Episode 15 | PropertyLens Reveals: Boise Home's Shocking Secrets (Roof & Crime Alert!)
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In This Episode
Hosts: Bob Frady & John Siegman
Property: 1616 S Oakland Ave, Boise, ID 83706
Topics: roofinspection permitcheck crimeawareness insurancetips floodrisk
Episode Summary
Bob and John from PropertyLens scrutinize a Boise home intended for a college student, emphasizing the critical need for comprehensive pre-purchase due diligence. Their analysis reveals key concerns: a potentially 29-year-old roof with uncertain replacement history, unclosed construction permits that could lead to future expenses, a high concentration of registered sex offenders and elevated crime rates near the campus, and potential insurance challenges related to the roof's age. They delve into inspection recommendations, including specific checks for the basement, HVAC, and signs of forced entry. The hosts analyze the property's permit history, utility costs, environmental risks (including a nearby leaking underground storage tank and moderate radon levels), and flood risk. They highlight the value of a PropertyLens report in uncovering hidden issues, providing insights into ownership history, and empowering informed real estate decisions by revealing potential pitfalls and confirming a property's overall condition.
Key Takeaways
✅ Secure Insurance Before Buying
✅ Verify Roof Age and Condition
✅ Check Permit History
✅ Be Aware of Local Crime
Resources
🔹 Zillow
🔹 Try it: Propertylens.com
🔹 Questions Contact us: support@propertylens.com
Transcript
[00:00:00] Bob Frady: Well, hey everybody. It's that time of the week. It is time for PropertyLens presents, Property of the Week. For those of you who don't know, I am Bob Frady, Co-Founder of PropertyLens, and with me
[00:00:22] John Siegman: John Siegman, President and Co-Founder of PropertyLens.
[00:00:25] Bob Frady: John, where are we going today?
[00:00:27] John Siegman: We are looking at a property that one of our friends is in the process of buying for his son, who will be attending Boise State University and having to sit through many losses to the San Diego State Aztecs.
[00:00:44] Bob Frady: Yeah, we'll see about that. So here we are, beautiful 1616 South Oakland Avenue in Boise, Idaho. It is single family residential, you know, this is one thing that a lot of people overlook, when looking at homes is what's the use code of the land. And sometimes people are surprised to find out that it's not a single family residence, it's a condo or it's something or it's agricultural.
[00:01:08] That means something when you're buying a house, but this one, A OK, single family residence. It's two bedrooms, and doesn't report the number of bathrooms. I'm going to assume there's a bathroom in there somewhere, 928 square feet. And so now what happens when we generate this report is it reaches out to our 30 odd data sets that we manage and use and build, pulls them all together, presents the data, but also runs it through a series of AI and a series of rules to come up.
[00:01:42] Well, the questions that you should ask before you make an offer on this house. So John, the first set of questions we come up with is called the BuyerLens. You're thinking about buying this house. Here's the questions you should ask. What are some of the questions you should ask for this property?
[00:01:57] John Siegman: Well, some of the questions you should ask about this property, first of all, the roof.
[00:02:01] It looks great. However, you know, the best guess we can give you is 29 years of age. 29 years of age is probably either right at or close to the end of life for a shingle roof up in Idaho. And so if it looks great, but it's old, there's a question there. And the question is, has this roof ever been replaced?
[00:02:30] And if it has, why wasn't the permit old? Now it might be, you don't need one, you know, lots of rules, different places. They may have done it themselves. May have been done under some other permit, not necessarily called out, but that would be the first thing that you'd want to find out is. You know, the roof looks great.
[00:02:54] Could it really be 29 years old? Probably not. So let's find out about the roof.
[00:03:00] Bob Frady: Ask the seller. Our job is to tell you everything we can find, but also to turn that into questions to make sure that you uncover this before you make the offer. So if you're looking at this house, it's like, Hey, it's the roof been replaced?
[00:03:13] Cause it looks like it's in great shape. I'm 29 years old. Not the 29 year olds. Can't be in great shape. 29 year old roofs on the other hand, approaching the end of their life. All right, what do we get next?
