Don't forget, if you want to know how to buy a home with a failed septic, I have you covered-
Transcript of the video!
Okay, how are you? This is Matt Heisler from Vanderbilt Properties and today we're going to do the second part in my septic series. First part was how to buy a house with a failed septic. Today we're going to talk about how to sell a house with a failed septic. That video was pretty popular. It's still got some good hits. So hopefully this one will too! Selling side is a little bit simpler. But I'm going to try to go over this fast. So let's make sure that you catch as much as you can here.
The first thing is, I've had many sellers over the years tell me that they're sure their system is going to fail and I tell them to test anyway. And guess what happens? Well, when we test, it doesn't fail, In which case you don't have a problem and you go right to market. So, I know you're going to get, you know, you may think that it's old, you may think that's an old style. I've had people say oh it's a cesspool, that won't pass - cesspools can pass! Okay, they can pass. I mean it may not pass, hopefully you've been taking care of it if it's an older system and you know,if it's creaky, hopefully you're getting it pumped every year. That will seriously help its chances of passing. If you're not going to sell for a couple years and you're watching this video, and if you haven't been pumping, go out there and get it pumped! Go out there and get it pumped, and who knows, in two years, maybe it will pass, maybe you'll get a clean pass out of it.
Most important thing here is you want to make sure that you've got a septic inspector that you know that's going to give you, you know, a good honest read on the system and isn't necessarily all that excited about replacing your system. We do want to get the straight answer here. And like i said, a lot of times, you can be surprised that the system that you thought was old and creaky and whatever ends up passing. So hopefully, that's the case, but if not, the reason you want to get a Title 5 report is because sometimes, when they fail, the things can be fixed.
There's a whole bunch of things that can go wrong. I've listed a few here. These are the most common. I mean, we have broken and rotted d-boxes all the time. It's a very common thing. It can cost 3500 to get a new d-box in there, but its 35 hundred, it's not 35 thousand. You can reduce the cost of what you need to do for the system, sometimes by tens of thousands of dollars. If you can get it fixed with just a repair and sometimes that's what a full inspection will reveal, is that the reason you're having an issue with the system is because it needs a repair. That's something that can be done. The reports themselves are very informative and you want to make sure that you understand where your system is (in in it’s lifecycle). The third thing that we're going to talk about here is if it fails, okay? You get the bad news. You had the right inspector and despite your best effort, It fails. Okay. You want to fix it. If you can, okay, and ultimately we want to have it fixed before we go on to the market. That's your best process here. Now, having said that a lot of times when I tell people that we're going to have to go get it fixed, they are very concerned that the process is complicated.
And you know what, if you haven't done it before? It is complicated. It's best to work with someone like myself who has been to many town halls and asked all the questions about how we get these systems installed and approved and engineered and finally installed into the ground. You don't have to learn this, all on your own. There are other people who've already learned the lessons and learned where the mine fields are. I'm happy to show you so that you can have a quick easy process. Hell, I'll probably even push the paperwork for you.When you can get it fixed, you don't have to do that by yourself.
It's great if you can. I appreciate it. When I walk in there, it's already been fixed. It's already been designed, and it's going in there next week. That's great for me but if you need help, there is help available. I know a lot of people go to the town and they just - it's you know, the people that do this all the time it's they have a vocabulary and a process and paperwork and sometimes it's not as clear as exactly what it is that needs to happen.
04:10
We just have to break that down into pieces that everybody can execute. Now for the money side of it, okay, you know that you want to fix it and get it all fixed before but you're worried about the money. Well, If you can get a HELOC a home equity line of credit, or if you already have a home equity line of credit that you're not using, This is a good thing to use it for, Right? You're going to pay off that HELOC when you sell the house, anyway. Well, might as well use it to fix up the house. I mean, ultimately, that's what it's for. It's a HOME equity line credit. Also, you may be able to pay some of the expenses out of closing, OK? You may be able to say to some folks, “ Hey, listen. I'm going to sell the house. I can pay in 60 days, does that work?” And then, you know, there's some things that we can do between the attorneys and the deals and the and the folks and hopefully they'll take the money that way. Believe it or not, if neither of those work sometimes the town and the state will let you borrow money to fix up your septic system. Generally a lot of specific rules there. That process is not very fast but if you know again doing that is better than selling it with a failed system.
05:19
We want to do that and I did want to promise everyone that there was a special offer, that i was going to make everyone. The offer is this, if you want a free Title 5 report, I am happy to pay for your Title 5, If you're planning on selling your house.
You know, we'll get the septic guy out there. We'll get that inspected and you won't have to pay for the report. I try to deliver value as much as I can early on. This is one of the ways I can deliver value for you. Obviously restrictions and details, apply, I’m not going to go into them here. I'm trying to keep this video short as possible! But if that's something that's interesting for you, feel free to reach out and give me a call. After you've done as much as you can on the money front and on the title 5 front, it's time to evaluate your strategy. Again as mentioned earlier, if you can, you want to fix it first and then go to market after the grass is grown in. If you can't do that, well, there's a halfway step. Okay, we can get a septic design done and we can get estimates for how to build it and then as part of the transaction, put money in escrow and have the buyer, get it fixed after s/he already buys the house.
06:30
That is a significantly cheaper way in terms of the money up front that you need to do. Ultimately the money does come out of the sale just as it comes out of the house (when it sells). Just as it would if you used a HELOC, but in this particular way, It doesn't happen until after close.
06:49
That's definitely an option. It's something that we want to do for the most part, if you do it that way. Then you can minimize what kind of discount you'll have to offer on your house in order to sell it. That's usually pretty acceptable to most buyers, you know?
07:05
And it's a great way to go. The very last option is to sell without doing anything at all. To just tell people you have a failed title five and they're going to have to put the system on their own and you're not going to help them. I just you just need to understand, this is going to cost you two to three times what the system will in terms of what you're going to lose in equity. So buyers who are buying houses with failed septic systems demand deep discounts as a general rule. I mean, you could get lucky. But, I like to say “luck is not a strategy”.
07:34
Where possible, please try to avoid that option. And if you want help avoiding that option, you're not sure how to do it. Give me a call. It's what I'm here for. Again, just a reminder that that failed system. Is not how you want to be marketing your house, okay? That makes it a distressed property. You know, there are people if you want to watch my how to buy a house with a failed system. You don't need to buy it in cash, but you are significantly restricting the number of people who are going to be interested in your house for the simple reason that some people are going to think that they need cash to buy it.
08:10
The rest of them know that you know it's going to be a big project to do and they don't want to do it. It just eliminates an awful lot of buyers from the market and that's not what we want to do. When we're selling your house, we want to increase the number of buyers who are interested in your home. Not decrease it. And as a reminder, you know, if you're thinking about selling your house and you don't want to pay for your Title V report, give me a call. I'll be happy to get someone out there to inspect that system. Again, restrictions and details apply, but happy to do that for you.
08:41
You'll never see the bill and hopefully we go on from there. That's the end of this video. If you have questions for me about your septic and real estate, I'm here for them. Please leave them in the comments. Thanks.