Episode 20 | PropertyLens Reveals Which Home Is the Smarter Buy

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In This Episode

Hosts: Bob Frady & John Siegman

Properties: 6154 Goldenrod Rd, Riverside CA 92504 & 6834 Capistrano Way, Riverside CA 92504

Episode Summary

Welcome to another episode of PropertyLens! 🎙️ This time, Bob Frady and John Siegman compare two real homes in Riverside, CA — and show how a PropertyLens report can reveal what listing photos won’t tell you.

Key Takeaways

📊 Get the inside scoop on:
✅ Why one house looks great but lacks permits — a big red flag
✅ How “dated” listings can mean tens of thousands in hidden repair costs
✅ Which home has higher crime risk and how to assess personal fit

💡 Whether you're a first-time buyer or evaluating multiple properties, this episode shows why running a PropertyLens report on each option can save you from costly surprises.

Resources

🔹Realtor.com

🔹 Try it: Propertylens.com

🔹 Questions Contact us: support@propertylens.com

Transcript

00:00:05 - Bob Frady: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and Girls, ships at sea. It's time for another episode of Property of the Week. With PropertyLens as always, for those of you who haven't been here before. My name is Bob Frady, Co-founder and CEO of PropertyLens with me.

00:00:25 - John Siegman: John Siegman, Co-founder and President of PropertyLens.

00:00:28 - Bob Frady: So for those of you who are new here, what we do is we pick a property, seemingly at random. We kind of just pick one, then we run a PropertyLens report, and then we go through it to tell you what we see.

For those of you who don't know what to do, click on the subscribe button for, you're on the, you face down there and it, all good in the hood if that happens. So here's what we're gonna do.

So today we're gonna do something a little bit different.

00:00:54 - Bob Frady: John, one of the things we like to encourage people is when you get a set of houses that you're somewhat interested in and you've narrowed it down to maybe three or four, that you run a PropertyLens report. All of them. And why should you do that, John?

00:01:09 - John Siegman: Well, because every house has a different story to tell. They're subject to different hazards. They've got different histories, different permits, different maintenance schedules, all sorts of things that could really impact your wallet, if you didn't know about it.

Property 1: Goldenrod Lane, Riverside, California

00:01:26 - Bob Frady: So we're gonna look at two houses in beautiful Riverside, California. Slightly different price points. General vicinity is roughly the same. We are not experts in Riverside, California, so we can't tell you whether they're in the same neighborhood, but they look like they're pretty close on the map.

Here's the first place that we're looking at. Goldenrod Lane in a Riverside, California. It's a single family residence, two bedrooms, two bath. It's about 1200 square feet. So let's take a look at that report, and here's what we found.

Now, down the left hand side of our report are all the different things that we report on for a product in this report. And then down here is all the details. So John, what's the first thing that you see?

Repair Costs Analysis

00:02:06 - John Siegman: Well, the first thing that I see is that, a lot of people stretch to get into their first, second, third, whatever home they happen to be buying, and, If you're gonna do that, you need to budget a little bit more, because we anticipate that your estimated two year repair cost is gonna run right around $21,000.

00:02:27 - Bob Frady: This house lists for, I believe, $640,000. Let's see, what is the list price on this house? $620,000 is what this place lists for. So you're looking at roughly—

00:02:42 - John Siegman: 3%, couple percent.

00:02:44 - Bob Frady: 10, about 3%. Over the cost of the house for expenses. Now, if we drop this little button down here, we can tell you what the systems are that probably need to be replaced or repaired for this location, driveway and asphalt, because that stuff does wear out now in California, it lasts a little bit longer, but this was, this is 40 years old. It like, it's original to the house.

This house was built in 1985, and it looks like that's when the asphalt was poured on this location in the HVAC system. Probably at the end of its useful life. Now they can last a long time in California, as we both know, but it's probably gonna be something that you need to take a look at.

John, how much does an HVAC system cost for a 1200 square foot house, do you think?

00:03:28 - John Siegman: 1200 square foot house, you're probably looking somewhere between $8,000 to $12,000. Tonnage is not that large for that size house, but you probably were gonna need to, potentially upgrade a few systems ducts, things like that. So right in that ballpark.

00:03:43 - Bob Frady: The other thing you gotta look at is the electrical panel. It's getting out there in terms of time codes may have changed if you want to add anything to the house.

Now what we're saying is that the data that we've been able to collect, this is what this shows. Now, you still wanna confirm this? With the seller's agent to say, Hey, when was the last time the HVA system was repaired? When were the pipes repaired? When was the water heat repaired? Et cetera, et cetera.

