Home Inspections

Continued

Look at the Issue from Another Point of View

A home inspection may identify the need for major repairs, as well as the need for overlooked maintenance items that must be addressed to make your home salable.  After the inspection, you will know more about the house and be able to make decisions calmly without being rushed or worrying that you are losing a potential sale! A home inspection can identify problems in the making and suggest preventative measures that could save you alot of money.

 Contingency Contracts

When a buyer makes an offer and you accept it, you have a contract. One of the most common conditions of a contract is a "upon satisfactory to the buyer home inspection contingency". The buyer is going to hire their own inspector to go thru your house to check everything they can. 

The last thing you want is the deal to fall apart because of an unknown problem discovered by the buyer's inspector at the last moment. This is really true if it is a minor problem that you could have fixed yourself-if you had only known about it! Many sales never close because of inspections and their fallout!

Preparing for Sale

When preparing your home for sale, you are going to do lots of things to make it more appealing to potential buyers. You are going to clean the yard, paint, get rid of clutter, empty closets, clean the carpets, etc. If you a serious about selling your home for the most money in the shortest time with the least amount of hassle then why not get a pre-inspection? If you don't you can be assured the buyer's inspector will find problems. And when the buyer's inspector finds problems it will either cost you money or cause the buyer to walk!

Potential Problems

The buyer will either ask you to repair problems, adjust your price or walk! If you do not want to repair or cut your price, then the buyer will walk. And where does that leave you? It leaves you with a house that you will have to put back on the market - a house that has grown stale with time. A house that future potential buyers and their REALTORS will always wonder "What happened with that first deal? Is something wrong with the house?"

Disclosure

 Isn't it easier to identify and handle problems now rather than later? If there is a problem you decide not repair, you MUST disclose it on the state required Residential Property Disclosure. Then you can indicate the asking price reflects the cost the buyer will have to pay to have it repaired.

Conclusion

As a REALTOR, I have sold many homes and if I am representing the buyer I always advise my clients to make their offers contingent on an acceptable home inspection. As a result, neither I nor my buyer clients were surprised by any problems after the closing. For every sale, an inspection made the process of getting to closing so much easier! 

Why Get a Home Inspection Continued

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