You can always offer the home “as-is” and do no pre-sale preparation, but that’s going to limit the number of buyers interested in the property and will yield lower offers.

if you’re looking to gather top dollar for your residence, you’ve got to make sure that you have your home prepared to attract the greatest number of buyers and generate the highest offers.

What do you need to do to prepare your home?  There are no absolutes, no hard and fast rules that apply to all homes in all regions of the country.  Every home, and home seller, is unique.  You’ll be best served by consulting with a good real estate agent who knows your local market before doing any pre-sale work to the property. 

Minor repairs

If your home is in mostly good condition, look for any stray defects that could signal neglect to a buyer. If a buyer comes into your home and sees deferred maintenance items like a leaky faucet, a torn window screen, a broken doorbell, or a crack in a wall, these minor defects will make them think that you didn’t take care of your house.  They’ll think more serious problems lurk within.

Make sure that you go through your home with your real estate professional before the home is on the market.  Identify all minor repairs needed and do what you need to do to make your home really shine.

Major repairs and upgrades

If your home has more serious detriments such as an old roof, outmoded windows, or a dated kitchen and baths, be careful.  You generally will not get your money back on major upgrades and extensive repairs done solely to get the home sold.

If your roof has active leaks, by all means do a repair.  But don’t install a new roof or new windows thinking you’ll get more at closing than you spent on such upgrades.  Only do a complete kitchen or bathroom remodel if you will live in the home for at least another two years and that improvement is something that you want to do for your own enjoyment of the property.

To refresh an old kitchen or bath without spending a lot of money, look into painting the cabinets or vanity, perhaps install new countertops, maybe change the fixtures, put new pulls on the fronts. And clean everything thoroughly.

Don’t spend  a lot of money to install new tile or hardwood flooring.  The buyer may not like what you put in.  If you have hardwood hiding under old wall-to-wall carpeting, rip out that old carpeting and expose the wood.

A good real estate agent will advise you on what repairs will pay back well and should be done and which work should be left to the new owner.

Stage or showcase?

Many agents use the word “staging” to cover a wide range of pre-sale preparation.  To avoid confusion, we find it helpful to use two concepts: staging and showcasing your home.  

When we refer to staging, we mean engaging the services of a professional stager. This can cost a lot of money, and can be unnecessary for many homes. A professional stager is truly needed only at select properties.  You can save money by paying for just a consultation with a stager.  But a lot of what they’ll cover in the consultation will be common sense showcasing techniques.  

What’s showcasing?  Showcasing is the low cost/no cost home preparation basics that will give you a solid return on your effort and any money you do spend.  Showcasing includes elbow-grease work like decluttering, cleaning, culling out excess furniture, and getting rid of all the “stuff” that collects over time at most homes. The goal is to make the interior show to buyers as neat, clean and spacious. 

Depersonalizing your interior of family photos and mementos is a smart move. You don’t want buyers to see how YOU live in the home, rather let the home show buyers how THEY can live in the property. Put away family photos, children’s artwork and refrigerator magnets. 

Fresh paint pays back very well, especially if you avoid wild, trendy colors.  Very neutral paint color is the way to go.  And a deep cleaning to make the interior sparkle will help your home sell much more quickly.  Hire professional cleaners if you lack the time to do this yourself.

Try to brighten up your home as much as possible. Increase the wattage of light bulbs, buy some new lamps, remove or replace heavy curtains.  If your home has dark wall-to-wall carpeting, you might want to place a light-colored rug on top.

Focus on your home’s exterior curb appeal.  No need to do anything really over the top.  Work on your landscaping. Add some mulch, trim back overgrown bushes, make sure your grass is cut.  Get a new welcome mat at the front door. And give the door a fresh coat of paint.  If your driveway is looking worn, get it sealcoated.  Do whatever you can to make that initial impression of your home as pleasant as possible

Rely on your real estate agent to help identify what needs to be done to showcase the inside and outside of your home.

Next we’ll address some nitty-gritty topics applicable to home selling in Massachusetts (procedures and customs in your state may differ).

Permits

If significant work has been done to the home during your ownership that required permits, it’s a good idea to check on the status of the permits before your home is for sale.  Look to see if municipal records show that proper permits were pulled and were closed.   

This is a surprisingly contentious issue.  There will be real estate professionals who vehemently disagree with our suggestion to check permits.  They’ll say there is no duty to check on the status of permits, so why make the inquiry?

Here’s our reasoning:

In Massachusetts, municipal record-keeping on permits varies widely community by community.  An Increasing number of city and town building departments have put permit records online, so they can be easy to check. 