So that's about $20,000, $21,000. That's about $500 a month. So it's not necessarily cheap.

Environmental and Safety Concerns

00:04:20 - John Siegman: Looking at that, there's some toxic exposure that could be PFAS, could be, toxic release facilities. There's some stuff around that you might need to know about. may or may not affect you individually, but it, you should know about it.

00:04:38 - Bob Frady: For this location, we also show an elevated risk of arsenic exposure and groundwater. If you're getting your water from the city, you may wanna have a test done in that water just to make sure that there's nothing too bad in there, or if there's a water filtration system in the house, even better.

What do you check for? Is the water heater strapped to the wall? Any leaking or cracked pipes? Because what we've seen is that shaking causes pipes to get very upset. They don't like it, and sometimes they leak. So you wanna ask, have you had any water damage because of earthquake shaking in the house?

And their answer might be, I don't know, which case. Then you turn it to your inspector and say, Hey, take a look for it. It looks like we've got some risk of termite damage. It's Southern California. Termites love Southern California.

The house is 40 years old. You gotta check when the water heater was last replaced because that doesn't show any indication that it's been replaced. The sewer line, from the house to the street, there's these little things called roots that grow into the sewer line that you don't get during an inspection.

The inspectable turn the water on. Let it run for a minute and then turn it off just to make sure it all works. But when you leave it on for 10 minutes, if you're taking a shower, then it backs up. That's because of root intrusion in the sewer line. Not normally caught in an inspection. But other than that, looks pretty good. Looks pretty good.

Insurance Analysis

00:06:05 - Bob Frady: And then what do we see about insurance there, John?

00:06:05 - John Siegman: Well, there are some risk factors that come into play here. Replacement costs. Is purchase price is higher than the replacement cost of the insured for the purchase price covered. Premium is definitely gonna be, it's Southern California. It's substantial. It's not something you can just brush off and the risk factors associated with it.

Your property isn't covered earthquake typically in a homeowner's policy, so that's a supplemental debt. If you choose to get it, you would have to get somewhere else. And overall, really not a lot of risk exposed here. So it's a pretty safe property, from an insurance standpoint.

Property Details

00:06:51 - Bob Frady: Yep. And there's all the real estate data that you normally see. So it's one story. It's got a fireplace, it's got parking, it's attached to the public sewer, which is lovely. So you don't have groundwater. It's in Riverside.

Here's the location. You're in the Riverside Unified School District. Here's the most recent listing, $620,000 as of May of 2025. It was last sold in 2022 for $572,000.

Now it says they've done some renovations, which is great. We mine all of that data to try to figure out when things were done. So a lot of times you'll get cosmetic repairs, which is terrific. You don't necessarily get the systems repaired.

00:07:41 - John Siegman: Structural.

00:07:42 - Bob Frady: Exactly. So this was bought in June of 2022. Now it's being sold in May of 2025. So a lot of times when you go into a place, they'll say, you'll say, well, what happened? And the person who bought it in 22 is I don't know, I wasn't here at that time.

So we try to go back as far as we can to figure out what's going on with the house. And because that has sold in 2022, you'll notice that the property taxes jumped up. They'll jump up again because property taxes in California are tied to the purchase price of the house.

Here's the house. It looks lovely. They've done some nice work on the inside. Looks nice. A little pool in the backyard. Not very much in terms of damaging events, and then aerial views of the property. Looks pretty good.

Roof Condition Analysis

00:08:46 - Bob Frady: The roof condition. John, don't you walk us through that?

00:08:49 - John Siegman: Sure. Well, welcome to Southern California. Roof's last, essentially a lifetime. Literally it's roof is 39 years old. It's got 41 years left and made a tile. Stuff does not typically fall from the sky that would destroy a roof here.

So while roof age, very important to a lot of insurance companies, not really applicable in some parts of the country, this being one of them condition, much more important.

If we scroll down a little bit, we'll see that the condition is, this is practically like a new rook, even though it's probably 40 years old. It's probably original equipment. So all good in the hood as far as the roof goes.

Soil and Construction Details

00:09:39 - Bob Frady: Nice. So we look at some of the construction soil type and we look at threats and structural integrity. It's mix of sand, silt, and clay. It's good for lawns or gardens, shows moderate drainage, which is great. So if you wanna have a little garden at this house, it's got good soil for it.

