Pre-sale home inspection
One of the biggest reasons a sale falls through is over the findings of a buyer’s home inspection. Typically a home inspection occurs once the buyer and seller reach an agreement to purchase the property. The home inspection is a common contingency of an offer that affords the buyer an opportunity to have a professional inspect the property for potentially costly defects to ensure they are buying a solid home and prevent being stuck with unforeseen issues later down the road. This also gives buyers the opportunity to make a mountain out of a mole hill and can lead to renegotiation’s costing the sellers thousands or even cause the seller to lose the sale completely resulting in lost time and opportunity for other buyers.
But what can you do? Well the saying “the best defense is a good offense” applies here. Sellers can be proactive at nipping some of these issues in the bud by having a pre-sale home inspection. A pre-sale inspection means hiring a home inspector to inspect your home prior to putting the home up for sale and while it may cost the seller a few hundred dollars up front, it will likely save them thousands in the long run. The results of the pre-sale home inspection will give the seller an opportunity to address issues before a buyer can use them against you in a negotiation and turn a potential weakness into strength when preparing to sell your home. The less number of issues found at home inspection the greater the chance the sale goes through and the less likely the buyer will ask for costly repairs, credits or price adjustments.
One of the biggest fears of all buyers is the condition of a home they are interested in buying. They want to be sure they are buying a house that was well maintained and doesn’t have serious problems. A pre-sale home inspection becomes a powerful marketing tool in this sense as it can give buyers confidence they are making a good decision and more often than not, this confidence will show in their offer price. If you’re lucky enough, a pre-sale home inspection may cause the buyer to waive the home inspection all together as part of their offer, meaning there will be one less reason the sale could fall through, saving you time and money.
The benefits of a pre-sale home inspection include:
- Facilitating a faster sale for more money
- Eliminate last minute negotiations or fall through
- Instill confidence in buyers looking at the home
- Protect yourself from over inflated buyer estimates of repairs
- Reduce your liability with full disclosure
- Opportunity to discuss potential issues and areas of concern with the home inspector directly to get an accurate sense of the severity of the issue.
- Ability to market and leverage the condition of the property as a selling point to buyers to get top dollar for your home.
