time, they were planning on staying in the house, and moving back in and all of that. And then plans changed, but they still had to fix it to sell it. Right. So yeah, I mean, if you guys are doing interested in flips and things like that, just be extra careful. And get inspector I know it looks really pretty. Sometimes it's just lipstick on a pig, right? Don't skip the inspection just because it looks nice. Right?

John Laforme: 1:28:24

Yeah, I want to I want to see, you know, I usually tell people if you're buying a home, don't panic. But in this case here, I'm gonna say it's okay to panic. Yeah, it was okay for them to panic.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:28:33

Yeah. But like, you know, I do. I mean, it was, it was a big problem. But you know, what everything, everything can be dealt with, right? You know, real estate is really emotional, and high stress. And I like to remind my clients that there is no emergencies in real estate. Everything is fixable. But you got to stay calm. And you got to like, have you like a solutions oriented mindset. As soon as you're like, it's their fault. Or I'm going to do this because of the principle within the finger pointing and all this, it's not going to solve anything you guys like, you just you have a conversation and like you're like, alright, like how are we going to fix it? If if that's something you want to fix if you're like, I don't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole. Like I respect that decision to like, let's cancel and walk away. We'll start over Yeah, but much everything is fixable. You can change everything or anything just about about a house right? Except where it sits. Right right. So and another thing I remind my clients you know, because again, they get the inspection reports it's a lengthy document there's a lot of information in there and they get really really overwhelmed like immediately like oh, it doesn't seem that bad. You're like oh that's like a lot of stuff you have to do I don't know if I'm up for it. One that's probably not going to change with a different house right you should be prepared to spend you know anywhere from like eight to 10 grand well now it's probably more just because inflation in your first year of home ownership because you're slowly overtime going to be working on stuff. Yeah, right. So have have a little stash put away to work on your house. Also, you don't have to do it all at once. If you're already living there, yes, you don't have to do it all at once a lot people that don't make money and have to do, you can do certain things after you move in, obviously, you're going to want if you want to replace the floors, and things like that, you probably want to do that before you move in. Yeah, you know, but if you have, you know, a crawlspace under the house, right? And you're, you need to work on the plumbing. Like they can do that. When you're in there as long as there's not like a massive issue. But if you need to, like repipe or adjust, they can do that while you're in the house, and things like that. So

John Laforme: 1:30:35

setting realistic expectations is what I always try to do with people definitely it most of the time it seems to stick, but some people you just can't help. They just they're just panic themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Can't really do much with the Yeah. So how do people find you if they want to hire as a realtor?

Lauren Dimeo: 1:30:52

Yeah, so I have a website. It's Lauren. Do Oh my god. It's Lauren. gmail.com. So first, last name.com I'm most active. How do you spell Gmail? D i m e. Oh,

John Laforme: 1:31:08

that is so simple.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:31:09

It's super easy. Everyone misses pronounce, they go Dymo I've had Dynamo. No, that's email.

John Laforme: 1:31:15

Call you Dimebag for sure.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:31:17

Yeah, it's easy peasy. You guys Lauren gmail.com I'm most active on Instagram. So it's at Lauren Gmail again.

John Laforme: 1:31:27

She has great videos on there. Check them out.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:31:30

Yeah, just a little humor in real estate because man life's Life's too short to be that serious. You gotta gotta make light of the craziness that is real estate. We see a lot of crazy shit.

John Laforme: 1:31:40

And what's what real estate group are you with? Yeah,

Lauren Dimeo: 1:31:42

I'm with the Alexis McGee group. We serve as both southern and northern California.

John Laforme: 1:31:47

Okay, cool. And Facebook to

Lauren Dimeo: 1:31:50

Yes. You can just look up Lauren De Mayo real estate and that should bring up my page. I think the address is like Lauren De Mayo realtor.

John Laforme: 1:31:57

Yeah. alarming to me a realtor. Yeah, so it looks like here and I do have a parting gift for you. Oh, yeah. You were the first to receive one of the

Lauren Dimeo: 1:32:08

Yeah, hell yeah. Yes, dude. You guys Limited Edition you're not gonna

John Laforme: 1:32:17

believe where I got that from?