That’s the key point for prospective home sellers.  If your permit records are online and are easy to check, you can be pretty sure the buyer’s agent or the closing attorney’s staff will check on the status of your permits at some point before closing. 

You would be wise to know ahead of time if any permits are missing or open, while you have ample time to rectify any issues and close open permits.  

Your nightmare scenario would be, about a week prior to your closing, someone checks online and finds an open permit.  You are told of the issue on a Friday and your closing is the following Tuesday.  Town hall is closed over the weekend, leaving you only Monday to get permit issue rectified so you can close on time.  Not a good situation and it can happen!

Title V

If your home is not on municipal sewer, by Massachusetts law you will need your sewage disposal system (most often a septic system) inspected prior to closing.  This is widely known as a “Title V inspection”. (If you live in a condo association with a shared sewage system, don’t worry.  These shared systems are, by law, periodically inspected, so you will not have to pay for you own inspection.)  

Otherwise, you’ll need to have your home’s sewage system pass a Title V inspection in order to be able to close.  Don’t wait. Get it done before you list the home.  By doing the inspection early, you’ll have time to address any issues found.

In Massachusetts, you can do what is called a “voluntary assessment” instead of a binding Title V inspection. The advantage of the voluntary assessment is that if problems with the system are found, you have the option to stop the assessment and prevent any negative results being reported to the local board of health.  If no problems are uncovered, you can convert to a binding inspection and be able to close.  Point of the voluntary assessment is that if you cannot afford to repair or replace your sewage disposal system, you can stop the assessment if problems are found and avoid triggering a mandatory system upgrade.

Your real estate agent can refer you to a Title 5 inspector and help you make sure the inspector knows you want to start the inspection as a voluntary assessment.

Check your attic

Last but not least, before you list your home, go into your attic and look around.  A great many real estate professionals do not venture into the attics of the homes they are marketing.  And they have to deal with the consequences of that oversight after the home inspection.  You can save yourself a lot of grief if you look in your attic before you market your home.

Look for signs of poor ventilation such as condensation, drip marks, water marks on the sheathing and rust on nail points.  Look for organic material growing on sheathing and rafters.  If you do have signs of mold in your attic, mitigation is relatively easy and not that expensive.  Have a professional mitigation company do the work.  The mitigation work typically comes with a transferable warranty. 

It is well worth checking your attic and resolving any ventilation and mold issues.  Your buyer’s home inspector will find the problems in your attic, so discover and rectify these problems before you hit the market.  Don’t lose a sale over an easily corrected mold issue in your attic.

Contact us

Have questions about what your home is worth or would you like our input into what you should do to your home to get it ready to sell? Just use the form below to contact us. We’re here to help you!

You must make sure that the agent you hire is competent, capable and dependable.  Because ultimately, you will be trusting them to take care of you and protect your best interests while they market and sell what may be your most substantial financial asset – your home.

Questions you might not think to ask

In this post, we’re going to review the key questions to ask a real estate agent before you hire them to list and sell your home.  These are questions that you might otherwise not think to ask. That’s because most homeowners operate under the false assumption that all agents are essentially alike and all do the same things to get a home sold.

Most homeowners believe that all agents adhere to the “3-Ps” of traditional home marketing. Home owners think that what real estate agents do is to post the home in the MLS – that’s first P – put a sign in the front yard – that’s the 2nd P –  and the third P is the agents then sit back and pray that the house sells.

But that couldn’t be further from the truth for the better real estate agents nowadays.  The 3-Ps may have been the norm 30 or maybe even 20 years ago – but now there’s a whole lot more that agents today should do to create effective home marketing!

Ask these questions before you sign a listing contract

In the above video and in the post below are the top-level questions that you should ask the real estate agent you’re considering hiring:

Question One

That’s a very pertinent question.  We’re always looking for different ways to create the greatest amount of exposure for your home as possible. Why is that?  

Well, what happens is that, as we get your listing out to the masses, we get more people looking at the home online, which actually translates to more people looking at the house offline (i. e. coming into your home in real life).

Ultimately, the objective is to get as many people into your home as possible – but that all starts online.  The New York Times recently came out with a study that showed that of people on Facebook and Instagram, the vast majority are spending over 50 minutes every single day browsing social media. Since we know that’s where home buyers are, we need to be advertising and marketing on Facebook and Instagram – where the buyers are!

The agent you hire must be advertising and marketing where the home buyers are – online! So seek an agent who has a broad and deep online marketing plan.  The best agents are always looking for  unique opportunities and unique places where they’re going to market their listings.

