Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

Sometimes there are items in a home that the buyer expects to stay but which a home seller believes are personal property. Our local base contract does a good job of covering the most common disputes seen over the years and a good listing agent and a good buyer’s agent can also help prevent many disputes by explaining early on in the process the difference between fixtures and personal property items that a seller can – and probably will – take with them at closing. 

But every once in a while a buyer shows up to their final walk-through and finds an item they expected to still be there is missing. Probably the most common item are curtains. Most believe accept that the brackets holding the curtains up are a fixture (because they’re screwed into the wall) but the curtains, which are simply hanging on the curtain rod, are personal property items. No matter what side of the fence you are on, the best thing for seller’s to do to avoid such a dispute is to write into the contract that the curtains do NOT stay with the home.

Conversely, should a home buyer covet the curtains, they can write into the contract that all blinds and window treatments stay with the home. Whether or not they will stay with the home can be a part of the contract negotiations and one way or another that is sure to clear up expectations and hopefully eliminate surprises at closing. Another item that I’ve seen buyers and sellers dispute is half bath mirrors. In my opinion… If the mirror is screwed into the wall, I believe it’s a fixture and if the mirror is hanging on a screw, it’s personal property. The real estate contract defines a fixture as items that are “buried, nailed, bolted, screwed or glued” to the property. But you’re better off not assuming anything and simply writing specific important items into the contract so there’s no misunderstandings.

Posted by Jason Brown

Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

The Mortgage Interest Deduction is one of the biggest reasons many people purchase a home but the possibility that benefit could be eliminated is a great cause for concern for homeowners and potential home buyers. The debt ceiling agreement reached earlier this month added a Congressional Super Committee, which makes it easier for Congress to change tax laws…. and the Mortgage Interest Deduction is of course a very important tax law.

The Super Committee will be a group composed of six members of the House and six members of the Senate. The committee will be split up equally between democrats and republicans and has been directed to find ways to trim $1.5 trillion off the national deficit over a 10 year period. They can do so with revenue increases or spending cuts but if they don’t get it done in some fashion, automatic spending cuts will be “triggered”. It could be chaotic if that happened. 

Surely Congress will realize that eliminating the Mortgage Interest Deduction would harm the real estate market and that is the last thing we need. If there’s even a hint about eliminating the real estate stimulus that has been present since 1986, I have to assume the tsunami of protest that would hit Congress would be overwhelming. After all, 85% of ALL federal tax dollars brought in are paid by American who OWN homes (versus tax dollars paid by those rent or free-load off someone else).

Posted by Jason Brown