Checking pollution risks gets easier for home buyers

January 27, 2008 - There is a developing movement to investigate pollution sources in the neighborhood before you purchase a home.

"The review [of local environmental hazards] has long been a standard part of the commercial real estate industry," said Rob Barber of Environmental Data Resources. "In the past two or three years, the practice has begun to bleed its way into the residential real estate market."
Barber is chief executive officer of EDR, a Milford, Conn., company that analyzes local, state and federal hazard records to give home buyers a sense of potential environmental problems on or near their prospective property.

EDR's environmental risk reports, available through some home inspectors, cost around $150. But you can also get at least some of the same information for free by going to a page run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov/enviro) or by going to scorecard.org, which was launched by the non-profit environmental advocacy group Environmental Defense in 1998 and is now owned by Green Media Toolshed.

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Homebuyers research environmental hazards prior to buying

July 25, 2007 - Hire an environmental research group to do an appraisal of the neighborhood. Each state has different laws governing what sort of potential health hazards have to be disclosed and how far away those hazards have to be from the house to be considered serious. Outside health and environmental factors should be considered as important to price negotiations as interior tests for lead or structural damage.

"Environmental research in commercial real estate is common practice, but for some reason people don't always do it with their homes," says Robert Barber, CEO of Environmental Data Resources. "Most of the time there's no problem, but it's worth it for the peace of mind."

An environmental data firm, like Barber's, can tell you every potential concern within a six-acre circle of your lot, whether that involves a leaking gas tank, the location of a former drug lab, any possible water pollutants or logged Center for Disease Control concerns. A standard report costs between $100 and $150.

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