Yep. termites of course, are a problem. Interestingly, soil frost heating potential. It does get a little cool out there sometimes. It's not gonna happen very often, but it does get chilly in Southern California. It's not as bad as some other places.

it doesn't have hard water, which is great. That means your plumbing tends to last a little bit longer.

Permits Issue

00:10:22 - Bob Frady: And then here's what we see for permits. What is interesting. Is that permits are required for single family residential work, but we don't see any permits on this location. So when you ask about those improvements that have been done to the property, are they permitted? is it up to code?

This is where your inspector, this is where you gotta tell the inspector, Hey, listen, no permits for this house yet. There's been work done. Is it up to code?

So before you I do not. And listen, if you can help it, don't waive the inspection contingency because this place doesn't have permits associated with the work that had been done there.

Now doesn't mean it was done badly, does not mean it was done badly. Does it mean it's not (inaudible)? No, of course it doesn't. But you know now you have to ask about it, preferably before you make an offer on it.

Risk Assessment

00:11:18 - Bob Frady: Yep. Look at that. It's riverside.

00:11:22 - John Siegman: Not in a flood zone.

00:11:24 - Bob Frady: Not in a flood zone. Don't recommend flood insurance.

Let's see, earthquake is your risk. It's got some heat wave risk and otherwise, wildfires a big concern in Southern California, not for this house.

For crimes, relatively low risk. Yeah. there are unfortunately some sex offenders. Around this house. there's eight. Yeah, within a half a mile. Something the realtor will never tell you, gotta look this up yourself.

So, catty corner to this house is the closest one. and you just want to ask the current owner, have there been any issues with the neighbors? And you might wanna get a security camera as well. Just to protect yourself.

Neighborhood Analysis

00:12:13 - Bob Frady: What do we know about the neighborhood?

00:12:15 - John Siegman: Well, not too surprisingly natural disaster resilience is low. that is very typical for a lot of cities in California because we don't have a lot of natural disasters to be ready for. there is some rail noise, but, no airport noise, no road noise, so relatively quiet neighborhood.

00:12:40 - Bob Frady: We've got our points of interest, lots of stuff around here. There's childcare centers close by where the schools are. Toxic exposure. We see that there is, risk from PFAS drinking water. John, can you pronounce that for me?

00:12:57 - John Siegman: Polyfloral alkylides.

00:12:59 - Bob Frady: Yeah, test the water. if you can, you also have some mold risk at this area. It doesn't happen all the time, but the tolerances in California are very tight and mold surprisingly can grow where you don't expect it.

So you wanna see if you can have a mold test done before you purchased the house, or ask them when they did the renovation, did they discover any mold?

It's also a bit of radon risk at this location, so you might wanna have a test done. it's the second leading cause of liver cancer in the United States, which is really not that much fun to have to live through, just for, when you can vent this out of the house.

There's some sites around Nothing too close, which is good.

Utilities and Services

00:13:43 - Bob Frady: Then we'll get to health and safety. Fire protection and response is pretty good. There's a hydrant within 250 feet, and there's, so there's a lot of hydrants around here. Closest fire station is on Arlington Avenue and there's three stations within five miles, which is all great.

medical response is expected to be good in this area, and law enforcement is fair, or average in this area. Cities tend to be a little slower.

and then we've got. The solar, we've got electricity costs. We've got the carbon footprint of the utility, and we'll tell you that the utility here is Riverside Public Utilities. So it's owned by the municipality. You expect to spend about $200. A month on electricity for this area.

If you want to get solar, it pays back in a hurry. pays back in about four years with federal incentives, and you can just push this button and get a solar quote.

and then insurability. It looks like it's totally insurable. You shouldn't have trouble getting insurance for this house. Now, California is in a little bit of an upset market right now, so you may want to get a quote beforehand.

It'll be somewhere between $1,271 and $2,100 for this location. If you want to get insurance, click it here, get a quote.

And then finally, the timeline on the house was listed on May 9th, is the last time it was listed. So there's this house. Okay, that's what. $620,000 gets you in this location, and this looks pretty good. The big question here, are there permits?

Property 2: Capistrano Way, Riverside, California

00:15:13 - Bob Frady: So let's look at a different house in this area. Okay, so let's look at Capistrano Way in Riverside, California. An extra bedroom, two bathrooms, 1200 square feet, about the same size. It's listed for a little bit less money. it is listed for, let's see. $564,000. So about $60,000 less.

Now, one of the things you notice is that the repair costs are a little bit higher for this house.

