Termite Letters and Bonds with Alex Newton of Northwest Exterminating
-This is a transcript from Go Gaddis Radio to listen to the episode click here-> https://on.soundcloud.com/ezbUU
Welcome back to Go Gatis Real Estate Radio right here on AM nine 20, the Answer. I'm Cleve Gatis and I appreciate you sticking with us through the break this segment. Termite letters and termite bonds. What is a termite, first of all, and do you need a termite bond if you live in the state of Georgia?
And what are the benefits to buyers for having a termite bond? And also what are the benefits to sellers for having a termite bond? If you want to connect with us, don't forget, we love to connect with our listeners and it is easy. Go to go gatis radio.com. That's go. G A D D I S radio.com. You can ask questions, you can make comments, you can push back or challenge anything we say.
You can share ideas. With us, you can request your neighborhood be featured in our neighborhood spotlight, and you can subscribe to our podcast. Without further ado, I want to introduce Alex Newton, our uh, reoccurring special guest from Northwest Exterminating. I guess we should just call you the Bugman.
Yes, sir. Nice to see you again, Cleve. Always pleasure. It is always good to have you. And then we have a new gentleman, Ethan Venable. Uh, am I saying your last name correct. Ethan, you sure are? Yes, sir. Awesome, Ethan. Welcome aboard. And I understand. That over the next few weeks you're going to turn into Alex when it comes to this radio show and you're gonna come back and be our expert advisor.
Is that correct? That's correct. Good Lord will, I'll be back with you and, and kind of take his place over the next few weeks. Ah, sounds good. Well, you got big shoes to fill. You got big shoes to fill. Alex, Alex is a great guy. So let's do this. Let's talk termites for just a second. So when I think of termites, I think of an ant with wings and uh, I think they're, they're all over the place.
I know they're all outside, but let's just give a little education. What is a termite and why are termites specifically a problem in Georgia? And I'm gonna say, why are they more of a problem in Georgia than they are in many, many states? In some states, like I, when I was in Illinois, nobody heard of a termite.
Yeah. And, and you're not far off it. It is. Um, it. It's almost like an ant. So there are little tiny differences. You, you can look at the antennas, you can look at the body segments. Okay. And you can also look at the shape of the wings. Um, but a termite is a, uh, wood destroying organism that we, we deem that, um, that will destroy your home.
Uh, piles of wood that you have out in the, uh, the lawn. Totally. Whatever. It's, that is their food. Right? Um, hey, real quick, just real quick. I've never had any termite damage in my own home, but as I was growing up, or actually after I had already left my mother's home, she, they found termites in the wall between the laundry room and the kitchen.
And they ate that whole wall. They even ate the glue off the wallpaper, it looked like, I mean, little tunnels off the back of the wallpaper and it was amazing. Now she had a bond in place. It wasn't with Northwest at the time. It was a long time ago. She had a bond in place. They came in, they made all of the repairs and put things back in place.
So my. Idea for whether or not you need termite protection in Georgia is it is not a matter of whether or not you will have problems with termites. It's really a matter of when, because they are there and they will get. Into your home. Quick question. When you come out and do a termite inspection on a home, I think that you're looking for one thing in particular.
Uh, but I would love for you to share with us. When you come out and do a termite inspection, you're looking at all the baseboards, you're looking at all around the base of the house. You're looking at all of the, um, where wood comes in, contact with ground, all kinds of stuff like that. And you're looking for something in particular.
What, what is that? Uh, so when we come out, we are looking for, um, any damage that's been done. We're looking for, uh, tunnels that they've created. So you're right, we're looking at the baseboards. Yep. We're looking at crawl space. We're looking at any earth wood contact. May not be a deck, may not be fences.
Uh, may not be just a wood pile next to the house. Uh, we're looking at all your, uh, plumbing and your voids. Um, so, and we, and we're looking, main thing we're looking for is the damage that they're doing. Yep. And we're looking for tunnels that they leave behind. Yep. I, I it, in fact, I decided when I saw Alex come back to my place last time and do a termite inspection, Provided I don't have to go in a crawlspace or any kind of yucky spaces.
I am qualified to be a termite inspector cause I can identify a termite tunnel when I see one. Now, real quickly, Ethan, why do termites have tunnels? Uh, so termite needs moisture. Okay. From the ground. Okay. They, so they're building those tunnels up from the foundation to your wood, and they're drawing the moisture from the ground so they can lay it.
So they dry out awful fast. If they don't have, uh, something that keeps them, uh, keeps them wet. If you've just joined us, you're listening to Go Gatis Real Estate Radio right here on AM nine 20. The Answer. I'm joined on the line this morning by Alex Newton and Ethan Venable, both with Northwest Exterminating, who you know if you're a listener, is our preferred exterminating company right here in Metro Atlanta.
Question for you, both of you, either one of you, should a seller obtain a termite letter. On their home before they list it. So a little update for listeners. In the past, all homes that had mortgages in place, the lender would require a termite letter. Uh, over the last 10, 15 years, however long it was, conventional lenders actually removed the requirement for having a termite letter VA loans.
FHA loans still require a termite letter. And so, uh, in, in the past, all sellers had to provide a termite letter, but today they don't, and most of them do not. What are your thoughts on whether or not it makes sense for a seller, someone selling their home here in metro Atlanta to get a termite letter in advance of listing the home?
