If you are selling your home and live in a town like Weston, MA (or Wayland, Lincoln, Sudbury and parts of Needham), which has private sewerage, you will need to pass a Title V inspection of your septic system in order to sell your home.  So as soon as you know that you are going to be selling your home, call a Title V inspector to inspect your septic system so you can determine whether it passes or fails.  According to the website www.title-5.com, “The average cost of an inspection is between $400 to $550, … which depends upon how much digging is needed to locate the components. Some towns require septic pumping at the time of inspection. The cost of pumping a septic tank is between $150 to $250 depending on how many gallons are pumped out.”  Sometimes there are also nominal town charges as well.  And interestingly, your septic system is not defined by the number of bathrooms in your home but the number of bedrooms, and so it would be referred to as a four-bedroom septic system not as a four-bathroom septic system.

Generally prior to the inspection, your Title V inspector will go to the town and get the files on the property’s septic system and use that information during the inspection.  If the system passes, you breathe a sigh of relief…and take solace in the fact that the inspection is “good” for two years.  In fact, if you pump it once a year for those two years, the inspection will actually be good for one more year.  So let’s say that you passed your Title V Inspection on March 30, 2009, and you put your house on the market on April 1st of that year, and after six months on the market, it still hadn’t sold.  And so you decided to take it off the market for a while….  In fact, you didn’t put your house back on the market until April 2011, but in the meantime, in March 2010 and 2011 you pumped your system, and so great news for you – your Title V now passes until March 2012.  This is all good…..

Now let’s go to the not-so-good scenario.  Let’s say your septic system fails its Title V inspection.  If that’s the case, you first need to hire a septic designer/engineer to do a perc test of your land.  S/he will come to your property with the town’s Board of Health officials, and together they will determine the capacity and location of your new system through on-site soil testing.  From those results, your septic engineer will design a new septic system and once the town approves the plan, you can install your new septic system.  After the system has been installed, you will receive a certificate of compliance from the town, and at that point, your Title V will be good for two years.  And if you pump it during the third year, the Title V will be good for three years.

So let’s say that your house is on the market, and you’ve just found out that your septic system has failed its Title V inspection.  And it’s December 29, and the ground is completely frozen.  The next day, a buyer walks into your home, falls in love and wants to close on the property in 30 days. Wow.  This is great…but obviously your new septic system won’t be installed as the ground won’t have thawed in 30 days.  What do you do?  In most cases, you would get three estimates from spectic installers, and then you and the buyer would decide which estimate to use (usually it’s not the high or the low estimate but the one in the middle).   And then at the time of the closing, you would put 1 1/2 times the cost of the septic system into an escrow account.  This way, the installation of the septic system doesn’t become the buyer’s financial responsibility, especially since they are the ones living on the property and have to live through the often-yucky and muddy installation process.

Septic systems cost anywhere from $15,000 – $75,000, and once installed they typically last from 20-40 years.  That being said, cesspools and original systems, which have been in place since the house was built, can still pass their Title V inspection despite being 50 or 60 years old.  I see it often…so you just never know.

All this being said, I am not the private sewerage expert – nor am I the Title V expert.  To get expert information, please click here for a list of answers to frequently-asked questions.  And as my last disclaimer, this information is based on the way Title V generally operates in Weston, MA.  With regard to other towns in Massachusetts, please go to your Town’s Board of Health Department for up-to-date and essential details and information.

So I am curious to hear whether you have ever had to deal with Title V issues.   I certainly hope that your septic system has never failed its Title V inspection – though I would love to hear any Title V experiences you’ve had – good or bad….

So two days ago, I told you about our fun excursion on the Boston Duck Tours, specifically on “Longfellow Bridget.”  Well, our escapade today knocked my socks off – or more accurately blew my hat off given today’s windy weather.  The Freedom Trail Walk was amazing, and that’s an understatement.  After buying our tickets at the Visitor Information Bureau at 148 Tremont Street, we ventured across the street to the Boston Common, where we spotted our tour guide.  How could we miss him?  He was the only human within eye-shot wearing 18th Century garb.  We learned that his name was Jeremiah Poope, and he is pictured below.  Can you imagine having that as a last name?  Which then begs the question – is that his real name or is it his stage name?  And could someone in the 18th century have had Poope for a last name?  I am still pondering that myself…..