00:15:42 - John Siegman: it's a really old house. It's 77 years old, quite possibly one of the first houses in Riverside. So when you're looking at that, lots of things have to happen. You got plumbing fixtures, you got pipes, you got infrastructure with the house. That's probably gonna need, a little love or a lot of love.

00:16:03 - Bob Frady: Yep. There's a lot in here that's not reported, which is either it's not in the listing or it's not, there's no permits for it, and people usually like to show off what's been done to a house. So I think that these estimates are probably low.

You're probably looking closer to somewhere around a maximum of $80,000 on this house, but this is a renovatable house.

And again, same as the other location, you've got toxic exposure, your high risk of earthquake damage, high risk of termite damage, but a slightly higher risk of crime, at this location that's say different.

Yeah, the crime, it's older, and the roof looks like it's in good condition. Insurance premiums a little bit lower because the replacement cost is a little bit lower.

Property Details - Second House

00:16:55 - Bob Frady: Here's the, let's see if we could see anything in the real estate data. It has a detached garage rather than attached garage. And, let's see, in the listing, let's see, built in the early fifties shows clean, dated some upgrades over the years.

So it says in the description, it's dated. When we look at the amount, that you expect to spend. I'm thinking this number is probably far more accurate than this number. Now, I'm not saying that you have to make these repairs, but these systems are older. The house is dated.

Chances are you're gonna be closer to this number than to that number, which is always a bummer 'cause no one ever tells you it goes. Yeah, it's dated. Just a few little updates. It's holy cow, this is expensive.

Square footage is per title records. Branded bedroom and back living room are not included 'cause it doesn't know if it's permitted or not. So you gotta figure out are there permits, for this location.

So it doesn't look bad, it just looks older. And whenever you buy an older house. There's issues. This was bought in two last bought in 2001. The deed was changed in 2016 and put into a trust in 2024 and sold in 2025 listed, excuse me.

Taxes are very low, because been there a long time. So listen, it looks like what you would expect. It's potentially a great starter home, for, so listen, $500,000, $560,000 for a starter home in California. It's expensive. But it's still nice. It's still got potential, not a lot of damaging events, just some wind, Santa Ana's blowing pretty hard.

Roof Analysis - Second House

00:19:02 - Bob Frady: Roof condition. So it looks like it's a shingle roof. What do we got here? And there's an outbuilding as well.

Because this, because we don't know how old this roof actually is, because there's nothing to indicate it. We estimate the age based upon the condition and the condition's pretty good. So we estimate to be about nine years old, 21 years left. If you did have to replace it, it's about $23,000 replacement. Outbuildings not in such good shape.

All right. Soil. Very similar. Soil, good for good for gardens and lawns. Termites, frost, heaving, very similar.

Permits - Second House

00:19:54 - Bob Frady: And then there is a permit here. The HVAC system was changed out in 2016 by Everlast home security systems. So that's nice. No floods.

Very similar neighborhood risk. Yep. Little higher crime. This is interesting. Or a lot of higher crime. Here's the difference between the two places.

Number one, the first place, we don't know whether they have any permits, but second place we have higher crime. So what has been done to protect that property?

Sex offenders. There's more sex offenders at the other place. There's less here, but they're still here. And you could see there's little, looks like a municipal airport over here. that, yeah, it's the Riverside Municipal Airport. So you might have a little airplane noise there.

there's the, not too much airplane noise. Again, natural disaster resilience. So here's your points of interest. Here's your toxic exposure. Again, very similar.

so the other house was over here. Now we're over here down a couple of blocks and a couple of blocks can make a big difference in terms of crime risk.

Similar, you've got hydrants around here, you've got fire stations within five miles, which is terrific. And, very similar electrical costs, again, with the low payback time for solar.

And insurability crime is gonna be the difference here in insurability. So you may have a little bit higher rate, and then again, you can get a quote and here's the timeline.

Comparison and Analysis

00:21:46 - Bob Frady: John, we've got two different locations. What does PropertyLens tell you between those locations?

00:21:53 - John Siegman: Well, the first thing that PropertyLens tells me is we're gonna have to ask about permits. Yep. particularly on the second house, because if the addition and that extra bedroom were unpermitted, it may have to be taken out.

00:22:12 - Bob Frady: Oh, let me tell you something, man. Lemme tell you something. I had that happen. I had a house in Mission California and there was a bedroom that was added into the garage and it wasn't permitted, and I had to rip it out before I could sell the house.

