Contrarian Boston/02.29.2024
Howie Carr among debt-laden MassGOP’s creditors | Conservative group wants Wu’s emails on controversial “Electeds of Color Holiday Party” | Cracking down on greedy home sellers | Steward stiffs another contractor | Markey looking to be a Senate lifer |
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Taking on a nasty pressure tactic: Forcing buyers to waive a home inspection before bidding would be a no-no under a new state proposal
Just when you think it can’t get any crazier to land a home in Greater Boston, something like this comes along.
As many as 80 percent of home buyers are waiving their right to a home inspection as they compete with other bidders for a limited number of available properties to buy, a a local home inspectors group tells Contrarian Boston.
Fed up, the regional chapter of the American Society of Home Inspectors, or ASHI, is teaming up with state Sen. Michael Moore on a proposal to put an end to the practice.
Real estate agents and home sellers would be barred from forcing home buyers to drop the home inspection contingency when making a bid on a home, under the bill sponsored by the Millbury Democrat.
The dangers facing homeowners who waive their right to a home inspection are especially acute in Central and Western Massachusetts. More than 2,000 homes have crumbling foundations, with the concrete used in the construction process contaminated in a Connecticut quarry with the mineral pyrrhotite.
The proposal is now in the Senate Ways and Means Committee, with Moore and the bill’s other sponsors waiting for an opportunity to advance it to the floor for a vote.
“You have to make these outrageous bids and you give up your right to a home inspection,” Moore said. “You could be financially destroying yourself.”
Jameson Malgeri, the president of the New England chapter of ASHI, said the problem of sellers and their agents demanding that bids not include the traditional home inspection contingency is a problem in the Boston area as well.
And the pressure on buyers to waive home inspections is the greatest when it comes to more moderately priced homes in the $300,000 to $500,000 range - homes that are most likely to have deferred maintenance or even more serious issues.
Think century-old electrical wiring, asbestos in the attic, or even lead in the water main.
“Those are the only homes the average person can afford and if you are a home inspector, you know those houses are in the worst condition,” Malgeri said.
The dinner controversy that just won’t die: Right-wing group targets Boston Mayor Michelle Wu over her “Electeds of Color Holiday Party'“
The mayor’s racially exclusive get together with minority elected officials at a city-owned mansion last December blew up in her face after a major snafu with the invitations.
The invites went out to everyone, including white members of the Boston City Council, triggering a national story that outraged conservatives and dismayed some moderates as well.
Now Judicial Watch, a conservative activist group, has taken the Wu administration to court in a bid to pry loose emails and other documents that surrounded the mayor’s holiday party planning.
The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit recently filed a lawsuit in Suffolk County Superior Court. City officials have failed to respond, as required by law, with its public records request, Judicial Watch contends.
The group is seeking all emails related to party planning and the invitation list from Wu, her chief of equity and inclusion, her chief people officer, her human resources chief, and her senior advisor, as well as two of her communications staffers.
And that’s just for starters. Judicial Watch also is requesting all emails from the Boston City Council related to the party, as well as “invoices, purchase orders, financial statements, agreements and contracts.”
Stay tuned.
Dumbest of the deadbeats: Former MassGOP chief stiffed Howie Carr as he rang up a mountain of unpaid bills
That would be Jim “Jones” Lyons, who all but bankrupted the state Republican party while leading it to a series of humiliating defeats, capped by the historically lopsided loss in the 2022 governor’s race.
Ousted in early 2023 as chair of the MassGOP, Lyons left behind a lot of unhappy political consultants and other vendors that he hired and never paid.
And among those left holding the bag was none other than Howie Carr, the long-time Boston Herald columnist, radio host, and conservative kingpin, according to state campaign records reviewed by Contrarian Boston.
Not exactly the kind of guy you want to piss off.
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