Question two

If the agent you’re interviewing doesn’t know which demographic groups they’ll target in their marketing of your home, you’re in for some trouble if you hire them!

Part of what we do when we draft a home’s marketing campaign is to determine whether the target market is going to be a certain demographic, or certain individuals, or even will be located in certain places, especially if they’re coming from out of the country.

For example, Massachusetts real estate enjoys sizable interest from overseas buyers. Many of these buyers come from India or China.  We have strong connections overseas to reach those buyers where they live. 

On the other hand, if the right buyers for your home are likely to come from Greater Boston, we direct ads geographically to the inner core suburbs of the metro area. 

If your home will appeal to first-time buyers or older buyers seeking one-level living, we’ll market directly to those demographic cohorts.

So look for an agent who can demonstrate to you that they know who your home’s target buyers should be and that they have devised a coherent, well-strategized digital marketing plan to effectively reach those buyer groups.

Question three

When we personally started selling real estate back in the 1990s, the field was still relatively simple. Print ads still dominated and real estate on the Internet was in its infancy. Buyers actually had to call us to gain information about the house. 

Times have changed drastically – in today’s digital age of marketing and selling real estate, everything is much more complex, with a lot more moving parts. The most productive agents these days have individuals working in support roles behind the scenes helping them market listings and get them to and through closing.

Make sure that the real estate professional you hire has a full team of marketing and support professionals dedicated to making your home sale a complete success.

Question four

This series of questions delves into the agent’s level of expertise and experience with home marketing. The questions seek to reveal whether they have the skills to get your home marketed and sold competently.

Ask the agent if they have a professional dossier.  Ask if the agent can provide a portfolio of past listings that shows how they market homes.  Ask if the agent has a lot of testimonials from past clients proving a high level of care and professionalism.  What you’ll see will speak volumes about the agent’s experience and expertise in marketing and selling homes while they keep their seller clients secure and content. 

Most important question to answer

Last, but not least, you have to ascertain who is the right real estate professional for you. That gets to the connection you have with the agent.  Do you get along with them?  Do you see yourself going through the entire home sale process from start to finish trusting and working with this professional all the way through?

The key here is TRUST.  Will this agent really take the time and make the effort to take care of you and your best interests.  Trust is the name of the game. Ultimately can you trust that professional to take care of what is probably your largest financial transaction that you will ever make?

How we can help you

Interested in learning more about Warren Reynolds and Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in Franklin, Massachusetts?  To explore why you should trust us to take care of your home, all you need to do is send us a message using the form below. Or give us a call at 508-561-6259.  Reach out to us and we’re happy to have a conversation!

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By 1930, over fifty years of revolutionary changes in photographic and film processing capabilities had extended photography to the masses. By 1930, just about anyone could be a good photographer!

In the 2020s, anyone can be a digital marketing master

We in the 2020s have been witness to over fifty years of massive advances in computer and communication technologies. The internet, social media and graphics software have brought digital communication to the masses. Today, almost anyone can be a digital marketing master!

The sorry state of most real estate marketing in the 2020s

But when it comes to real estate marketing, most listing agents have been slow to take advantage of the tools that are now at their disposal. Even in the 2020s, a lot of the home marketing you see is rudimentary and lacking.

It’s a real disservice to you, the home seller.  The uninspired, low-effort home marketing so prevalent today costs home sellers lost time and profit.

Digital marketing is key because home buyers shop online

In 2001, only 8% of home buyers started their home search online. Today, 98% of home buyers start online and over half of those find the home they end up buying from their online searches.

Today, digital marketing is the most important factor in home selling success. Digital marketing gets you the most money and the best terms for your home because it goes to where the buyers are: online!

The video above reviews what masterful digital home marketing in the 2020s requires. Because this video is approximately eight minutes long, we break it down below into smaller video segments for you. We highlight below exactly what digital home marketing in the 2020s should include.

Professional photography

Nowadays, professional photos are the minimum home sellers should expect from their listing agent.  Yet amazingly, nearly half of the listings on one of the largest MLS networks in Massachusetts (MLS-PIN) still lack professional photography. 

Ask the agent you are considering hiring how he plans to handle photos of your home. If the agent says he’ll be taking his own photographs, that’s a warning sign!

Social Selling

Masterful digital home marketing in the 2020s is all about social media platforms and online marketing campaigns.  Paid advertising campaigns on Instagram, Google, Facebook and YouTube promote listings and drive attendance at open houses.