[00:03:27] John Siegman: We have construction permits, three have been closed, two have been closed, one has not been closed.
[00:03:34] It may still be open. Need to find out about that because if you go to do any work that does require a permit, sometimes you end up closing permits that you don't know about that are still open because they just didn't take the last step, slowing down your project. You don't want that to happen. Get rid of these things.
[00:03:54] Upfront at it, taken care of. This is an interesting one. There are a lot of sex defenders in this neighborhood.
[00:04:02] Bob Frady: 24 within a half mile. Holy cow. This is like sex offender central.
[00:04:08] John Siegman: Kid going to college, probably not the biggest issue. Moving in with a small family, probably an issue. So, you know, they're registered.
[00:04:20] We know where they are. You should know where they are. Helps you in making the decision. Water heaters, you definitely want to check on when it was last replaced. We've got a permit that says a long time ago. They don't last that long. So somebody replaced it, may or may not have pulled a permit, may or may not have been required to.
[00:04:41] You want to find out about that. The furnace appears to be five years old. and that's thanks to the permit data. So first last 15, 20 years, not something you're going to have to normally concern yourself with, at least for the time being. The property has an unfinished basement. So lots of issues with basements, leaks and foundations and cracks and all of that good stuff.
[00:05:07] you definitely want to get it inspected. It is in a higher crime area, it is near the campus, campuses tend to have higher crime for the transient population and you know, plenty of people living in more densely packed areas. Stuff happens.
[00:05:26] Bob Frady: A lot of times it's stupid crimes, like my son lives in Santa Barbara at the university and one night this kid got drunk and decided to throw his bird scooter through my son's windshield.
[00:05:40] It's a crime, you know, but yet people go, it's a safe area, but it's still a lot of crime because there's a lot of stupid crime, especially around college campuses, a lot of petty burglaries, a lot of stuff like that. So there is high crime in this area. You want to make sure you get the ring cameras out or, you know, get a security system in place.
[00:05:58] John Siegman: A leaking underground storage tank identified nearby. No big deal, unless you've got, you know, you're pulling groundwater or you're gonna, you know, if you start shooting at something and up comes bubbling brood, it's not really bubbling brood, it's just seeping from an underground storage tank. No solar panels on this property.
[00:06:19] It would take a considerable time to get them paid back. Probably not a good option here.
[00:06:25] Bob Frady: Have you had frozen pipes in the past? All of this, you know, it's a combination of here's what's happened and we're not sure what happened. So let's ask these questions so you as the buyer can make sure what happened.
[00:06:36] So the second thing we have on our lovely list is what we call the InspectorLens. Now let's say you've made a decision to make an offer on a house and you want to get it inspected. Sometimes you have to waive the inspection contingency, but you still want the inspection. And sometimes you don't. So the inspector works for you, even though they're referred by the seller, usually, or the buyer's agent.
[00:06:59] They work for you. So what you do is you print out this list and you hand it to them and say, make sure you give these things once over so I know that these are, these are taken care of. So for example, we don't really know the life of this roof. We think it's 29 years because nothing else indicates that it's not.
[00:07:17] You got to check the roof on this house. Now that may be an extra cost. Maybe the inspector doesn't normally climb up on the roof, but you want to find out what the age of the roof is. You want to check and make sure that the construction permits have been closed. Like John said, you know, it can lead to more problems down the road or unexpected expenses down the road.
[00:07:35] Usually more of a pain in the neck kind of thing when a bill turns up for an unclosed permit. It says that furnace and HVAC was upgraded, probably the water heater was upgraded, but there's nothing to indicate it, so you want the inspector to check that, check the furnace, check the basement, check for signs of crime, are there jimmy marks on the door, look for any evidence of prior leaks from frozen pipes, and the underground storage tank, there's not a lot you can do about it.
[00:08:02] And then finally we have our InsuranceLens, and John, what does the InsuranceLens tell us?
[00:08:06] John Siegman: InsuranceLens tells us What an insurance company looks at when they determine your rate and what you can do about it and what you should, at least at a minimum, insure the property for. You saw our last episode with Todd Rissell from E2Value talking about replacement costs.
