Home Inspection Prior to Listing

Listing and selling your home can be a very emotional decision. It’s your largest investment, the home where you raised your children full of fond memories. The full grown fruit trees were nurtured from saplings. There is the $30,000 updating investment, just completed. Then unexpectedly, the opportunity to move presents itself.  Whether you are retiring to Florida, taking on the new position across the country, moving up to the dream home, leaving the ‘burbs for  that cool, downtown condo with a view, these are all stories we know, people we’ve met.

Try as you may, we know it’s difficult to take away the emotion, and insert the practical. That is where choosing a good, experienced realtor, whose advice you will carefully consider, will save you thousands.

Let’s talk for a minute about the massive savings you may reap by having a pre-listing home inspection. We recommend it to all sellers, and strangely enough, no one has ever followed through with that advice!! The common thought is that a buyer will have their own inspections, and we’ll just deal with “whatever” at that time.

This is a true and recent story.  Indulge me for a minute, by letting me tell you about a seller that probably lost several thousand dollars on a home that was listed for $274,900.

This summer, I represented a family shopping in Anderson Township, in the $225,000 - $280,000 price range. We decide on a beautifully kept home, list price $274,900.  The listing agent did a great job of counseling the sellers on listing price. In the market we all miss, pre 2006, this home would easily be a $290,000’s home.

We selected this home, in part, because of the gorgeous, remodeled kitchen, with stainless steel appliances, new cabinets, and quartz countertops. The yard is manicured to perfection. The baths are updated, and the care the homeowners gave to the 31 year old home during the 20 years they occupied the home is evident. 

We struck our best deal, at $263,000. The sellers indicated that, at this price, and due to the maintenance and updating that they performed over the last 20 years, this was as close to “as is” as they were willing to go. No “nickel and dime” inspection requests. Agreed!  My buyers are quite reasonable, and very happy with this price. The home inspection will be for material defects only (which really is the spirit and intent of inspections, but we’ll talk more about that later)

Anyway, long story shortened, the 14 year old roof is shot, per the inspector. This is verified by two independent roofers that said that despite the stated age of 14 years, the shingles were not installed with proper ventilation. Indeed, the shingles are just “cooking” on the roof. To add salt to the wound, the radon report was also high.

So…..a very reasonable and kind (on my buyer’s part) negotiated $1800 price reduction to $ $261,200 and a $700 radon reduction bill later, the sellers lost another $2500. 

If the sellers had preformed a pre-listing inspection, they would have known about the roof and radon. They could have replaced the roof and mitigated the radon. At that point, while they may have spent about $7000 - $8000 that they may not have wanted to spend prior to selling the home, they could have more firmly and reasonably held to a $275,000 sales price. Why?  A couple of reasons:  The roof is brand new, and the buyer would not have to spend his money on a radon test, because it was already complete. There was precious little left to discuss as a result of the inspection, so…..a TRUE $275,000 home.
Now, while this worked out well for my buyers, it didn’t work out so well for the sellers. And, if you are reading this, you are probably considering selling.

Yes, your buyer may have their own inspection. That’s fine. But you will have already negated many of the “nickel and dime” items, and cured any major problems.  The pre-listing inspection, coupled with a good, solid market value list price, will significantly strengthen your position.