If you were in the market to buy a used car you’d probably go to CarFax.com and buy a report that would tell you a variety of facts about the car so that you could make an informed buying decision.  You’d pay anywhere from $20.00 to $39.99 for the report and would consider that a very good deal!

If you are buying a home in California, chances are very good that you are going to have the home inspected by qualified inspectors so that you don’t end up buying a home with a bunch of hidden defects.  Those inspections add up to hundreds of dollars, and can easily top a thousand dollars depending on how many different inspections you order!  And, you’d probably consider having them a good deal too.

But, when it comes to learning about some of the other issues a house may have you are left with relying on seller disclosures.  Things like previous fire, water, pest and other forms of damage can be discovered in a public records search, buy typically no one actually does this.

And we have all heard the horror stories of sellers who “forgot” to disclose something.

So that is why I was delighted to find HomeTrackr.  If you go to their website http://hometrackr.com you’ll find that they offer a FREE report that looks at 8 sources to obtain and compile a report on the home. They are:

FIRE DAMAGE – Fire can seriously damage a home. If the home has history of fire, we will uncover it.

WATER DAMAGE – Find out if a property has been a victim of water damage or a flood.

PEST DAMAGE – Termites do more damage nationwide than fires and floods combined.

MAINTENANCE ALERTS – Know what items to be on the look out for before you buy.

HOME VALUE – HomeTrackr gives you home values from the leading industry sources in one place.

PERMIT RECORDS – Permits can reveal if past owners did their projects above board or under the table!

INSPECTIONS – If permits were pulled, were all the inspections complete?

CONTRACTORS – We tell you who has previously worked on a home, their contact information and consumer ratings if available.

Using it is simple.  Just go to their website, fill in the address of the property you are curious about, click on view report.  You are then asked to create an account  An email verifying your email address is sent.  Once you verify that you have given them the correct address you can login and see your report.

When I did it on my home it provided a completely accurate report on repairs and upgrades that were done, with a permit history and with info on the contractors who did the work.  All good to know!

There was an ad for Quicken Loans in the report, so that is how it is being paid for…I don’t know if HomeTRackr is affiliated with Quicken Loans or not.

At this point I think that HomeTrackr is a good tool to give your buyers to help them with peace of mind.  What do you think?