[00:08:23] This is one of the houses that falls into the 70% where the, or the 30%, one or the other, where the price of the property is significantly greater. Then the replacement cost. In this case, if you insure the property for the $429,000 or so that they're asking. You're definitely going to be covered should something really bad happen and you need to replace the property.
[00:08:49] I think it's 40% at least of properties in the U. S. are underinsured. You don't want to be that person. The property is 29 years old, which as we all know is new for New Hampshire, but is actually decently aged for Boise. but it's over 10, properties that are older have to, should something bad happen, get updated to code.
[00:09:14] That definitely costs more. It's in a high prime area. Prime, interestingly, is not typically taken into account. for a residential policy, but it is something that you should definitely be aware of. The more this is a commercial property, it would be taken into account. And then, you know, the roof again, back to the roof, there are insurance companies who will only insure a roof for replacement value up to the first 10 years.
[00:09:46] You need to know this, because somebody is going to ask the question when you go to insure the property.
[00:09:53] Bob Frady: You know, we've been seeing more and more stories. About even houses in this price range, insurance companies just saying no because the roof is too old. So one of the things you want to check out when looking at this is really get a handle on what that roof age is and be able to verify it.
[00:10:09] Because when you go to the insurance company, they look up tools like this that say, how old is this roof? And someone says 29 years or like, we're not going to insure it. Just too much risk. And so you want to make sure that either that roof gets replaced when you buy it or before you buy it or you prove that this roof has been updated in the past.
[00:10:28] Because insurance companies aren't joking around anymore. If you get an old roof, they're not going to insure it in many, many places. Okay, and we got the features and construction overview. You know, this is the stuff that you can see. On the multiple listing services and online, you've got public water, you don't have a pool, you do have a perimeter fence, modest fare, construction quality, and it's in Boise City.
[00:10:56] Here's the most recent listing detail for February 28th of 2025, which was just a couple weeks ago. It was listed for $379,000. We think the fair market value is probably somewhere around $340,000, but you know, it's not outrageous to ask for $379,000, there's a variation, there's a variability in there. And it tells you in here, it's got, you know, information about the property, that you might not see in some of the other data.
[00:11:29] Talk about ownership, what's it telling us here?
[00:11:34] John Siegman: Well, the ownership history is telling us it's not a flip. And so, you know, if you see a lot of activities 6, 12, even 18 months prior, that's something that you're going to want to bring up. So, I was looking up a friend's house down in Dallas and pointed out, Hmm, you know, your previous occupants were there for only like 8, 10 months.
[00:12:02] Was this a flip? And he's like, no, they got divorced.
[00:12:06] Bob Frady: Which is a flip of another kind.
[00:12:08] John Siegman: Yes, it's a flip of another kind. But the, but you want to know, because, you know, I'm not saying that all flips corners or, you know, might do unpermitted work. Maybe that's where the roof came from. Who knows, right?
[00:12:26] but those are things that you would definitely want to be alerted to. We definitely alert you to that. In this case, there's been long term ownership. It's not just, Buy it, use it, you know, make it look pretty and send it on its way. It's probably the original owner.
[00:12:45] Bob Frady: So, cause there's nothing to indicate that anybody else owned it since it was sold, since it was first built.
[00:12:52] Got property tax history. It looks like taxes actually went down a little bit, in 2023 for this location. I'm not sure how it reassesses when you buy a property in Boise. but if you notice from 5 years ago, taxes have gone up, about 20%. And that's something you want to keep an eye on because your mortgage might stay the same, but your insurance and tax costs can rise every year.
[00:13:19] Lovely, lovely place. Got some pictures. looks nice. It's got a little backyard. and then we look at the aerial imagery and the roof span data and the roof condition data. So here we show, to the best of our knowledge, from all the information that's available, this roof is probably original to the house.
[00:13:38] which means it has about a year left in its life. It's made of shingles. It's going to cost about $5,900 to replace that roof. Given construction costs, it might be slightly more, it might be slightly less, but we always have air on the high side because replacement costs just keep going up and up and up.
