Winds from the Oaklawn tornado were not strong enough to blow over this "for sale" sign on 52nd Street. But they did leave a mess of limbs in the driveway.
"Outside of that, the home appeared to be fine,” says Re/MAX realtor, Kirk Short, the listing agent for this house.
"With tornadoes and weather damage, it's hit or miss,” says Short. “You'll have one house that gets hit. And the house right next door gets no damage."
He says his listings weren't damaged. However, the CEO of the Wichita Area Association of Realtors, Tessa Hultz, says a few listings in the Oaklawn area may have been damaged.
If a home was damaged, while it was under contract--meaning the buyer and seller have agreed on terms, but have not closed-- Hultz says the parties involved would follow what's written in the "casualty Loss Paragraph."
That explains who is responsible for paying for the damage.
"The one that is pre-printed in our contract is, if it's 10-percent or less of the purchase price, the seller goes ahead and fixes that," says Short.
If repairing the damage is more, the buyer and seller can re-negotiate. The buyer can even back-out without losing earnest money."Inspections are your best protection,” says Short. “There may be things the seller doesn't know were damaged."
Keep in mind, an individual home can only bring so much value to the real estate market in the neighborhood.
Short says after a disaster like this, people getting back to work and neighbors cleaning-up their properties also make a difference. Collecting on insurance can help too.
"Maybe before they didn't have the funds to sit there and fix up some of their property but they had insurance,” says Short. “Well, now maybe that insurance will help them fix up their property."
Short says the faster homeowners and sellers make repairs, the better chance agents have of moving these homes.