Anyway, I digress….  According to the Freedom Trail Foundation web site, the “Walk Into History public walking tour is a great way to experience the Freedom Trail. Led by an 18th Century Costumed Guide, the 90-minute tour mixes humor, history and fun. Be transported back in time to the days of the American Revolution and have a hands-on revolutionary experience.”  I couldn’t describe our experience any better…. Jeremiah Poope was a riot (hee, hee), and he gave us a great taste of the life in Boston hundreds of years ago – not to mention a ton of historical facts, events and silly tidbits.

Some of the highlights were visiting the Granary Burial Ground, hearing tales of the Puritan way and rules (including the stocks) as well as learning about the lives of Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, John Hancock and many other notable figures.  And Jeremiah set us straight on some of the historical inaccuracies that have been passed down from generation to generation, and he taught us some new facts as well.  For example, we learned that Samuel Adams was indeed a beer maker during his time, and yet the picture of the man on the Sam Adams beer label, which we all know and love, is not of Samuel Adams (I guess he was not much of a looker) but of Paul Revere.  We also learned that the amount of tea that the Revolutionaries threw into the Boston Harbor, the event that we know as the Boston Tea Party, was worth the equivalent of $1.7 million.  We also learned that it was not Paul Revere but Samuel Prescott who ultimately rode into Concord on the fateful night of April 18, 1775.  Paul Revere had gotten pulled over by the British after leaving Lexington and therefore could not continue his journey to Concord.  And did you know that there is a gilded gold grasshopper weathervane on the top of Faneuil Hall because Peter Faneuil, who financed the building of the famous hall, was obsessed with grasshoppers?  I certainly didn’t….

The entire Freedom Trail is 2 1/2 miles, but our walk just took us from the Boston Common to Faneuil Hall (pictured above), which was probably about 3/4 of a mile.  Tickets are $13 for adults, $11 for seniors/students and $7 for children.  And the most convenient parking – but maybe not the least expensive - is the Boston Common Garage, Zero Charles Street.  We parked there for between two and three hours, and it cost us $16.  This is a tour not to be missed; it was the most fun factual tour guide of Boston that I have ever been on.  Have you ever experienced the Freedom Trail Walk?  Did you love it too?  I can’t wait to hear….

I have lived in the Boston area for almost 14 years, and in all that time here, I have never gone on the Boston Duck Tours –  until today that is.  We have family in town from Wilmington, DE and Baltimore, MD, and what a better way to show them Boston than to take them on the Boston Duck Tours, which is basically a tour of downtown Boston – and parts of Cambridge and Charlestown too – on a “DUCK,” a World War II amphibious landing vehicle that travels on land and water.  The DUCK, or more accurately the military acronym DUKW, has the following designations:

• D is for designed in 1942
• U is for utility amphibious cargo carrying vehicle
• K signifies front wheel drive
• W signifies double rear axle drive

The fleet of vehicles includes both World War II archives and modern replicas, which can hold more people and are much more currently manufactured – all good.  The Boston Duck Tour is called one of “Freedom, Fun and Firsts.”  Freedom as Boston is where our fight for freedom first began in the 1770s, Fun because you are on an amphibious vehicle traveling the streets and waters of Boston, and Firsts because Boston is the city that is famous for many firsts, including the first public school, Boston Latin (1635), and the first subway (1897).   Adult tickets are $32, and children are $22 (with some variations on rates depending on ages and quantity of adults and children), and the tours are roughly 80 minutes and leave every 30 minutes.

