Pre-Selling Inspections
Seller inspections (often called pre-listing inspections) are gaining popularity because they essentially eradicate every one of the stumbling blocks and complications associated with waiting to do the house inspection till a purchaser can be found. In lots of ways, waiting to plan the inspection until after a house moves under agreement is just too late. Seller inspections are set up and covered by the seller, typically right before your home will go on the market. The seller is the inspector’s client. The inspector works for the home owner and produces a written report for the owner. The seller then usually creates several copies of the review and shares them with potential purchasers who visit the home for sale. Seller inspections are a help to both sides in a real estate deal. They are a win-win-win-win scenario.
Advantages to the Seller:
* The seller can select a qualified InterNACHI inspector instead of be at the mercy of the buyer’s choice of inspector.
* The seller can plan the inspections at the seller’s convenience.
* It may alert the seller to any things of immediate concern, such as radon gas or active termite infestation.
* The seller will help the inspector during the inspection, something usually not done during a buyer’s inspection.
* The seller can have the inspector correct any misstatements in the inspection report before it is generated.
* The report can help the seller realistically price the home if problems exist.
* The report can help the seller substantiate a higher asking price if problems don’t exist or have been corrected.
* A seller inspection reveals problems in advance, which:
o might make the home show better.
o provides the seller time to make repairs and shop for competitive contractors.
o permits the seller to attach repair estimates or paid invoices to the inspection report.
o removes over-inflated buyer-procured estimates from the negotiation table.
* The report might alert the seller to any immediate safety issues found, before agents and visitors tour the home.
* The report supplies a third-party, unbiased opinion to offer to potential buyers.
* A seller inspection permits a clean home inspection report to be used as a marketing tool.
* A seller inspection is the ultimate gesture in forthrightness on the part of the seller.
* The report might relieve a prospective buyer’s unfounded suspicions, before they walk away.
* A seller inspection lightens negotiations and 11th-hour re-negotiations.
* The report might encourage the buyer to waive the inspection contingency.
* The deal is less likely to fall apart, the way they often do, when a buyer’s inspection unexpectedly reveals a last-minute problem.
* The report provides full-disclosure protection from future legal claims.
Advantages to the Home Buyer:
* The inspection is done already.
* The inspection is paid for by the seller.
* The report provides a more accurate third-party view of the condition of the home prior to making an offer.
* A seller inspection eliminates surprise defects.
* Problems are corrected, or at least acknowledged, prior to making an offer on the home.
* A seller inspection reduces the need for negotiations and 11th-hour re-negotiations.
* The report might assist in acquiring financing.
* A seller inspection allows the buyer to sweeten the offer without increasing the offering price by waiving inspections.
Common Myths About Seller Inspections:
Q. Don’t seller inspections kill deals by forcing sellers to disclose defects they otherwise wouldn’t have known about?
A. Any deficiency that is material enough to kill a real estate transaction is probably going to be uncovered eventually anyway. It is advisable to discover the problem ahead of time, before it can kill the deal.
Q. Isn’t a home inspector’s liability increased by having his/her report seen by potential buyers?
A. No. There isn’t any liability in having your seller permit someone who doesn’t buy the property see your report. And there’s less liability in having a buyer rely on your old report when the buyer is not your client (and has been warned not to rely on your report) than it is to work directly for the buyer and have him be entitled to rely on your report.
Q. Don’t seller inspections take too much energy to sell to make them profitable for the inspector?
A. Perhaps, but not when the inspector takes into account the marketing benefit of having a samples of his/her product (the report) passed out to agents and potential buyers who are looking to buy now in the inspector’s own local market, not to mention the seller who is likely moving locally and is in need of an inspector, plus the additional chance of re-inspection work that is generated for the inspector.
Q. A newer home in good condition doesn’t need an inspection anyway. Why should the seller have one done?
A. Unlike real estate agents, whose job is to market properties for their sellers, inspectors produce objective reports. If the property is truly in great shape, the inspection report becomes a pseudo-marketing piece, with the added benefit of having been generated by an impartial party.
Q. Don’t seller inspections and re-inspections reduce the number of buyer inspections needed in the marketplace?
A. No. Although every inspection job an InterNACHI member catches upstream is one his/her competitors might not get, especially if the buyer waives his/her inspection and/or the seller hires the same inspector to inspect the home s/he is buying, the number of inspections performed by the industry as a whole is increased by seller inspections.
