10 Investigative Questions to Ask a Home Seller

A home is typically the largest single investment you’ll ever make, and you’ll likely spend a lot of time and energy searching for the perfect place. By the time you're ready to buy, you'll already know a lot about the house. However, it's a good idea to do a little more detective work and get answers to a few investigative questions. It will deliver you additional peace of mind in your purchase.

A conversation with the seller, the seller's agent, and a review of the public records can fill in detail blanks that will help you make a better decision. Contacting the county's property appraiser for the home's location are great starting points. Here are the ten investigative questions to ask a home seller.

There are many reasons why people move, including job relocation, desire to get into a smaller/larger house, life events (marriage, the birth of a child, death of a spouse, or other reason), and retirement. While you may not always get a truthful answer, asking why the seller is moving can be helpful in determining how much room there is for negotiating.

Depending on the reason for moving, the seller may be willing to accept a lower offer if it means they can be out of the home faster. Of course, if the seller is in no hurry to sell, there may be little room for negotiation.

One of the primary reasons a house ends up staying on the market a long time is that it was priced too high to begin with. This mispricing is often a function of a poor strategy.

The longer a house stays on the market, the harder it becomes to sell since the listing becomes “stale,” and buyers think there must be something inherently wrong with the property (otherwise it would have sold by now, right?). If the home has been on the market for a long time, the seller may be motivated and more willing to negotiate.

Knowing how much the seller paid is helpful for a couple of reasons. First, it tells you if values in the local market have gone up or down since the seller purchased the home. Second, it may help you determine how open the sellers may be to negotiation, and here’s why: If the sellers bought the home at rock bottom, they may be more willing to move down on price since they will still make a reasonable profit. If your sellers purchased the home for close to or more than the asking price, however, they probably won’t be willing to move much—if at all—on price.

If the sellers won’t tell you what they paid, you can find out by checking the public records. They are available at the Register of Deeds (or a similar office, such as Recorder of Deeds) in the county where the property is located.

Anything that is permanently attached to the home (for example, faucets, cabinets, and window blinds) is considered a fixture and is generally included in a home sale. Sometimes, legal definitions determine what is—and what is not—included in the sale, but sometimes an item can fall into a gray area.

When in doubt, and to avoid disappointment, ask what’s included in the sale and get it in writing. Pay close attention to items such as outdoor play equipment, sheds, lighting fixtures, appliances, window treatments, wall-mounted sound systems, and anything else you would be upset to find missing if you moved into the home.

In many real estate markets, a light fixture is considered a part of the house, and if the seller is taking it—because it's an expensive chandelier, for example—they must replace it with at least a basic fixture.

Neighborhoods can be affected by any number of nuisances including speeding on community streets, traffic congestion, noise (from traffic, neighbors, barking dogs, and/or nearby businesses), crime, bothersome odors (including cigarette smoke), litter, poor maintenance, bright lights, and problem neighbors who cause disturbances. While you may not get a particularly detailed answer, it’s a good idea to at least try to find out about any problems before going through with a purchase. In addition to asking the seller about nuisances, you can visit the local police department to research crime statistics for the neighborhood.

Disclosure statements serve to inform buyers about a home’s condition and help protect sellers from future legal action if problems are found. While disclosures vary by state and even county, sellers must make disclosures about such items as existing liens, lead-based paint, natural hazards (e.g., floodplain), termite problems, history of property-line disputes, and defects in major systems and/or appliances. In fact, there are eight disclosures sellers must make; it makes sense to ask about all of them, just in case.

Because there may be problems with the house that the seller knows about—but is not required by law to disclose—it can be helpful to ask point-blank: Are there any potential hassles with this house? You might find out about problems ahead of time and be able to negotiate repair costs. Of course, you should still get a comprehensive inspection before buying the house since there might be issues the seller doesn’t know about or won’t willingly share.

While disclosure rules vary from state to state, home sellers generally must tell you about any current problems with the property—but they don’t have to tell you about any past problems that have been corrected. If it’s already fixed, why is it important to know? Because it might lead to another problem in the future.

A leaky roof might have been repaired, for example—but what was done about the water that ended up in the attic? Ask if the seller has had to fix any problems with the house, and how well the solution worked. It’s also helpful to find out who did the work in case there is a similar problem in the future.

