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The In's and Outs' of the Home Inspection and punch list repairs.

From the Sellers Angle

At some point in time you may decide to sell your existing home. You will probably need to get a home inspection done. We realize that $300 dollars is the average price and seems like a lot of money but it will cost you far more if you don't have one done prior to putting the house on the market.

The new buyers are going to want to know everything about the house they buy from you. Don't even think about trying to hide any problems. You want the home inspector to find out every little detail that's an issue. We hear clients complain about the list but they soon find out that the new buyers will drive the price down on the house for every little nit picky problem they find on their home inspection report

The buyer will usually hire their own inspection company to look over the house prior to closing. That is a poor time for you to discover a load of problems that have to be handled in less than a week. We get calls all the time from The buyers needing emergency repairs so the can meet closure. We suggest you get your own inspection done and fix those problems before you list the home.

It's not a good idea for the repair people to be working on your house when potential buyers show up unannounced. We have had this happen once or twice and the new buyers that were about to close wanted photos of all the repair work before and after to make sure what they were buying was repaired the way they thought it ought to be done. We won't take a short cut on repairs we do but we do not like to be caught in the middle of the buyer and seller going head to head over costs and how repairs are done.

Generally the buyers will feel much better about your home when they walk in after completion, ready for sale than to come inside while everything is ripped apart. For some strage reason they equate an unfinished home with a scrap pile and it turns them off instantly. They hold two views in mind. The first is what a mess it looked like when they first saw the repairs. The second which they prefer is the finished project. Take it from us. get your house in order before the show so you won't get stressed out running around making sure those problems are taken care of.

From the Buyers Angle

Okay, you are about to buy your dream house. Get a Home Inspection done. Our company has had a few calls from buyers after closing that were shocked when they discovered major problems like wood rot or a leaking roof. Once you get the inspection done you can negotiate with the seller to either have the items on the punch list repaired or get them to drop the price of the house to compensate you for what you are going to spend to have it fixed.

A good seller will usually have the house in order prior to selling it but that is not always the case. Sitting down at closure bargaining the cost of the house is time consuming and frustrating. We have seen both sides of that coin. We did repairs for a couple who had nickled and dimed the seller down on the price. The war went on for a week. Finally the seller had us do the repairs. The buyers countered and found other issues that were cosmetic in nature. The Sellers decide to no sale the house to the current buyer. The repairs we did increased the value on the house and the original owners decided to go up on the asking price. The sellers quite arguing at that point and bought the house. The moral of the story is decide what you can live with and cannot. AN inspection up front can mean a lot of difference.