Get Involved!

Protect your business & your housing market and get involved!

On Thursday, April 10, in the Austin Board of REALTORS® Auditorium, at 12 P.M., Austin REALTORS® are sponsoring a City Council Candidates’ Forum and lunch. Please attend and express your opinions on the proposed ordinance regarding point of sale. This unique opportunity will allow our industry to ask questions of the candidates.

Austin homeowners will need your help to understand the reasons single family homeowners will be required to obtain a license from the city of Austin prior to selling their homes.

The City of Austin is introducing an ordinance to mandate energy efficiency retrofits for all types of properties in Austin, including single family owner-occupied homes.

They intend to enforce it at the point of sale. In other words, prior to the sale of any single family owner-occupied home, a certificate of compliance proving the required efficiency retrofits have been done must be done prior to closing.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU HOMEOWNERS

• Without a Certificate of Compliance filed of record prior to closing or at point of sale, a single family home cannot be legally sold in Austin.
• Delays in the time from escrow of a purchase agreement to closing due to the compliance and inspection process could exceed, by days or weeks, the typical 30 to 45 day time frame in a sales transaction today.
• Immediately upon the effective date of the ordinance, the city will have to implement methods and processes to meet the demand created by the sale of some 25,000 homes per year. That’s 25,000 inspections, assuming the first inspection results in the issuance of a certificate of compliance. City inspectors say that at least 50% of all inspections result in a subsequent inspection to correct problems found. That’s an additional 12,500 inspections, at a minimum, or some 37,500 new inspections in a typical year to determine if single family owner-occupied properties comply with the new proposed ordinance. Who will pay?
  Homeowners will bear the expense of retrofits to obtain the certificate of compliance. These expenses will vary from home to home, but the range could be anywhere from $1,500 to $10,000 per home.
• Expect delays in acquiring another home as homeowners scramble to comply with the new ordinance, especially if that homeowner needs to sell his or her existing home prior to closing on a new one.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO ME AS A REALTOR®

• Delays in almost all individual single family sales transaction processing times.
  A potentially devastating slow down in the entire marketing process of single family homes.
• A new Seller’s Disclosure Notice item which your client must address before selling or buying a new home, creating more risk for your professional liability
  This certificate of compliance is tantamount to the city requiring a license to sell a personal home.

For more information please contact the Governmental Affairs Department at government@abor.com .