Ready Set Sold with Bryan Vogt #40-01: Joe Harnist: When selling how to make sure you’re not in a flood zone;

Welcome to Ready Set Sold with your host Bryan Vogt. Are you wanting or even thinking about selling your house but don’t know what it starts good thing you found Ready Set Sold and now real estate broker Bryan Vogt.
Welcome to Ready Set Sold I am your host Bryan Vogt how are you doing happy Saturday thanks for joining us today hope you’re having a fantastic weekend I know I am mainly quite frankly it’s business-related the spring market has sprung and yes I know spring doesn’t happen till about three or four weeks down the road but the market is been amazing if you’re selling your home if you have friends that are you just mentioned it to you family members neighbors whoever this is the time to get your house in the market now we have not seen this type of market in years, in particular, the Metro East area I’m talking about O’Fallon Shiloh once the Edwards alum via Sky Force Base area I’m Mascoutah I mean the list goes on and on.
We just haven’t seen this and many sellers that even if you tried to put your house on the market last year maybe you just went off the market in November December you’ve heard me talk in the show many times before three months can make a big difference sometimes two months is 5050 things can change in one month well right now we’re in a situation where we have that two month or that three month window that things have dramatically changed so again if you’re considering even thinking about selling give us a call hopefully your agent has already talked to you about this they’ve got given up the good news if they haven’t well again maybe they’re not aware what’s going on the market and that may not be the agent that you want to use so you can always contact this at bryanvogt.com any time and we’ll get back with you and get you going and getting house on the market.
With that said let me dive into our expert today and our expert has 40 years plus of experience he started when he was three he was a child prodigy in insurance right Joe right absolutely I’m speaking of course with Joe Harnist who is the President of Harnist Insurance Company and he’s here to talk about something else is going on in the springtime and that is simply is the weather we have in our area can be just crazy I mean and Joe that has an effect on insurance selling of homes tell us more yeah Brian it’s always a fun time here for insurance agents is in the spring because we always look forward to you know the storms and the wind and the hail and those type of things.
But just kind of a preparedness issue you know we like to talk to people about you know with the heavy rains that we’ve had lately you know to make sure your gutters and your downspouts are cleaned out and you want to keep that water away from your foundation so that you don’t have problems in your basement or your crawlspace check your sump pumps make sure they’re operating properly make sure all the connections are good on the pipes leading out we actually had with the recent rains we actually had two issues with different clients on backups one where the pipe leading outside actually separated and the sump pump was pumping the water back into the basement so that was pretty exciting but yeah and luckily and actually you know not luckily it’s something we always recommend is adding sewer backup coverage on to a homeowner’s
Policy.
It doesn’t come with that when you buy just a basic policy it has to be put on there by endorsement and you can buy different levels of coverage you know five thousand ten thousand fifteen twenty you know on up depending on what your needs are whether you have a finished basement or you don’t have a finished basement you know you may need to just have enough coverage on there to cover your furnace and your water heater because you got to figure you know if your furnace and your water heaters in your basement and you have a sewer backup and it gets deep enough to get into the furnace and water heater well they’re shot so you’re going to have to replace them so you’re going to need that coverage so even though you say well I don’t have a finished basement why do I need sewer backup if it backs up it’ll drain out or I’ll just pump it out and it’ll be fine.
Well you’ve still got stuff down there that can get damaged and if you’re storing things down there you know the personal property can get damages as well so and it’s just not a good thing I mean we’ve just a kind of break in there speaking with Joe Harnist President of Harnist
Insurance and you brought it up a couple points that maybe we want to go back to that I think are important number one even if it’s unfinished and we’ve known of a situation where solar put their house on the market doesn’t happen every day but that situation came up to play and quite frankly I don’t think people hopefully they did not experience it but the smell it comes out there is not a good thing so I mentioned unfinished basement.
I think that’s important whether or not you have your storage areas wherever they’re at I think that’s important so that’s a great point on your part because it’s not enjoy you know this better than I mean those are not fun things this is actually sewage coming back to you right yeah it’s backing up out of out of the sewer line that’s in your basement or you know usually the sump pump if that overflows that’s fresh water because that’s just pumping groundwater out so it doesn’t seep into your basement but if you actually have a physical backup through the sewer system yeah that is raw sewage and either way water is a bad thing on houses you know you get the mold and the mildew and all that can develop within a day or two depending on the temperature and everything else and that’s something we do we work very closely with restoration companies.
And we get them on the site as quickly as possible to try to remediate you know that mold and everything and get the dehumidifiers going and the blowers and get everything dry it out pull the carpet back rip out the padding you know there are all kinds of things that they do but you got to get on that quickly otherwise you’re going to have more issues and you really want to deal with school I think the point to is isn’t just a follow up on that show is that you know luckily we’ve not had to happen but I’ve heard stories in the past doesn’t happen often but it does happen where people have listed their home and that problem did happen and so now they don’t have that type of coverage and they have a finished basement and now we’re talking lucu monies and that can create real problem.
So I think that’s that needs to be pointed out and I think the other part is I like to kind of follow up on if I could is we get this question all the time we’re listing a house and on the Illinois real property disclosure residential property disclosure it has on there are you in a flood pain plane okay so maybe you talk to our listeners what exactly is a flood plain or what-have-you how do they know we usually have a pretty good idea but give us your expert opinion on how do sellers know if they basically have flood insurance or not normally if they’re going to have a mortgage.
The mortgage company is going to demand the flood insurance coverage on their if you know if you’re in a hazard zone flood hazard zone they’re most likely going to require that you have flood coverage you can you can buy flood coverage no matter where you live they have a there’s a preferred program and it’s reasonably inexpensive because you have to realize that just because you don’t live by a river or near a lake or anything that there’s going to be an issue with flood because a flood can be from water from any source it doesn’t have to come from a lake or a creek it could be all the storm drains in the street or golf a group with leaves and we have a torrential downpour I think they had 10 inches somewhere in the country the other day you know 10 inches of rain and if all the storm drains are plugged up from debris and that water builds up and starts flooding and starts pouring through your basement windows and things that could possibly be a flood issue even though you don’t live in a hazard zone.
So that’s an excellent point so I guess my question would be is people have to take another there’s another policy or something so if it’s not something that they’re paying separately that’s how they would know for sure that they do or don’t have the flood insurance right yeah the flood insurance is actually written through the National Flood Insurance Program and it and it is written as a separate policy from your homeowners you cannot add flood coverage on your homeowners policy has an endorsement per se that’s it’s written a separate policy so awesome.
Hey we’re running out of time for this segment I’ve been talking with Joe Harnist the President of Harnist Insurance 40 years of experience not only a good friend but just a great agent that knows his stuff we’re going to be coming back I’m talking more with Joe about insurance and how that affects not only the home sale or the home buyers while we have a little bit more time I would just want to let you know that the book that I wrote Ready Set Sold twelve proven steps to get your home sold without Tower and fast sale is available if you go to readysetsold.org not .com pick up the book again this spring market is going to be what already is amazing but it’s going to get even better so if you need that information which many people do they love it it’s worked out for so many people the other ready set so that organ attack time pick up the book right now be back in a few.