Let’s face it, selling your home is hard. If it were easy we would all do it more often. We recommend that sellers start the process by interviewing a reputable real estate broker, as their insight can often simplify the process. After that selection is made things will start to get pretty busy; painting, clean-up, pricing strategy and pre-marketing (staging and professional photography for example) typically dominate this phase. Then the home hits the market and after what seems to be countless showings, while pretending that no one actually lives there, an offer is received! The negotiating process can be arduous but if they’ve made good decisions, the vast majority of sellers will eventually find themselves “in escrow”.
Keep in mind that nearly all real estate purchase agreements contain a contingency for the buyer’s approval of professional home inspections. After investing a significant amount of time, hard work and/or money, sellers then find themselves at yet another threshold moment and the “inspections” are completely out of their hands. If you are selling a home, why not hire a professional home inspector BEFORE you put the home on the market? This simple strategy is likely to take a lot of the stress and mystery out of your transaction. Here are a few more good reasons to perform “pre-inspections”:
· It shows buyers that the seller is reasonable, cooperative and committed to a transparent transaction. These attributes are very attractive to home buyers and likely to net the seller more proceeds from the sale.
· If there are needed repairs, they are conducted on the seller’s terms rather than the buyers. The buyer plans to own the home for many years, while sellers are trying to get out from under it. Enough said.
· The clock is ticking, and time is critical in an active escrow. It’s very difficult to find top, reasonably priced repair professionals on short notice. Sellers will almost always over-pay for repairs when governed by a strict timeline.
· It may change the pricing strategy. A home with a new roof is certainly worth more than the identical house next door with a roof that’s 20 years of age. Conversely, some conditions make a home difficult to finance. Either way, an inspection report should be factored into the pricing decision.
· Relying on a professional inspection offers a high degree of legal protection to the seller. This is particularly true when selling income or inherited residential properties. In Nevada there is no relief for a property owner failing to disclose conditions the seller should have known of, even if they’ve never lived there.
Of course the future buyer will have the option of conducting their own inspections and it's almost a given that the buyer's inspector will find minor conditions the first guy missed. These folks do need to justify their fees after all. Pre-inspections are intended to discover conditions that could derail an escrow which ultimately puts the seller in a much stronger negotiating position.