Paid social selling will increase your home’s exposure to the market by putting your home in front of the greatest number of potential buyers. The larger the pool of buyers, the higher the likelihood you’ll receive more offers.  And anytime you receive multiple offers, you’re fostering an atmosphere where prospective purchasers will offer their highest and best price in order to compete with other offers.

Ask the agents you interview if they’ll be using targeted Facebook and Instagram ads, YouTube videos, and Google paid advertising. Ask to see examples of their social ads. Top-quality social media advertising is a good indication of a top-quality home marketer!

Matterport 3-D virtual tours

Many agents will include a virtual tour in their marketing plan for your property. But it’s important for you to know that not all virtual tours are the same. Many agents will say “virtual tour” but by that they mean a slideshow of still photos of your property.  These slideshow tours were cutting edge in the 1990s, but are really ho-hum now. And a lot of agents still use them!

The best virtual tours are 3D and self-guided. And the best of these tours use a software platform called Matterport.   It works on all devices, including smartphones. 

Matterport creates an interactive experience for home buyers. It turns your home into a user- directed tour. Buyers can go room by room at their own pace and use the route that they want to take. The dollhouse view is an especially effective involvement tool.

As we progress with the 2020s, we believe Matterport increasingly will become an integral way people view and buy homes. This is the future! When interviewing agents, ask what kind of home tour they include with their listings. Remember, not all virtual tours are the same. The best of the best is Matterport!

Digital floor plans

Digital floor plans were rare back in 2005. They’re much more common today. On the MLS-PIN system in Massachusetts, roughly 35% – 40% of listings currently have digital floor plans attached to them. Buyers can quickly access the floor plans to get a good overview of the property and see if they have an interest in pursuing it.

The best plans have embedded photos. You can see what each room looks like as you go through the floor plan. Buyers can use floor plans to much more easily tell if the house they are looking at is suitable for them. They can quickly see not just room sizes, but also room locations.

Review the marketing plan before you list

Before you sign a listing contract, ask to see the agent’s marketing plan. It should utilize all the digital marketing tools and strategies we’ve highlighted above.

If an agent doesn’t have a written marketing plan, or if the plan scrimps on state-of-the-art digital marketing, you might want to find a better agent!

We have a written, detailed marketing plan we will be happy to share with you.  Just use the form below to ask for a copy and we’ll send it right over to you!

Learn more about us here.

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There are good reasons for continued COVID-19 vigilance regarding home buying and selling. Home buyers and sellers are respectively subjecting themselves and their homes to interactions with people who may or may not have been exposed to the virus.  So seeking to protect yourself with commonsense precautionary measures seems the best way to assure your family’s safety while carrying out your change of residence in the era of COVID-19.

Strong housing market is a compelling reason to move

The continued strength of the Massachusetts real estate market should give you the incentive to carry on with your home buying and selling plans, despite COVID-19. Even last May, at the height of the pandemic shutdown, the Massachusetts real estate market was showing astonishing resilience.

The market’s robustness became manifest in June. That month witnessed a record surge of pending single-family home sales across the Commonwealth. (“Pending” sales refer to homes on which there are accepted purchase agreements, but which have not yet proceeded to change hands at a closing.)

The 7,774 single-family homes that went pending on MLS-PIN in June 2020 constitute the largest number of pending sales for any June in the database of MLS-PIN – just astounding! June 2020’s record pending sales should give a “green light” to everyone who is thinking about buying or selling a home. Despite all the disruptions and uncertainties of COVID-19, now is an excellent time to act!

Home prices on the rise, mortgage rates at all-time lows

The news gets even better with the continuing run-up in single family home prices.

The median sale price of single-family homes on MLS-PIN rose 5.9% in the second quarter of 2020, compared to the same three month period in 2019. The run-up in home prices at the height of the recent March – June shutdown in Massachusetts is a strong signal that home prices seem likely to continue to rise for the rest of the year. With 30-year mortgage rates currently at all-time lows (and forecast by some to dip below three percent before year’s end), now clearly is the smart time to move.

The right time to move, but what about COVID-19?

With the Massachusetts real estate market showing such vigor, many prospective home sellers and buyers will be asking how they can accomplish a move safely in light of COVID-19.

3D Tours help reduce in-real-life showings

One recent innovation that benefits both home sellers and buyers alike is 3D home tour technology.

3D tours are a lot more than a slide show of static home photos. The 3D technology allows you to virtually navigate through a home as you wish. You control which rooms you go through and in the sequence you prefer. You can pause, turn around and look again at a feature, and then move onto another room. This is very powerful!