We boarded our DUCK, which was the “Longfellow Bridget” pictured above, at the Prudential Center, and our tour guide was Captain Mack.  Here we are just before boarding the vehicle.  I’ve also included a photo of my daughter driving the vehicle on the Charles.  My niece and nephew drove the boat as well.  We learned so many interesting and fun facts about the history of Boston and Boston in general.  I would recommend the tour to anyone who is visiting Boston – and even those, like me, who have lived here for years and never stepped foot on a DUCK.

Have you ever been on the Boston Duck Tours?  Did you love it as much as we did?  I can’t wait to hear…..

The question I seem to get from my clients is, “What is the best comparative (comp) to this property?”  It comes from both buyers and sellers.  The buyers are asking about the home they may potentially buy, and they want to know the price of the same kind of home (a comp) that has sold in the last six months.  This will give them valuable information about what to offer and ultimately pay for the home they are planning to pursue.  The sellers are asking about the house in which they live – this will give them a reasonable expectation about the fair market value for their house.  The problem is that in Weston – and in many of the other surrounding towns – there is not usually such a thing as a true comp….

But before we get to that, let’s look at the comparative process and how to value your home.  The first step is to identify the solds in the approximate price range of your home.  (If you’re not sure of the approximate price range, use your assessed value as a starting point.)  Then find the home(s) most similar to yours and compare them based on the style of the house (Colonial, Cape, Contemporary,  Antique), neighborhood/location, condition, living area of home, size and usability of land – those are the big differentiators. As you go through this process, you’ll see that it’s extremely difficult to have two homes or more match up similarly to yours based on these criteria.  

In Weston, for example, most of the properties weren’t built through a residential development process and the majority of them were built between the 1950s and 1970s as Weston was growing, and so the homes and neighborhoods aren’t “cookie cutter,” for lack of a better word.  In fact, they are the complete opposite.  As my father said when he first came to Weston, “the homes here are very eclectic.”  In other words, there isn’t uniformity within a neighborhood – or even the town in general, for that matter. And so even your next door neighbor’s home may not be a comp – in fact, in Weston, 99% of the time it won’t be.

Let’s use two different properties to further illustrate my point – Property A and Property B, which are next door to one another.  Property A has a level lot with nice-sized, proportional front and back yards, while Property B has a similar front yard, but the back yard drops off to such a degree that it is basically not usable.  And so the location would be considered the same, but the land usability is completely different.  To complicate matters (for the sake of our comparative analysis), Property A’s lot size is only .5 acres, and Property B’s lot size is 2.5 acres.  The differences get even greater given that Property A is a Contemporary and Property B is a Colonial.  Just right there, two houses side by side are completely different with regard to the land and the style of home.  And so the big question becomes how do you value both houses?

From a land perspective, I think most of us would put a higher value on Property A because of the land usability.  But how much more would we value that?  Is Property A $5,000 more valuable than Property B or $50,000 more valuable.  And to further confuse matters, what if there was a buyer who valued his privacy more than anything and was willing to pay more for a property that had more than 2 acres and didn’t care a hoot about the land’s usability.  If this were the case, that buyer might pay $50,000 more for Property B.  

In terms of the style of home, most of us – at least in New England – would prefer Property B’s Colonial to Property A’s Contemporary.  But again, how would you quantify that difference?  Does that make Property B $5,000 or $10,000 more valuable?  And to buyers who prefer contemporaries, they would put more of a value on Property A’s style of home despite the fact that Property B’s style of home is not as appealing and doesn’t therefore sell as well in New England.

So you can see how complicated the comparative process can be.  I contend that these differences can’t necessarily be quantified – not to mention that what a buyer is willing to pay for a particular home given his or her preferences is purely subjective and can negate our beliefs regarding appeal and saleability of a home.  Appraisers would disagree as they are in the business of adding or subtracting a finite value based on a certain home’s differences to a sold property.  But in practice, as illustrated in the analysis of Property A and Property B, these differences can’t be quantified and come down to a matter of preference and subjectivity on the part of the buyers.  

What are your thoughts?  Have you ever seen a perfect comp to your house?  And what do you think of the comparative home/market analysis process? I can’t wait to hear….