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"I inherited a property and it's in pretty poor condition," the email said. "Can you come by later this week, and tell me whether I should fix it, or sell the home "As Is?"
I'd be happy to, but the choice to fix a house OR sell it in its current "As Is" condition is predicated upon the structure's underlying health. Although I'm certainly not opposed to giving my opinion (829 blogs posts worth of them!), if the deferred maintenance is such that the pest report is going to identify hundreds of thousands in dry rot, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense (or cents) to spend your hard-earned dollars on cosmetic improvements WHEN the house will still present poorly. Put more succinctly, we are going to need more information to answer the question. So where do we find the answers?
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For years, we've told our clients that the price of a property didn't matter as much as the "PITI" (principal, interest, taxes and insurance), with the assumption that most people never pay off their home loans until they sell. (That' remains true.)
In other words, owning a piece of the "American Dream" was all about the carrying costs, and for the most part, it still is. However, it's important to understand that the "carrying costs" of home ownership have gone up significantly over the past few years, and unfortunately, as long as supply continues to fall well short of demand, I don't see that changing anytime too soon. (Short of a major recession and I suspect, that none of us wants to see our economy hit a brick wall. Of course, I'm not an economist so I'm spitballing here.) I LOVE everything about the Olympics: the competitions, the drama, the stories, the sportsmanship, the pursuit of excellence for excellence's sake, not to mention the personal sacrifices each of these young (and not so young) athletes makes to reach the pinnacles of their sport. As they gather from every corner of the world. I'm truly in awe.
However, watching the 2026 Olympics currently being broadcast from Italy, it occurred to me that I may have missed my golden opportunity. No, it's not ice skating, or downhill skiing, or aerial snowboarding; it's curling! You know, that odd sport we only watch every four years, that involves a 42 lb. polished granite stone, some slippery shoes, and a broom? (I don't mean to brag, but I'm an expert at sweeping.) Often, when meeting potential Sellers at their home, the first order of business is to walk through the house. As I’d represented the Sellers when they bought the home several years earlier, I was familiar with the layout, but as they'd made several improvements, it was nice to get reacquainted with the property. However, out back, Mother Nature had intervened, and a MASSIVE tree had taken over much of their SF view.
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AuthorJulie Gardner, has been writing The Perspective for 19 years and has published more than 850 humorous but always informative, essays on life and real estate. 
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