How a Pre-Listing Home Inspection Can Speed Up the Real Estate Transaction
The majority of residential real estate contracts typically come with a contingency that allows the buyer to have the home inspected by a professional before the deal is sealed. Buyers usually pay for this service themselves, while sellers simply allow them to book a few hours to inspect the home from top to bottom. So, if the buyer is arranging – and paying for – a home inspection, why should you as a seller pay to have your own pre-inspection done?
There are many reasons, including speeding up the transaction. Here are just some of the advantages of having a pre-inspection conducted on your home before you list it.
Build Confidence in the Buyer
Imagine being the buyer of a home and knowing that it’s already been inspected. You would have a little bit more confidence in the property and the transaction as a whole, wouldn’t you?
A pre-listing inspection tells buyers about all the behind-the-scenes details lurking within your home. Nobody wants to put in an offer on a property that has hidden problems. If there is anything in your home that requires fixing, any repairs that you make can be highlighted in the listing description and can even boost the asking price. With an inspection, you can prove that your home is in good condition and is worth every penny of your asking price.
Even if you don’t make the repairs, at least disclosing the issues builds your credibility as a seller and helps boost buyers’ confidence that much more.
Highlight Your Home’s Listing
A home inspection report that’s drafted up before your home is even listed makes for an awesome marketing tool because it helps you showcase your home’s best features. You can take this opportunity to make specific upgrades to your home and highlight them in your listing description, which buyers will notice.
Buyers like to see that improvements have been made on a home, as it provides the peace of mind knowing that the home is properly maintained. Such reassurance can help to move the transaction along.
Identify Issues That Need Attention
Minor problems are one thing, but major problems are quite another. Having the opportunity to uncover any significant issues before listing will give you some time to repair them, which is not only a big benefit for the buyer, but it’s also advantageous to you too.
Instead of paying for the buyer’s contractor to get the work done quickly, you’ll be able to make these repairs on your own schedule and budget. Without a pre-listing inspection, you won’t be able to identify any issues until the final inspection before escrow closes, which can waste time and derail your sale.
Help Determine the Right Listing Price
Coming up with the right listing price is critical. If you fail to list appropriately, you risk your home sitting on the market for longer than necessary, and may end up with a stale listing. But it can be a challenge to price your home properly when you’re not fully aware of the state that it’s in.
Having a pre-listing inspection done can help you adjust the asking price accordingly, whether you make the repairs or choose not to. If there’s nothing to be done according to your inspection, you can realistically list higher.
Lower the Odds of Renegotiation
Your buyer will likely want to conduct a home inspection after offer acceptance, but if their inspection uncovers any major problems with your home, you can bet that you’ll be back to the negotiation table. This time, you could be asked to lower the price of your home, pay for the repairs, or even make the repairs yourself before they take possession.
It can be agitating to have a deal fall apart after it seemed to be on course to close. While renegotiation can still result in a closed deal, it can also go the other way. A pre-listing inspection can help you prevent this scenario from occurring.
Save Money
Buyers often over-estimate how much certain repairs can cost. You may be able to save some money by having the work done ahead of time with a contractor that you choose yourself. This could literally mean the difference of a few thousand dollars.
The Bottom Line
While it’s certainly not mandatory to conduct a pre-inspection on your home before listing it for sale, it can certainly help ensure a more streamlined process. Selling real estate will inevitably come with a certain amount of uncertainty and stress, but you can greatly reduce and even eliminate these negative factors by including a pre-inspection on your property as part of your selling process.