Lauren Dimeo: 1:32:18

Where did you get this?

John Laforme: 1:32:19

The wife bought me that for Valentine's? This is like five shows. Here you go Happy Valentine's Day. Like what though? This is hilarious. She does crack me up every once in a while. She really surprises me.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:32:30

I love the CDs are giving these to the buyers.

John Laforme: 1:32:33

It's a cherry scent. Yeah.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:32:35

I'm gonna with your with your with your brochure ad. Oh, definitely. This is amazing. I'm gonna give those thank you for the air freshener. I love it.

John Laforme: 1:32:43

I love it. My very own air freshener.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:32:45

Who? How you met you know you made it you got personalized air fresheners.

John Laforme: 1:32:49

So once again, everybody buying a home don't panic. Just

Lauren Dimeo: 1:32:53

just call Lauren ask a lot of questions. She like questions. It's fine. Yeah,

John Laforme: 1:32:57

ask the questions and make sure you know whatever home inspector you use, make sure you inquire before the day of so you don't get your heart broken when he tells you is not going to check your sprinklers. Yeah. I've seen people Yeah, like I've gone through at the end of the inspection I go through you got a problem with this. You got a problem with that problem? In one ear out the other. Oh, did you check the sprinklers? No, that's what I want to cyber slap them. It's like no, not listening to anything. And that's all that was on the My wife because that was on their mind before they showed up. One thing like gotta make sure my sprinklers will call a gardener. Yeah. Do it yourself.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:33:40

Yeah, we are a lot of things. But we are not mind reader's right. So if you have a question, or if you are unsure, just ask. It's cool. I would rather you ask and just be transparent and set expectations. Then someone being left feeling really disappointed or embarrassed. Right? Like sometimes people are embarrassed. They don't want to ask. It's cool. Like, people are not expected to know all of this stuff. That's why we're here. We're here to help you and to educate you. So there's no such thing as a stupid question. Just bring it

John Laforme: 1:34:07

don't bring your dad. Don't bring your dad. Don't bring dad to the inspection. No inspector wants to meet your dad. Because we know why he's

Lauren Dimeo: 1:34:16

on everything.

John Laforme: 1:34:18

So jawed is that they're up to code. Yeah. Yeah, not here to do code, sir. Yes. Yes. Anyway, great having you.

Lauren Dimeo: 1:34:28

Thank you so much for having me. Anything else? You

John Laforme: 1:34:30

want to add anything with that?

Lauren Dimeo: 1:34:31

You think we forgot? I mean, John's awesome. You're buying house. Hire him. Like I get really sad when he's booked. I'm blushing. Hire him. 100%.

John Laforme: 1:34:42

Thank you. Thanks. Thanks for the shout out. There's no better compliment than a relative Harry. You'd expect their own house. Yes. That is a big compliment. Yes. Any home inspectors should realize that if you haven't already, yeah, that's a huge compliment if a realtor actually asked you, especially when they refer You know if they're referring you to everybody, and they don't have their own house. I don't know about that one. She's kind of a little shallow, their sketch

Lauren Dimeo: 1:35:08

a little sketchy, I would I would have, I would have been really sad if you're booked.

John Laforme: 1:35:12

Please come on. And whenever, whenever your clients call me, they owe you out you're always good about telling them to tell me that they were referred them very smart because you always get pushed to the top of the list. Just so you know, you always do. So a lot of times people come to get referred. And they're like, oh, yeah, my realtor then they don't even tell me the relatives name. Yeah. Whose relatives?

Lauren Dimeo: 1:35:34

Yeah, again, even though not mind readers.

John Laforme: 1:35:38

And I do 30 transactions a month so it's a month. Yeah, seriously, by the way the crash it's not here yet. No. Because I'm I'm on schedule. Do 30 houses this month?

Lauren Dimeo: 1:35:48

It's not this is not happening February 2023.

John Laforme: 1:35:52

So guys, that's the reality right now. So everything's good. Thanks for once again, Lauren. You're awesome. You too, and I guess I'll see you on the next inspection. Yeah, hopefully soon. All right.