The value of 3D tours in terms of COVID-19 safety is the fact that these tours reduce the number of unproductive in-real-life (IRL) showings, thus reducing the chances of infection stemming from IRL visits to homes.

Buyers can virtually walk through homes online and eliminate homes that don’t suit them. They use 3D tours to make shortlists of homes that better suit them, homes they want to physically visit IRL. Buyers thus can undertake far fewer physical interactions with homes for sale.

And sellers using 3D technology to market their homes will have fewer people entering their homes IRL. It’s a win-win in terms of reducing the chances of exposure to COVID-19!

Variety of 3D tour platforms

There are various competing types of 3D tours. Here are samples of two of the better platforms:

The ability to virtually move through the rooms in a home at your pace and in the sequence you choose is very powerful. And the benefits of fewer IRL showings are clear. Home sellers should avail themselves of this powerful technological innovation!

The benefits of clustering IRL showings

The next strategy to market homes with reduced COVID-19 risk is to cluster IRL showings as closely together as possible. Clustering IRL showings allows the listing agent to better control how IRL showings are conducted and make sure buyer and buyer agents adhere to COVID safety protocols while they are physically at the home. This protects buyers and sellers alike.

One way to cluster showings is for sellers to limit IRL showings to a limited number of days and hours per week. (For example, Fridays 4 PM – 7 PM and Saturdays and Sundays 11 AM – 3 PM.)

The listing agent can sit in his car on the street or in the driveway during scheduled showings, monitoring the comings and goings of the buyer agents with their customers. The listing agent can make sure masks are worn by all parties and other COVID-19 safety protocols are adhered to. The listing agent can act a a gatekeeper, preventing buyers who arrive early for their appointments from entering the home while another showing is ongoing. Control of showings equals less risk to both home sellers and buyers!

Open houses are highly effective ways to reduce COVID-19 risk

Another effective way to cluster IRL showings to reduce risk of COVID-19 infection is to use open houses. These should be conducted in a more controlled way than traditional open houses.

During the first two months of the nationwide COVID-19 shutdown, which began mid-March, there was widespread speculation that open houses would become a thing of the past.

There were virtually no open houses scheduled on MLS-PIN anywhere in the I-495/I-95 region of Massachusetts in April and May of 2020. By early June, however, open house notices began to show up again on MLS-PIN. The open houses quickly evolved primarily into two distinct types, each employing a different strategy to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19.

Open House Strategy #1

This version of open house requires attendees to make appointments to attend the open.

Often the open house appointments are required to be in fifteen minute increments. (Showing appointment time slots have to be short, because of the limited duration of the open house.) The listing agent stays on site, making sure masks are worn and proper social distancing is maintained.

There is a significant drawback to this “by appointment” open house strategy: the 15 minute showing appointment time slots inevitably create friction and bottlenecks. It’s inevitable that some buyers will arrive either early or late to their 15 minute open house appointments. Frustration builds as early-arriving buyers are turned away because it is “not your time yet to get inside”. Tardy buyers often mill around the outside of the home and may try to slip inside in between, and even during, other scheduled showings. It creates needless bad feelings and can detract from the success of the open house!

Open House Strategy #2

This second open house strategy has buyers come when they can during the published hours of the open house. Buyers and their agents wait in a properly spaced queue to get inside, often one set of buyers at a time.

The “queue upon arrival” open houses typically go well. Access is usually controlled and orderly. The listing agent can sit outside the house, register buyers as they arrive, make sure they have required masks and other required protective-wear, have them sign any required COVID-19 disclosure notice, and then grant them access once the house is vacated by the buyers who were previously inside.

Many other ways to increase COVID-19 safety when buying or selling a home

Many other points in the home purchase or sale process present opportunities to increase safety and reduce the risk of COVID-19 exposure. There are too many such opportunities to review in detail here.

The National Association of Realtors recently published a guide to COVID-19 safety for Realtors.

The Guide shows you more what can be done to enhance safety throughout a real estate transaction.

Get answers to specific questions

If you have specific questions or concerns about buying or selling a home safely in the era of COVID-19, please use the form below to ask Warren Reynolds for answers.

About Warren Reynolds, Attorney and Real Estate Broker

The best way to get to know someone is to see what other people say about them. Below are testimonials about Warren from past clients.

What Home Sellers say about Warren

What Home Buyers say about Warren

COVID-19 has made buying or selling a home seem even more of a challenge than ever. But you don’t have to feel stressed or uncertain – just rely on Warren! 