[00:13:59] However, the condition is great. You know, it's in really good conditions, has low exposure, so yeah, you could make this, maybe this could last another five years, but you want to be aware that at some point you're going to need to replace this roof. When we look at damaging events, we don't have any for this location, which is great.
[00:14:17] Very calm area. Some places you'll see 50 or 60 things with high winds or hail. Don't see anything here. Now, if you're curious about the roof, go back to 2020, and the roof looks exactly the same. So maybe something has happened. They've added the storage container in the back. All right. So now we get down to permits.
[00:14:40] This is a new section of our property limits report released just this week, which is the requirements in Boise. And so building permits are required in Boise, for major things like new construction, additions, alterations, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical work, it's all required. Some minor repairs aren't.
[00:15:03] So if there's work that's done and there aren't any permits, one of two things has happened. The first is we didn't have the permits because not every municipality makes them available. It's rare, but it happens. And the second is that the work was never permitted. And if the work wasn't permitted, then, you know, you want to ask why.
[00:15:24] So, John, why don't you walk us through the permits that we see here.
[00:15:28] John Siegman: Sure. So, if we take a look. You know, storage container permit, a lot of people will use a pod or something similar like that when they're having a lot of work done on site because you can store the appliances in it, you can store the equipment, materials, things like that.
[00:15:49] it depends upon where you're at, if this is required. This is a pretty unique permit. I've not seen this one before. but here's, if you have one hanging around for a while, you gotta have a permit to have it hang around for a while. electrical permit, they probably upgraded the box. took care of a few electrical items that could also have been tied to other changes on the property.
[00:16:18] Running a line. I think in this case, if I read into this correctly, this was actually a repair because a branch or something took the lines, actually out of the house. which is not something you really want to have happen, but in areas where you have above ground lines, certainly something you could face.
[00:16:38] The mechanical permit talks about the furnace and air conditioning. gives you an idea of what the cost was. not too bad, but it's a small property, so you have smaller units, so that's not too surprising. you've got a plumbing permit issued, more mechanical permits, another electrical permit, and that's going back to the original construction of the house.
[00:17:05] That's the original construction permit. You can see pretty detailed information. And, the benefit of it is a lot of times you'll be able to find out who actually did the work by who pulled the permit and how much you spent. So, if you liked what they did and you want them back, or if they did something wrong and it's recent and you want them back to repair it under warranty, having the permits list is a great way to find that out.
[00:17:35] Bob Frady: Yeah, that's a big thing when you buy a house and if you don't know the neighborhood, you know, who did the work? And, you know, I know when I bought my house, I have no idea who did the work. And then I see the permits, it's like, there it is, there it is, there it is. I know exactly who did the work. So if I liked the work that was done, go back and call them again.
[00:17:51] And they'll come up and say, I worked on this house before. I'm like, yeah, I know. I saw the permit. We don't have homeowner service history in here because that's a future ad. We don't have inspections, not because there hasn't been an inspection, but because again, we don't have it, but then we can look at it.
[00:18:07] upkeep and property ownership costs and like electricity, you know, one of the big questions is how much does it cost to heat this place and, and buyers go nuts. They're like, I don't want to pull my electric bill. So we estimate it and we see that it's very modest electrical costs for this location.
[00:18:22] It's like $50 a month. It's Idaho power, and your annual consumption is around 700. If y$700want to get service, we'll link you out to Idaho power. If you want to talk about solar, you can click on this button and we'll send you to a place that talks about solar. This is the carbon footprint of the utility and hydroelectric power is the main driver.
[00:18:51] of power here, very clean wind, solar, hydro, natural gas, very clean, utility. Okay. Risk assessment. What do you get here, John?
[00:19:02] John Siegman: Well, and the risk assessment, really the, winter risk is your biggest cause as we saw frozen pipes. plus a few other things that are associated with places that are cold, drought, pollution.
[00:19:19] Yeah, there is a volcano. It's called Yellowstone. It's probably the big one. If that goes, all bets are off, earthquake, you know, you're going to get a little shaking up there. Nothing to write home about. but everything else is really very, very modest. And, you know, while everybody thinks the whole world's going to burn in a wildfire.
