Cookies and Candy

As I was clearing out some shelves in the office closet today, I ran across a stash of candy jars. Most of them had one or more of  Mark's business cards taped to them. We haven't used them in several years so I decided to pull the business cards off them, clean them up and see what their highest and best use might be.

They are left over from the days of taking candy around to a dozen or so real estate offices. Usually I'd make the rounds once every two weeks if not every week. I didn't take the usual cheap mints. I took chocolate! One office actually asked if I could come by more often because the candy was typically gone in a day. (Unfortunately this wasn't an office that we got much business out of so "request denied". And even if they were responsible for generating the bulk of our business, I didn't really feel obliged to keep them in candy.) In the end, I stopped doing it because in Texas in July, you can't transport chocolate. It will be goo by the time you get to the third office. It turned out to be easier (and cheaper) to take a box of cookies. And eventually, we just got too busy to take anything.

I'm not sure it made a big difference in our business. But I suspect it was more productive than all of those "front page of Google" schemes. But it had some drawbacks. There were any number of agents who had their hand in the cookie jar, but who never once called us to do an inspection. We had two offices where the candy jar "disappeared". (Really? You can buy one at Hobby Lobby for $2.99.) One office told me to take my candy jar and my candy because they weren't going to recommend us unless we paid them $500 per year. (And we weren't.) And of course, sometimes when I took the candy in I found that my candy jar and/or my brochure stand had been commandeered by a competitor. (How observant are some of these guys when they can't look at the bottom of the brochure stand to see that it belongs to someone else? Not much of an inspector, if you ask me.)

The other problem with showing up every week was that I was rewarded with all kinds of sponsorship "opportunities". I could buy the office breakfast, or lunch, or pay for them to have a happy hour, or a round of bowling. The possibilities were endless. When we were first starting out, we didn't know any better and fell into the trap. But eventually, the demands for money from a couple of offices exceeded the amount of money being generated by those offices. It's just not sustainable. These days we sponsor nothing and no one. I've had a couple of agents and offices inform me that they'd remove me from their list if I refused to sponsor. And I guess they did because we no longer get calls from their clients.

But we're very grateful for the agents who refer us because they believe that we do a fantastic job, not because we sponsored their happy hour.

The Fuss About Cast Iron

Within the past few weeks Mark has come across several properties with cast iron sewers. He always call them out which has caused considerable grief the past few weeks. We've had innumerable calls and emails from upset sellers, disappointed buyers, confused plumbers and frustrated agents. All of whom must be handled with care and with tact.

It is Mark's job to identify problems with a property. He cannot guarantee that the sewer line (or anything else) will be maintenance free for as long as you own the property. He CAN guarantee that eventually a cast iron sewer will need to be replaced - and it will probably be sooner than later. They are found in properties that were built in the 1970s and earlier which means that they are 40 or more years old. Very often, a leak in this type of sewer is really seepage that comes with the erosion of the pipe, not a spurting or dripping type of leak. (In other words, a pressure test will not confirm that there is a leak. But really, how do you think mud and bugs get in there if there isn't a hole somewhere?) And look at the picture. Does it look "fine" to you?

I have first hand knowledge of cast iron sewers. It starts out with back-ups. Eventually, the sewer line is backing up at least once a week. You also get rusty water in the guest bathroom shower because it isn't used that frequently and the water stands in the rusting pipe and looks nasty until you run it for a few minutes. (You have to remember to run the shower for five minutes or so several hours before any guests arrive.)

We finally bit the bullet three years ago and had the house replumbed. It was expensive. It was messy. We had to move out of the house for a week. But as I stroll through the neighborhood I can't help but notice that there are usually one or two houses with telltale evidence of trenching. Obviously they've had to replace the cast iron lines. So when the plumber says that the lines are "in as good condition as other properties in the neighborhood", he's telling the truth. But if those lines are cast iron, they're corroding and will eventually need to be replaced. Probably sooner rather than later.

So here's one scenario: Mark said it needed to be replaced. The plumber said it was fine. The home buyer "doesn't know who to believe". We can't tell him who to believe. But as an industrial engineer, Mark can certainly tell him about the properties of cast iron and how it reacts to effluent (a polite term for human waste.)

It's not Mark's job to tell someone not to buy a particular property. It's his job to make home buyers aware of existing and potential problems. Could that buyer get a few more years out of that sewer? Maybe. Maybe not. If he wants it, he should buy it. He is in a position to make an informed decision. But he can't come back to Mark in a few years complaining that he should have been warned about the cast iron sewer.