When you’re trying to sell a home, it’s important to be prepared for all the obstacles that could come your way during the selling process. One of the most important parts of the home selling process to be prepared for is the inspection. Being unprepared for this step could leave you with a potential sale that falls through, or potential large expenses.
Once you’ve agreed to a price on the sale of your home, the prospective buyer has a due diligence period, usually of 10-14 days. During this period the buyer has the right to have the home inspected by an inspector of their choosing. This inspector is paid by the buyer to locate any problems or potential problems with the home\’s main systems. During your buyer’s inspection, you can expect their inspector to look at:
• Heating and air conditioning systems
• Roof condition
• Electrical Condition
• Structural condition
• Proper sealing of the home from pests and moisture
• Mold potential
• Operation of major appliances
In other words, you should expect your buyers to be looking for any problem imaginable with your home. Their inspector will prepare a report for them with a list of concerns. The buyers will bring the inspector’s concerns to you and expect you to fix the problems. Or, the buyer may simply get scared and run away from the sale entirely, if they think the house has too many problems.
Be Proactive
The best way to avoid an inspection crisis is to take care of your home’s problems before you ever have an offer on the home. If necessary, hire an inspector yourself, so that you can anticipate problems that other home inspectors might find. This allows you to fix problems now that could cost you the sale later. In addition, you may be able to save some money by making some of the repairs yourself. If you wait until a buyer points out the problems, you may be too time constrained to fix everything yourself.
An inspection of your home needn’t be a scary proposition, as long as you know ahead of time exactly what an inspector is likely to find.