[00:19:43] This house is not. No tornadoes either.
[00:19:48] Bob Frady: I mean, there's really, there's no F's on here, which is very unusual for a property to have something that's as clean as this. Yeah, some winter risk. It's Idaho. But I thought it would be worse, and it's not. Up next is flood. It is always important to know what your flood risk is.
[00:20:06] Now, there are those of you who will say that, especially if you believe in Noah's Ark, any place is subject to flood. And that's entirely possible. There's no disrespecting that argument. However, FEMA measures what your probability is. And we display that here. There's not, you're not in a 100 year flood zone.
[00:20:24] You're not in a 500 year flood zone. Flood insurance is not required for this property. Nor is it recommended for this property because you're just too far away.
[00:20:35] Alright, so yeah, the winter score, then here's the risks spelled out a little bit more. Jordan Craters is the nearest field. I'm not even sure if that's, I don't even know where that is, but that's the nearest one. And lots of, you know, relatively mild data. And then, how about environmental pollution, John?
[00:20:56] John Siegman: Environmental, you've got, as we mentioned before, that leaking underground storage tank. It is an area that has some moderate radon, since it does have a basement. You would want to make sure that it is tested. And if it comes back bad, you want to have somebody put in a mitigation system if there is not one there.
[00:21:17] Even if there is one there, you still want it tested because the systems are supposed to be tested every other year just to make sure that it continues to work. Other than that, there's really nothing to write home about.
[00:21:31] Bob Frady: Yep. This is from the environment. This is a very mild location, insurability and claims.
[00:21:38] We don't have any insurance claims on this property. It doesn't mean that there aren't any, it's just that we don't have them. So you may want to check with your local insurance agent because we'll get to this part, but you're going to want to get an insurance quote before you buy this house just to make sure you can get insurance for this house.
[00:21:58] John Siegman: Well, you should always get your insurance quote before you buy any house, this or any others.
[00:22:03] Bob Frady: Yeah. And then if there's claims, they can tell you whether there's been claims on the house.
[00:22:10] So here's the factors that go into it. Crime is a factor. And then if you want to get a quote, you can click here, go see a quote. We don't show claim history. And then finally, the fun part of our show, here's something that I would bet you $10. That's, we go 10 times the normal bet of a dollar.
[00:22:31] I bet you $10 that the listing agent or the selling agent isn't going to tell you this. Which is that this is an element
[00:22:39] John Siegman: Most likely not. Yes. you know, again, transient population, it's college kids, it's people that are less likely to actually, you know, make a claim, or write a report, or do any of the things associated with it, and so, it's a natural place for stuff like this to happen, and it can be a lot of low level crime, that happens, and so you know, crime is an exceptionally variable statistic.
[00:23:13] And what I mean by that, it's updated every year. You know, crime does not have a longevity like, Hey, if there have been 10 tornadoes in this area in the last 10 years, we can pretty much guess what's going to happen in year 11, there's going to be another tornado crime is not like that at all, because you can immediately influence crime by increasing police patrols.
[00:23:36] And then crime goes down. So we definitely update every year. In this case, it's from the most recent statistics and, you know, it's a college campus nearby. That's what it is. With probably lots of college campuses, you know, housing going on.
[00:23:59] Bob Frady: Yeah, if you, if you like this house, there's no, I don't think there's any reason to panic over the crime score, but there is definitely a need to protect.
[00:24:07] So get your camera system of choice, get an alarm if you don't have one on the property. it's just safety first, you know, listen, if your kid's 6' 3" 250lbs and fearless, then it doesn't really matter where you put them. Other kids, you know, they want to make sure that the parents want to make sure their kids are safe.
[00:24:28] And this area, you, you got to be cautious and they're never going to tell you that you're just going to have to figure it out after the kid moves in.
[00:24:38] John Siegman: Well, if you see a lot of bars on the neighborhood windows, you might have an idea. Yeah, there's some pretty good, there's some crime there.
[00:24:47] Bob Frady: So here's the sex offenders in the area.