Warren Reynolds is an attorney-at-law in addition to being a real estate broker! His legal knowledge, coupled with decades of home sales experience and a sharp eye for detail have helped him give 100s of home buyers and sellers a greater security and control in their real estate transactions.   

Warren has consistently won multi-million-dollar sales awards over his 20+ year career.  How?  He cares!  He cares passionately about truth, justice and fairness. And that shows in his numbers.  99% of Warren’s past clients say they will use him again.  And over 70% of his business comes from repeat customers and referrals.

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Look beyond the countertop

So if you’re in the market to buy a home – or are thinking about renovating the kitchen or baths in your current residence – you need to know what to look for to spot true cabinet quality.

Since the National Kitchen and Bath Association estimates that roughly half of the cost of a new kitchen (70% including labor) is allocated to cabinets, it’s important to be an informed consumer whether you’re looking at a home to buy or walking through a kitchen design showroom.

Quick short cuts to judge quality

What we’ll cover in this post are simple shortcuts you can use to quickly ascertain the quality of cabinets in kitchens and baths.

The video below will help you understand what to look for when you are examining cabinets in any kitchen or bathroom:

Highlights from video

We’ll review below the most important points from the video:

Look for signs of wear and deterioration on “high traffic” areas around door fronts and drawer pulls.

Scratches, abrasion and worn areas are signs of a cheap finish.

Avoid fake wood surfaces

The cheapest cabinets use photo-simulated wood grain and paper thin laminates to create the impression of real wood.

These can chip and flake away over time, exposing the chipboard below.

Drawer construction

Lower-quality cabinets have drawers that are stapled or glued together.

Better drawer joinery uses dovetailing.

Drawer slides

Another sign of lower quality drawer construction is flimsy metal drawer slides.

Look instead for heavy gauge steel slides with ball bearings.

The best of these are full-extension slides with a self-closing feature.

More information

If you have questions about what to look for kitchens and baths, contact Warren Reynolds. he’ll be happy to guide you in the right direction!

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If you as the home seller don’t get a smoke/CO detector certificate of compliance issued by your local fire department, you won’t be able to have your closing!

Inspection by fire department

The fire department will check to make sure you have the right detectors for your home and will test them to make sure they work properly.  Massachusetts has imposed one set of rules for smoke detectors and a different set of rules for CO detectors.  Your home must comply with both the rules pertaining to CO detectors and those for smoke detectors in order to pass the mandatory inspection.

The fire department will charge a fee for the inspection.  This fee is typically paid by the home seller.  The seller also usually covers the expense of installing any new detectors in the home that may be needed.  Note that in some short sales and REO (post-foreclosure) sales, there may be an attempt to impose these expenses on the home buyer.

 House numbers must be visible

As an aside, many fire departments use the CO/smoke detector inspection as the opportunity to enforce a state law (Massachusetts General Law: Chapter 148, Section 59) requiring your home to have clearly visible house numbers.  So make sure your home has address numbers clearly visible from the street.  If your home lacks visible numbers, no certificate of compliance!

CO detector requirements

The CO detector requirements aim to save lives. Regardless of whether you are selling or not, you should have a carbon monoxide detector on each finished living level of your home. There must also be a CO detector within ten feet of all bedrooms.

Follow the hotlink in the image above or at right to download a guide that explains the carbon monoxide detector rules in Massachusetts.

MA smoke detector rules

The Massachusetts smoke detector rules distinguish between single-family and two-family homes built before January 1, 1975 and homes built after that date.  Note that the review of the smoke detector rules below has been simplified for brevity and that certain municipal fire departments have adopted their own requirements, so please check with your local fire department before scheduling your smoke detector inspection.

For single family and two family homes built before January 1, 1975

Smoke detectors must exist on every level of the premises that is habitable and also in the basement, even if the basement lacks habitable living area.

The detectors must be located on the ceiling at the base of every stairway leading to a higher floor and also outside each separate sleeping area.

(In addition to the above locations, two-family homes must have detectors in all common areas that are shared by all both dwellings.)

All smoke detectors must be less than ten years old.  Units older than ten years old must be replaced, even if they still function properly.

All detectors must use photoelectric detection technology.  (Detectors may also employ ionization detection technology, but cannot use ionization technology solely.)  Detectors may also be “dual” in that they detect the presence of carbon monoxide in addition to smoke.

Detectors can be hardwired or battery operated, or a mix of both.   Battery operated detectors must have sealed, ten-year batteries that cannot be removed or recharged.

