What Your Realtor Can’t Tell You!
What Your Realtor Can’t Tell You!
Bonnie Jessee, Realtor 530 412 3984
In the United States (and individual states) laws prevent Realtors from informing buyers about neighborhood demographics, and they typically do not want to discuss other details, such as sex offender presence. However, for you the buyer, the information can easily be found on line!
Truckee, California
THE NEW NEIGHBORHOOD: During a showing to new comers to our beautiful area my new friend and client wondered aloud whether there were any sex offenders living in the neighborhood. Since it is not my ‘place’ to comment, I picked up my cell phone during the showing of the home, connected to its Web browser and brought up Family Watchdog, a national sex-offender-registry Web site. A quick check on this outstanding site and we went about our business of finding that perfect home.
A Realtor can be a wealth of information about a home, neighborhood and town. And when a home buyer asks what crime is like in the neighborhood/town might be surprised when the Realtor refers client to the world wide web or local law enforcement instead. Your Realtor is your connection with your new town or neighborhood and most buyers expect a wealth of information to be freely provided to them. This is not always the case as you will see.
However, there is some information that an agent cannot discuss due to fair-housing laws, including demographic statistics. And they often prefer to leave additional information, such as the quality of the school district or crime stats, answered by other sources. The NAR National Association of Realtors forbids ‘steering’ of potential homeowners and over the years, there has been negative feedback regarding ‘steering’ by having Realtors directly respond to some of these types of inquiries. Some of this information can be decisive when buying. The quality of school systems, when there are children in the family is always of major importance to home-buying families. And most of this information can be found in many places on the world wide web
PUBLIC SCHOOL ISSUES: Unless your Realtor has hard data at his or her fingertips, the Realtor may decline to answer school-district questions. A prospective buyer might want to do additional fact-finding before deciding on a home or which neighborhoods to consider. A national database of school demographic information can be found on the National Center for Education Statistics Web site. Additionally, for a better understanding of academic performance and to compare schools, a prospective homeowner might browse the School Matters Web site, which is a service of Standard & Poor’s.
CRIME ISSUES: Family Watchdog Web site allows users to enter a street address and pull up a map of the area that plots out where sex offenders live. Click on one of the squares that indicate an offender’s home, and often an address and a photo are available to view.
Realtors know the value of the Family Watchdog Website and encourage clients to use this site when checking out new areas. Make trips past the home or neighborhood you are interested in at various times of the day and you will probably get your informed answer. Do call me to help you in finding that perfect HOME! Bonnie Jessee 530 412 3984 bjessee@dicksonrealty.com
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