Ask about the age and condition of key components of the house so you are prepared for any big expenses you could be facing. Start with the roof: newer ones may last anywhere from 15 to 50 years, depending on the roofing material. An asphalt roof lasts about 15 to 20 years, so if it’s already 15 years old, you might be looking at a fairly immediate large expense. Also ask about the heating and cooling systems, appliances, water heater, septic, plumbing, and electrical systems.

Bad renovations, sketchy plumbing, and mediocre construction can end up costing you both financially and emotionally—and even in terms of your health. It’s important to ask if any major repairs and renovations have been done to the home and who did them: was it a licensed contractor or a DIY project?

See whether the seller can produce a building permit for repairs and renovations that require one. Such improvements include any structural additions, installing a new roof, adding/relocating electrical outlets, adding/relocating plumbing fixtures, and installing/replacing an HVAC (heating, venting, and air conditioning) system.

If the seller doesn't have the building permits (perhaps the work was done by an earlier owner), double-check with the local building department, usually through the county or city authorities.

If a permit should have been issued—but wasn’t—the building official may have the authority to force the current owner (which could be you, if you buy the house) to obtain the permit and satisfy the current code requirements. This could turn into a very costly project.

This question might put the seller on the spot, or seem a touch personal. But it can get the person talking about the home, neighborhood, and community. You might learn something positive that you might not have known otherwise—the tight-knit community, the short walk to the library, the way the sun shines through the living-room windows in the afternoon, the low heating bills, or the wildflowers that grow in the summer on the hill behind the house.

Listing and marketing materials include lots of details about a house (the number of bedrooms and baths, and the square footage, for example) and the showing lets you see it firsthand. But talking to the seller can help you learn exactly what you could be getting into. If you have difficulty being able to connect with the seller, try to get some of these questions answered through your real estate agent.

3 Questions for Kevin McClure on ‘The Caring University’

When I wrote a post asking about scholars studying the university as a workplace, the responses I received all pointed me to Kevin McClure. Kevin, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, is working on a book for Johns Hopkins University Press called The Caring University: Reimagining the Higher Education Workplace After the Great Resignation.

Q: Tell us about the book you are writing. What are some of the themes you will explore?

A: The Caring University explores how they can reimagine the higher education workplace through the collective, proactive, ongoing pursuit of organization-level changes. The Great Resignation swept through higher education like wildfire, partly because colleges and universities have a poor track record of prioritizing employee well-being. This reputation for overlooking the employee experience was dry kindling for a higher education labor force whose pandemic experiences sparked new expectations of employers and workplaces. Workers are less willing to blame themselves for an inability to cope or rise above obstacles, instead feeling emboldened to ask how institutions are supporting them.

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The main argument of the book is that many of the problems of the higher education workplace are baked into the cultures and structures of colleges and universities at an organizational level. They reflect workplace norms around professionalism, values related to decision-making and beliefs about strategies worthy of investment. Problems become codified in the structures of organizations through policies and widely accepted practices that govern everyday working conditions, such as workload, hours, compensation, promotion and leave. If institutions are going to effectively serve students, meet contemporary and future challenges, and achieve lofty goals, they can’t lean on self-care or replacing disaffected employees. They need to address the cultures and structures that gave people reason to re-evaluate, resist and resign.

It is easy for books to proclaim the need for organizational change but harder to answer: Organizational change towards what? And how? In the book I detail and exemplify six organization-level changes that are designed to address both organizational cultures and structures: making the employee experience a strategic priority; creating working cultures and conditions for real (not ideal) workers; committing to professional growth and fair compensation; pursuing structural change for diversity, equity and inclusion; encouraging shared governance and collective action; and preparing leaders for the caring university. I draw on theories of organizational change in higher education to develop approaches under each of these changes that foster collaboration, build on existing expertise and promote organizational learning. And I make heavy use of narratives and examples so that it’s a research-based but readable resource.

The book’s central message for leaders isn’t “make employees happy or they’ll quit.” Rather, I show how paying attention to the employee experience, correcting problematic norms, investing in people and generally taking the well-being of staff and faculty seriously is the stuff of effective organizations. If you want to Improve student success, demonstrate the value of higher education and unleash innovation, it all comes back to the conditions you set for employees.

Q: Where do scholars who study the university as a workplace congregate? What conferences do you attend, journals do you read and academic/professional associations do you participate in?