All detectors must have a “hush” feature to stop nuisance false-alarms.

Download the pamphlet

The pamphlet below produced by the MA Department of Fire Services that does a good job explaining the rules for single-family and two-family homes built prior to Jan 1 1975:

Follow the hotlink in the image above or at right to download the pamphlet.

For homes built after January 1, 1975

The rules are very different for homes built after January 1, 1975 because all new homes were required after that date by then-applicable building codes to have hardwired detectors.  The difficulty is that the building code requirements for hardwired detectors kept changing and evolving through the decades, so there is no one set of rules that apply to all homes built after January 1, 1975. 

Follow the hotlink in the image above or at right to access a summary of the smoke detector rules governing homes built after January 1, 1975.

If you have questions

Speak with your local fire department if you have questions or concerns about your smoke detectors’ placement, functioning or technologies.  It is better to be safe than sorry!

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For houses in areas with high water tables, you can sometimes see a hose snaking out to the street from the basement – a sure sign of basement pumping!

Wet basements mean heartache

If your basement is finished and gets water, then you know what a heartache a wet basement is.  Wet carpet needs to be dried (and may need to be replaced).  Wallboard may be so soaked to be deemed ruined.  Furniture and personal possessions may have been destroyed.

Even if a basement is unfinished, chronic water penetration is a real problem. Moisture can keep you from using the basement for storage and can rust mechanical system components.

Common basement water penetration problems

How to deal with basement water penetration depends on the type of problem your basement has. 

Below are some water penetration issues commonly found in Massachusetts.  (I am not a waterproofing contractor but have seen a lot of wet basements in my years as a real estate agent in Massachusetts.) Please consult a reliable expert before undertaking any water penetration mitigation work.

Water around bulkhead doors

Water coming in around bulkhead doors seems to be one of the most common water penetration problem affecting basements in Massachusetts.

This can be relatively easy to rectify. 

Basement stairs often are precast concrete attached to the exterior of the foundation.  Voids in the soil can form around the stairs letting in rain water.

Solutions can include caulking seams and filling voids with crushed stone.

 Holes can be drilled into the basement floor in front of the bulkhead doors to allow the water to drain away.  Larger drains opening to beds of crushed stone can also be cut in the same area.

Surface water runoff that is not being properly dispersed

Surface water with nowhere to go often produces relatively limited areas of basement wetness; often you’ll have one “trouble” area or corner of the basement that gets damp during heavy rains.

Solutions can be surprising simple: sometimes simply extending your gutter downspouts or re-grading the ground around the foundation will solve this penetration problem.

Heavier penetrations may require the installation of a sump pump in the troublesome area of the basement.

Crack in the foundation

Cracks are quite common in poured concrete foundations.  Most are non-structural and harmless.

Trouble comes when water begins to enter the basement from a crack.  This can occur repeatedly as a “weeping”, or suddenly when quite a volume of water invades your basement from a crack during a time of very heavy rains.

If your basement is finished, it can be very difficult to tell whether your problem is simply a crack or is a more serious water penetration issue stemming from ground water (see below).  You may have to cut some drywall away in the area of the water penetration to look for a crack.

Once you find the crack, it is a very easy fix: a crack-sealer company can do a permanent seal and give you a warranty – problem solved!

Ground water penetration into basement

This can be a much more serious problem.

When a basement floor is below the high point of the ground water table, the basement will likely flood during heavy rain events. In effect your basement is a leaky boat in the ocean; the ground water will keep coming in until it finds its level. 

If a large area of a basement repeatedly gets water, or if all of the basement floods to a uniform depth (one or two inches of water can be commonly seen with some really wet basements), the problem may be a high ground water table.

A sump pump may not be able to handle the volume of water entering a basement if the source is a rising ground water table.  The water will sit in your basement until the ground water table goes back down.

A perimeter drain system (also called a French drain) might be the only real solution for a basement that is within the ground water level.

Explore options before you sign a contract

If you think you need professional help to solve your basement water problem, please be careful with contractors.  Most are honest, helpful experts.  Some unfortunately seek to make a quick buck and prey on your anxiety. 

So get multiple quotes and sign no contracts in a rush.

I can refer you to reputable contractors – just ask!

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Top sales award level at Century 21

CENTURION^© is the top home sales award level in the worldwide Century 21 franchise. The Centurion gold statue symbolizes truly outstanding sales performance!

It’s the Oscar of real estate sales!

Top 60 Century 21 agent in Eastern Massachusetts

Warren finished 2016 in the top 60 of all 4,000+ Century 21 agents in Eastern MA.  That’s quite an achievement and testament to the value of the services and support he brings to his clients!

