[blparent] Advice: buying a house

Wed May 9 16:00:20 UTC 2012

        Also, be careful of inspectors the agents suggest because while you pay them for their work, they get their business referrals from the agents. Believe me, that matters.
Also know thatit is very difficult to get an inspector in trouble if you discover a problem they failed to find.

Also, be very aware of how an inspector treats you both as a woman and as someone who is blind. If they can't explain the problem in as much detail as you need, or they don't want to, run.

-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Peggy
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 11:54 AM
To: Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blparent] Advice: buying a house

You can pay a little extra to have an inspector come out and inspect your
house, I recommend doing this!!  They are working for you and not the
realitor so they will tell you every little thing that is wrong with your
house ... which can be discou some of them are just little things that don't
even need fixed.  But others might be big things and he will tell you,
require the seller to fix before buying, like our deck had to be reenforced,
a window replaced and an outlet replaced.  But there was a small place where
the wood on the stairs doesn't match up exactly, he pointed it out, but you
know we could fix it but it's really not that important.  I think it cost us
about $300 for the guy to do the inspection but it was well worth it
especially since I couldn't see and my husband's terrible on details.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jaquiss, Robert
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 8:29 AM
To: Blind Parents Mailing List
Subject: Re: [blparent] Advice: buying a house

Hello:

     Over the years, I have bought and sold four houses and one mobile home.
It is fairly typical for a real estate agent to drive his/her customers to
see a property. My advice is to pick out the bus routes that work for you
and tell the agent to look for houses near the routes. You might get a
friend to drive the bus route and try and spot for sale signs.

     As for the mechanics of buying a house, I would advise having a trusted
sighted person look over the property. Hopefully, you have a trustworthy
agent, but some agents are more conscientious than others. A very thorough
building inspection is very important. My wife and I bought a house and the
inspection missed some major flaws resulting in us having to spend thousands
of dollars to correct them. Its very wise to get insurance such as American
Home Shield. This type of policy can insure against roof leaks, appliance
break downs, plumbing problems etc. When my wife and I bought a house in
Louisiana, we had AHS and it was a good thing since a heat pump failed a
week after we moved in and it had to be replaced. When you make an offer,
you can add a clause such as, "The house needs to meet the approval of xxx."
This is a good backup in case you miss something and need to back out of an
offer. My last piece of advice is to take your time and don't get rushed
into a decision.

Regards,

Robert

Robert Jaquiss
Access Technology Specialist
National Federation of the Blind Jernigan Institute
200 E. Wells Street at Jernigan Place
Baltimore, MD 21230
Phone: (410) 659-9314, Ext.2422
Email: rjaquiss at nfb.org

-----Original Message-----
From: blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of jan wright
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2012 7:53 AM
To: blparent
Subject: [blparent] Advice: buying a house

Hi All,
First, I want to thank everyone who responded to my questions about bottles
and johnny jumper things.
We have a pretty consistent group of parents and child care providers
who --- may not always agree, but give wonderful advice for each season of
our lives. And, we are as diverse as any other parent group:
from spiritual to not; from crunchy to progressive (those might not be
opposites, but you understand what I mean); from babies to adult children;
from stay-at-home parents  to working parents; ... etc.

So, I thought that I might post here about our "house buying" and ask for
any tips and advice. I have done research, but, there isn't much from a
blind person's prospective. Maybe there doesn't need to be:
because maybe it is not any different from sighted people buying a house.
But, I did have a couple of questions:
1. How did you choose your realtor? We have one of these, already, but
wonder if we  shouldn't have looked farther. DH's boss said that his realtor
would transport him to and from the prospective houses. Is that normal??? We
find that this is one of the most difficult things to do because paratransit
takes so long, we can only see one house per day.
2. Public transportation is not very good here in Indy. People from other
cities have commented on how fragmented it is. And, there aren't many
sidewalks in residential areas or down busy streets and ... ... a good
shoulder is hard to find. [ARe those words to a country song?????]  (smile)
But, we are trying to find a house that is close to a bus stop --- and a bus
stop that would take DH to work and us downtown. Sometimes we find a house
close to a bus stop, but the wrong bus stops there.

Any other advice????

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