[00:24:51] It is as of 3/3/25. you may want to get the most updated. sex offender registry for your state, but we check that and pull it all in. It's got good fire protection, good emergency services, and then finally we get to the timeline, so you can see exactly what has happened when. And then, it's interesting that the permit was pulled for the pod in December of 23, it's not there in May of 24, but it is there in September of 24.
[00:25:24] It's interesting, curious. And there you go. That is the PropertyLens Report for 1616 South Oakland Avenue in Boise, Idaho. So John, now I'm going to take away the cheat sheet. I'm going to say, let's say you were thinking about buying 1616 South Oakland Avenue in Boise, Idaho. What are the top three things that you would be looking for?
[00:25:58] John Siegman: Okay. Well, as mentioned multiple times, We got to look at the right, you know, it's, it appears to me, this is just my opinion. I don't believe it's 29 years old. We have no other proof that says that it's not, but I don't believe so because the condition is just too good for that location.
[00:26:19] Bob Frady: We get into this argument all the time.
[00:26:21] It's like, just because it looks good doesn't mean it's not all the time.
[00:26:25] John Siegman: My guess, maybe five, six years old. Find out, see who wins between Bob and John as to the actual age of the road. That would be my number one thing to be concerned about. Number two, it's a crime, right? I want to make sure that, the camera of your choice through the alarm system of your choice, the, whatever it happens to be of your choice.
[00:26:55] if they've got a car, there's no garage associated with this property. It might not be the world's worst thing to put one up. Those would be the types of things that I would be concerned with, associated with crime. And then the third thing, you know, you could say winter risks, but, you know, there really isn't that much of a third thing, yeah, the frozen pipes you want to check for, but, this is in an area that just really for the most part, doesn't get a lot of convective storms, you don't get tornadoes or lightning or hail or.
[00:27:33] You know, the straight line wins, you don't, it's not in a place that's going to be affected by wildfire. It's, quite honestly, an exceptionally boring property, which is not a bad property to stick a kid in for college.
[00:27:47] Bob Frady: Exactly, exactly. It's not, listen, this is, this is not bad at all. So if I were looking at 1616 South Oakland Avenue, in Boise, Idaho, here are the top three things I would look for. Number one is, can I get insurance on this house the way it's currently constructed? I would call an insurance agent, a local insurance agent and say, give me a quote. And the reason is because of number two, which is the roof. Increasingly insurance companies are refusing to insure houses with old roots because they just cause so many problems, you know, ice dams and leaks and all sorts of stuff like that.
[00:28:30] Now, Boise is pretty quiet. environmentally, but that's the, the second thing I would check for is really how old is that roof and what condition is that roof? And I would probably ask for a more diligent roof inspection from the inspector. And then the third thing is crime. What is, what's going on, you know, and what is the property doing to protect itself?
[00:28:56] So are there cameras up, have there been any break ins, you know, are there any signs of forced entry, on the property? So those are the big three. Otherwise it looks like it's been renovated recently. So it looks pretty nice. and then just to check the age of the water heater as well. That's the fourth thing, I guess it's just like, it looks like it, it might've been replaced, but it's not permitted to be replaced.
[00:29:18] So, I just want to check and make sure, cause those things wear out. But other than that, you know, it looks like a fun place for a kid to live.
[00:29:27] John Siegman: There we go.
[00:29:29] Bob Frady: All right. Anything else to add there, John?
[00:29:31] John Siegman: No, I think we covered it.
[00:29:33] Bob Frady: I would say this about that. If you're thinking about buying a house, get a PropertyLens Report because it will do one of two things.
[00:29:42] It will alert you to things that you need to make sure you know to avoid surprise expenses, or number two, it'll tell you nothing exciting about the house, which is awesome news. Like, Hey, I got nothing here. And that's great. It's like a clean bill of health. It's like going to the doctor and they're saying, Hey, there's nothing wrong with you.
[00:30:04] And, and great. Absolutely great. So, for this week's episode of property of the week from PropertyLens, I'm Bob Frady.
[00:30:15] John Siegman: I'm John Siegman.
[00:30:17] Bob Frady: See you next time.