Well, you know, you've, you've got the stipulation where if you know about it, you gotta fix it. Yeah. So I think that as a seller, It's gonna be more, it's up to the seller. Right. Um, I think that a lot of the times it's really the, the problems are gonna fall on the buyer. Mm-hmm. Um, so it's not necessary that a seller gets a letter Yep.
Or has any sort of inspection, but it's always the best practice. So, so let me ask this, Alex, if you and Ethan, let me, let me direct this to Ethan. Ethan, if you were out buying a home and you decided, boy, this is the house. I wanna make an offer on this, and let's just say, That as you got ready to prepare your offer package, the listing agent sent you maybe a home inspection that had already been done on the home.
Maybe they sent you a copy of a termite letter that either showed it was free and clear, or maybe there was some damage that had already been taken care of, and then maybe they sent you a survey and maybe they sent you a list of things the seller loved most about the house. Wouldn't that make you more comfortable to move forward in putting an offer on that house?
Absolutely, especially since I've been in, you know, the pest control business for a while. That's the first thing I wanna know. I wanna know if there's any, uh, previous damage, what kind of bonds you have in place, and then really those termite letters that we write aren't just for termites. They're wood infestation reports.
So, You know, I'm looking at mold, I'm looking at fungus, I'm looking at beetles. So those are like the big things that I, I would look at when I'm buying home. You know, I forgot that it has been so long, uh, ago we purchased a home somewhere in Decatur, and it had powder post beetles. They had to like tent the house.
Oh, yeah. And, and fumigated it. Unless, by the way, if you're listening, let's hope you don't have any powder post beetles in your home. But they're checking for all kinds of things. And so I think it's the opinion of the people at Northwest Exterminating, which makes good sense for that to be their opinion that everybody should get a termite letter before they sell.
But me as a real estate professional, I think as a seller, you need to know as much as you can know about your home. Yes, will you uncover some problems along the way that you might have to fix? Yes, but the buyer's gonna uncover them anyway if you don't in the first place. So as a seller, I believe you should offer a termite bond coverage.
If you have termite bond, offer it to the buyer. Transfer it to the buyer. There are several different types of coverage. Would you talk to us about the types of coverage and then the warranty that goes along with it? Absolutely. Yeah. So go ahead. What were you saying? No, no, that's it. I was, I was finished.
So the, the coverage that we are offering, you've got two different kinds. You have the repair, right, which is the golden, you know, warranty. Okay. You have, uh, retreat only, which is usually offered on homes where there's too many conducive conditions, too much damage. Previous, uh, too much active termite, right?
Depends. So that's always gonna be up to the discretion of the, uh, inspector. Yeah. Um, now we did have a, a slight change in our contracts. For the repair warranties. Um, if you are doing a liquid treatment, which some people still do, um, that treatment is only gonna cover the subterranean termite, okay. Um, it will not cover repairs for any sort of, For Moosa Termite, which is slowly making its way from Florida to Georgia.
Okay, now wait a minute. So if you do liquid treatment, you might not have coverage for a particular type of termite. What about if you do the cent con or one of the, the baiting stations that goes in the ground? Yeah, so Cinon will cover all of them really. So Cinon is proving to be one of the best treatments you can get on the market.
Okay. Um, and a lot of companies are just putting everything they have behind it because it does a really good job. So what I have at my house for, for absolutely, for sure. Um, so, um, real quickly, how often, if you have liquid treatments, how often does your house get inspected? And if you have. Uh, baiting stations.
How often does your house get it? How, how often does your home get inspected for termites? Uh, so for liquid, we come out once a year. Okay. We check everything. Uh, cinon would be the same thing. We come out, we inspect once a year, but we're also inspecting those bait stations that we have around the cinon around.
So we're checking 'em, checking for any damage, see if the termites have eaten 'em right. See if there's any moisture damage to 'em, and then replacing the ones that need to be replaced. Got it. And so it, in the past, those baiting stations didn't really have any insecticide in them. Uh, but I, but I understand today they do.
So if, if termites come into the baiting station, then they'll be taking the, the poison, if you will, back to the rest of the uh, well, they'll be sharing it with their buddies. That's right. That's it. Yeah. That's exactly how it's designed to work. You want 'em to live long enough for them to bring it back to the colony.
I call the sentricon baiting system, a colony elimination system. So it, it wipes 'em out on your property. Nice, nice, nice, nice. So re-treatment only, re-treatment and repair. Retreatment and repair can be for the sentricon. It'll cover every kind of termite that is absolutely possible, uh, for your property to have.
I really appreciate you guys joining me for this segment of the show. Alex, it has been a pleasure for me to have you on as a guest on this show. I think we've been doing it now, maybe a couple of years, and it has been my pleasure and Ethan. Um, Alex passes that baton to you and we will have you back over and over again, and we will keep people here in metro Atlanta educated with exactly what's going on in, um, termite treatments and, and, and mice in your attic and everything.
And I know Northwest, by the way, is big and going green. So if you want to have a green alternative, like for example, that's why I have Sentricon stations at my house because I want it to be green. We're gonna take a quick break when we come back. House flipping, is it right? For you. Some theme. Some theme.
Some seem to think that the government is to blame for our current high housing prices. We're gonna discuss those subjects and more. Stick with us. We'll be back.
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