Warren was Agent of the Month 9 times during 2016 at Century 21’s Franklin office.  Warren’s success in 2016 follows his winning the prestigious Relocation Agent of the Year Award in 2015.

About Warren Reynolds, Franklin, MA real estate broker and attorney

Warren excels at selling homes because of his creativity and drive which he got from his uncle, an investigative journalist and New York Times best-selling author. 

Warren is also an attorney at law!  His expertise with negotiations, contracts and closings give you a distinct advantage in the home sales arena.  Contact Warren or call him at 508-561-6259 to put his talents, knowledge and experience to work for you.  You’ll “Win with Warren!”

Copyright ©2017 02038.com

There has been a lot of snow this year!

As a real estate agent who has toured literally 1,000s of homes in my professional career to date, I have come across quite a number of properties with wood rot and other structural deterioration caused by repeat exposure to melting snow and ice.  In fact, most homes with wood siding seem to have identical problem areas that are especially susceptible to damage by snow as it melts. In this post, you’ll discover the simple steps you can take after a heavy snowfall to prevent costly damage to your home caused over the years by melting ice and snow.  (You can read safety-related snow removal suggestions here.)

Keep wood decks clear of deep snow

Neglected wood decks look ugly and can be very expensive to repair or replace.  In addition to failing to stain or seal your wood deck, another way you can cause your deck to age before its time is by letting deep, packed snow sit on it all winter.

It’s the slow melting and refreezing of deep snow on wood decks that causes a lot of the damage commonly seen with these structures.  It can take months for several feet of snow on a deck to melt as winter yields to spring and that means your deck will stay wet all that time. And that’s not good for wood!

The solution is to clear your deck of snow every time there is significant snowfall.

You don’t have to keep the deck completely free of all snow.  Just prevent feet of snow from piling up and staying on the deck all winter.  By limiting the amount of snow that sits (and melts) on the deck every winter, you’ll prevent a significant amount of damage over time!

Damage to wood siding adjacent to the deck flooring

Damage to your home’s wood siding is another consequence of letting deep snow remain on your deck all winter.  The deep snow on the deck also stays in contact with your home’s siding down at the level of the deck flooring.  The siding can be rotted by the same melting and refreezing snow that is damaging the deck.

Siding damaged by snow

You can prevent rot and deterioration to the wood siding on your home by taking the extra time to fully remove the snow on the deck that is in contact with the siding of the house.

 Rot around garage bays

Another area of damage commonly seen with houses in snowy climates is at garage bays near ground level.  Wooden garage door frames often get deteriorated when the homeowner lets snow pile up around the garage door every winter, year in an year out.  The rot can extend into the garage wall sheathing and studs in extreme cases.

You can easily prevent such damage by fully clearing the snow from your garage doors every time there is a significant snowfall.

Again, you don’t have to strive for perfection. Just get most of the snow away from the garage door frames and you’ll be fine!

Rot around front entry

The final area of deterioration I see frequently is at the front entry of homes.  I have seen a lot of rot on front door frames, sills and kick plates.

Front entry door damaged by snow

The culprit again is snow that is allowed to stay in contact with the front entry.  So take a few seconds to remove all the snow that has accumulated around your front door to avoid this common problem.

Snow removal effort pays off

You don’t need to be obsessively vigilant with your snow clearing efforts around your house; leaving some snow remaining in the problem areas identified in this post won’t hurt anything.  Just don’t allow significant snow to stay in extended contact with any of the problem areas detailed above.  I know simply clearing snow from driveways and front walks is a lot of work in and of itself.  It can be very tempting just to let the snow on the deck be and make a few quick passes with the shovel around the garage doors and front entry.  However, the extra effort you’ll put into clearing the deck of deep snow and making sure snow is away from the garage door frames and removed from your front entry will pay off nicely years from now when you are not faced with some expensive (and totally preventable) home repairs!

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Top 10% of Century 21 agents worldwide

This puts Warren in the top 10% of all Century 21 agents worldwide!  If you know Warren, you’ll understand why he excels at helping people buy and sell real estate:  his caring attitude, real estate expertise and negotiation skills help assure highly successful transactions!

Clients give high praise to Warren Reynolds

Just take a look at all the rave reviews Warren has garnered from clients:

Rave reviews for Warren!

If you are thinking of buying or selling a home or investment property in Massachusetts, contact Warren – like so many satisfied clients will tell you: “You’ll Win with Warren!”

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