A: There is a strange belief that crops up from time to time that colleges and universities have not been subjected to scholarly analysis. This is simply untrue. A half century of organizational theory was built on the study of colleges and universities. Faculty from a wide array of disciplines have been studying academic culture for a century or more. The field of higher education and student affairs has almost single-handedly developed their understanding of the staff experience in higher education. This book is something of a love letter to my colleagues who have dedicated their lives to advancing their understanding of postsecondary education. It’s not an understatement to say the book wouldn’t exist without their labor.

If a reader wants to dive into this research, there’s no shortage of associations, journals and conferences. The Association for the Study of Higher Education, American Educational Research Association, Council for the Study of Community Colleges, ACPA-College Student Educators International and National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) are examples of national organizations. All of these operate scholarly journals that publish empirical research, including studies of the university as a workplace. Many of the “functional areas” of university life—from financial aid to fraternities and sororities and faculty development—also have their own associations, events and sometimes journals. I usually tell my students—and remind myself—that the likelihood that something in higher education hasn’t been studied is low. They may not always have definitive answers, but that’s life. They need to do their homework and read.

What I’m proposing here is that there is a lot of knowledge out there about higher education. Before a leader emails a consultant or reads Scott Galloway, they might poke around their own institution’s library or employee directory—chances are, they have in-house resources and experts. And the book tries to make the case that some of the changes to bring about the caring university are not new or radical. It’s often about taking stock of the strengths of organizations, empowering employees and putting into practice what they already know employees—and students—need.

Q: Where would you like to see other scholars who study the university as a workplace focus their research? What are some of the big questions around the intersection of higher education and employment that are getting too little scholarly attention?

A: Despite all the research I just noted, their data around higher education workers and their experience is fragmented and incomplete. Of the few national data sets on staff and faculty, most only provide a general picture of rank or salary. Some of the data is paywalled. Some of it uses outdated and exclusionary categories related to identities. Institutions don’t help much on this front. They often barely have enough staff to keep up with mandatory reporting. They might run an employee engagement survey every couple of years, but then some struggle to act on the data. When the Great Resignation hit higher education, many institutions didn’t have infrastructure in place to understand the employee experience. All that’s to say, there’s a space for improving data on higher education workers.

There are parts of the higher education labor force that haven’t been extensively studied. I’m thinking, in particular, about staff who aren’t in student affairs—they might be administrative support professionals or business managers or registrars. We’re talking about a lot of people who are central to the operations of colleges and universities whose voices are often overlooked. In my interviews with these staff members, I have repeatedly heard about the effects of budget cuts, downsizing, centralization and understaffing. An important question that’s emerged from these interviews is what level of staffing is sufficient in order to effectively—and humanely—run a college or university? My research points to many situations in which offices are simply too thinly staffed to meet expectations. It’s not good for students, it’s not good for institutional efficiency, it’s not good for risk management. There are ripple effects for organizational performance, and I’m not always sure leaders realize that.

Something I’m hoping to write about soon—and I welcome readers’ thoughts on this topic—is how to pursue organizational change from “middle management” positions. One of the most frequent questions I have received while doing this work goes something like this: “I’m a unit manager, and my supervisees are struggling. I’m trying to advocate for changes, but I’m hitting a wall with the leaders above me.” That wall might be barriers created by the organizational cultures and structures, or it might be a leader who just doesn’t see workplace problems because they’ve been privileged enough to avoid them. That’s a really frustrating space to be in, and I suspect that the inability to support supervisees and hitting that wall with leaders has pushed a number of talented emerging leaders away from higher education. Or it gives them reason to wonder if they want to advance into senior leadership, which is itself another big research syllabu that will need their attention.

In an effort to bring some semblance of order to this response, I’ll offer my perspective that I think their understanding of workplace problems in higher education is more developed than their sense of what strategies work or are worth exploring. In the book, I speak to both problems and solutions, but I often have to work much harder to find examples of good ideas in practice. There’s space for more detailed case studies of promising programs, evaluations of initiatives and analyses of leadership approaches. They need good ideas and they need platforms to amplify effective practices. One of my soapbox Topics is that funders have demonstrated very little interest in financially supporting work focused on the well-being of staff and faculty.

There’s plenty of work to do, both in research and practice. There are many talented scholars and practitioners who are working hard to create a better higher education workplace. Hopefully, my book helps to shine a light on their contributions. But in many ways, the enthusiasm I saw from leaders about supporting employee well-being has waned. Change needs champions, and we’re going to need leaders and donors to step up and see how working conditions, organizational performance and outcomes are all intertwined.

KEEPING IT REAL — ROUND ONE!