It was a nightmare. Held up. The closing, all sorts of issues almost cost me the sale. But yeah, California's pretty persnickety about that stuff. If you don't have permitted work in the house. The, and it's not a code, they'll make you rip it out. No fun. No fun at all.

I did wanna show you one more thing, John. Sure. So, people ask us, how do you determine the age of some of these different things? Remember that HVAC permit that we saw? Yes. Ding right there.

So we know the HVAC system was improved in 2016, so you're probably gonna have. Relatively limited expenditure on it in the next couple of years. We're out there. We're looking out for you.

00:23:13 - John Siegman: Trying to make it easy. So, like I said, first thing would be permits. Second house is, little bit more crime going pure sex defenders. So it's almost like a toss Tossa. Yep. That depending upon your personal preference for exposure, I suppose.

And then, from a risk standpoint, neither one's gonna flood. Neither one's gonna burn in a wildfire and neither one is, they're, yeah, they're both gonna shake a bad equally in an earthquake, but really not a lot of exposure.

It's almost a matter at this point of personal preference because, on the older, less expensive house, you got that potential permitting issue with the expansion, and then you are going to be, upgrading a bunch of systems when they say dated in the listing, unless you're looking for that retro home, that means you got work to do.

Okay. The only thing that they send that made it worse would be as is.

00:24:34 - Bob Frady: It's on scale.

00:24:36 - John Siegman: Charming. It's on the scale.

00:24:38 - Bob Frady: Dated.

00:24:38 - John Siegman: Dated as is.

00:24:40 - Bob Frady: As is foreclosure.

Final Recommendations

00:24:45 - Bob Frady: Okay, so John, you are trying to decide between 6834 Capistrano Way in Riverside, California, and 6154 Goldenrod Lane in Riverside, California, both about the same size, both about the same number of bedrooms and baths.

Give me three reasons why you should pull a PropertyLens on both of these locations before making an offer.

00:25:14 - John Siegman: Answering the permit situation. That's number one. Number two. Understanding what you're really getting into because besides paying for property taxes, insurance, and the mortgage, you gotta pay for the repairs.

And if you're stretching to get into this house, excess cash is not part of your vocabulary. So stuff's gonna happen. We know stuff's gonna happen. We're trying to prepare you for the stuff that's going to happen.

If you look at one and you go, oh, okay, $20,000, I can budget an extra $500 a month. Great. And you look at the other one, you go, Ooh, $86,000. I can't budget an extra $7,000 a month.

Here's your choice if those are your only two choices. Yep. And then the third is to really understand what your exposures are. In this case, both homes are exposed about the same. We chose them in the same neighborhood, to, give you a comparison.

And this is a, hey, one's in a flood zone, one's not, which could be very common even though, these are like a mile apart or so.

This is to give you a better understanding of what you're getting yourself into, not to scare you. Some people look at the report and go, this is very frightening. It's not. It's just very honest.

We have no vested interest if what you buy the house or not. Nobody's paying us a commission, right? We're just here to tell you, here's all the things that, you look at it as dad advice. Here's all the things that we're gonna tell you that nobody else really wants you to know.

00:27:14 - Bob Frady: Exactly. So if I were looking to decide between 6834 capistran Way and 6154 Golden R Lane, here's the three things I'd be looking out for.

Number one, one of these properties doesn't have any permanent information on it. So the work that's been done is it up to code. So. That's a question I would ask right away. and people, of course, it's up to code, but then you have to make sure your inspector knows, Hey, check and make sure that this is up to code.

Do not waive your inspection contingency on one of these houses. The second thing I look at is the crime at one is a little bit higher than the other. Does that foot with what the current residency, does that foot with what the realtor knows?

and number three, one is much more of a fixer than the other one. Both of them are older, but one of them is older and in need of repair and may not have permits to determine whether or not part of it needs to come down.

So to me, a lot of the neighborhood stuff is fairly similar. Like you said, you might be in a flood zone, you might not, but permits internal condition of the systems expected expenses are significantly higher on one. Than on the other one.

Now that significant expense is also cheaper. So maybe you just take that risk. Maybe you're just like, I gotta get a house and this is what you can afford. Just knowing what you gotta look out for is helpful for getting you to sleep better at night to say, okay, I know at some point I'm gonna have to handle this, but let's just ride this out until it breaks.

So those are the things I would look for between these two houses. Do we miss anything? I don't think so.

Thank you for listening for this week's episode of Property or Properties of the Week. I'm Bob Frady.

00:29:14 - John Siegman: I'm John Siegman.

00:29:15 - Bob Frady: We'll see you next time.

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