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I'll be putting my house up for sale hopefully in less than a year. Before putting it on the market, I'm installing a new HVAC and new roof. I just replaced the water heater a couple of months ago and will be doing some painting. These are important things the house needs. Everything else the inspector may find is trivial. If they come at me with a long list of demands, they can keep walking and I'll make that clear to the realtor when he or she lists the house. Houses in this area have no problem selling if priced right.
I'll be putting my house up for sale hopefully in less than a year. Before putting it on the market, I'm installing a new HVAC and new roof. I just replaced the water heater a couple of months ago and will be doing some painting. These are important things the house needs. Everything else the inspector may find is trivial. If they come at me with a long list of demands, they can keep walking and I'll make that clear to the realtor when he or she lists the house. Houses in this area have no problem selling if priced right.
Does the HVAC system really need to be replaced? You won’t get your money back.
Does the HVAC system really need to be replaced? You won’t get your money back.
It does need to be replaced. It's original to the house so about 30 years old. You can't even get the correct coolant/freon for it anymore and I live in the desert. It didn't really concern me because I use a portable swamp cooler to cool in the summer so I rarely ever turned it on. No one would consider buying a house in the desert with an air conditioner 30 years old. Plus having a new AC should help sell the house quickly.
They wanted me to rodent proof the house. It was an old 1906 house, and could use it, but I just gave them a $750 credit towards that.
They had conventional financing so there wasn't gonna be a whole bunch of drama. Their offer was way above my asking price, so even with concessions I got more than I was hoping for.
Rule #1 is to always leave at least 6 easy-to-find needs fixing items for the inspector.
The inspector has to find some things wrong.
Great advice. Easy to find and easy to fix things, like shower heads, broken door handles / locks, etc., are good to not repair until after inspection.
I told my agent that I did not want to see the inspector's list. At all. I wanted a list of deal-breaker items from my buyers. I also priced my house correctly to begin with, based on condition.
My buyers gave me a list of several things that sounded worrisome, but really only cost about $500 and were simple fixes. For a deal involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, this was fine with me.
I always get the inspection report. Why not?
More information is more power. If the deal falls through, you can offer the inspection report to new buyer for peace of mind, save money, or do some advanced repairs yourself.
More information is more power. If the deal falls through, you can offer the inspection report to new buyer for peace of mind, save money, or do some advanced repairs yourself.
I sold several homes in a fairly short period of time, and the inspection reports all had errors and exaggerated claims, and a lot of nit-picking.
One inspector noted a stain from a toilet brush in a 30 year-old bathroom vanity.
One property had a “rock” back yard (no grass, no plantings), and a former owner had left a disconnected/broken irrigation valve on the side of the house - as part of the final clean-up - before listing the property- I tossed the broken (unnecessary) valve in the trash bucket. There was a notation and a picture of the valve (in the trash) in the inspection report, along with a request from the buyer to “repair” the irrigation system.. even though there was nothing in the yard that required irrigation. . It was a bare, rock yard.
Another property had a roof that had been replaced (the right way, a complete tear-off, by a licensed contractor) a year prior to listing, and the receipt and warranty were in the disclosure packet that the buyer received.. and this inspector told the buyer that “if it’s not leaking now, it will leak during the first rain”.. That roof was still under warranty, and the inspector was just plain wrong.
Every report had “suggestions” to put steel poles filled with concrete in the garage to keep people from driving through the house - (or, perhaps, just don’t drive into the house?), and other random bull-crap like CO2 detectors in houses with no sources of CO2 (all electric)..
Every single report had at least one major error that could potentially upset a buyer, and the worst reports were on houses that had an incredible amount of quality remodeling work done right.
The adage about leaving obvious defects is absolutely correct.
Take off the anti-tip bracket from the stove, toss the vacuum breakers from the outside outlets and put in a couple of $19.99 drippy faucets so the inspector has something to fill out in their 100 page copy-pasta book report, or they’ll just make stuff up and kink your deal.
Got the home inspected ourselves before it hit the market. Totally worth it - the buyers' inspector couldn't ding us on much of anything, neither could the appraiser.
One thing that the inspector wrote up when we sold our last house were things that were “not to code” although they WERE code when the house was built 10 years previous. Example: there was a HVAC vent in the garage which now would require a “fire damper.” These sort of requests we told the buyer we would not consider. We fixed a few others, and gave them some money (about $750.00 IIRC) on some others.
I can tell you that it’s not been allowed to have a HVAC vent in the garage or any holes for way longer than 10 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brandon Hoffman
Our home inspections rarely(like pretty much never) quote codes. They aren't code inspectors. For example, GFCI's are grandfathered in based on when codes changed. However, inspectors don't write them up for being code/not code. If the home doesn't have GFCI outlets, it's simply written up as a safety concern.
exactly, when people ask why I write up missing GFCI devices I tell them it’s because you’ll be just as dead if there’s a problem whether it was required when the house was built or not. I also tell them that they’re of course totally fine to decide what kind of risks to take on. Just understand going in and work the best deal with you agent as you can.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markjames68
When I sold one home a number of years ago I made sure there were a few easy things left and chatted up the inspector when he was looking at areas that I really didn't want him to look at too closely.
never fall for that. When someone pulls that kind of stuff I make sure to look harder. Easy things are just more stuff on the list that a good agent can use against you in the deal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zippyman
I sold several homes in a fairly short period of time, and the inspection reports all had errors and exaggerated claims, and a lot of nit-picking.
One inspector noted a stain from a toilet brush in a 30 year-old bathroom vanity.
One property had a “rock” back yard (no grass, no plantings), and a former owner had left a disconnected/broken irrigation valve on the side of the house - as part of the final clean-up - before listing the property- I tossed the broken (unnecessary) valve in the trash bucket. There was a notation and a picture of the valve (in the trash) in the inspection report, along with a request from the buyer to “repair” the irrigation system.. even though there was nothing in the yard that required irrigation. . It was a bare, rock yard.
Another property had a roof that had been replaced (the right way, a complete tear-off, by a licensed contractor) a year prior to listing, and the receipt and warranty were in the disclosure packet that the buyer received.. and this inspector told the buyer that “if it’s not leaking now, it will leak during the first rain”.. That roof was still under warranty, and the inspector was just plain wrong.
Every report had “suggestions” to put steel poles filled with concrete in the garage to keep people from driving through the house - (or, perhaps, just don’t drive into the house?), and other random bull-crap like CO2 detectors in houses with no sources of CO2 (all electric)..
Every single report had at least one major error that could potentially upset a buyer, and the worst reports were on houses that had an incredible amount of quality remodeling work done right.
The adage about leaving obvious defects is absolutely correct.
Take off the anti-tip bracket from the stove, toss the vacuum breakers from the outside outlets and put in a couple of $19.99 drippy faucets so the inspector has something to fill out in their 100 page copy-pasta book report, or they’ll just make stuff up and kink your deal.
Every profession has people that are great, good, and bad. Some of those things would be overstepping. But if there is a garage attached to the house, a CO detector is definitely 100% required since they’ve been required at all and are highly recommended as a retrofit given the low cost. No garage, no fireplace and all electric then no need.
We are in the process of selling our home and a few weeks ago the home inspector came by and within a few days came up with a long list of problems with the house.
I was shocked by the long list because I was proud of the fact that we spent so much time and money maintaining our home during the last five years. I thought the house was in nearly perfect shape. The home inspector hired by the new buyer disagreed.
Our real estate agent told me it is all part of a silly game buyers and inspectors use to get money from the seller towards closing costs. It is easier to try to pay them off with a lump sum than hire contractors to try to fix the defects and then be concerned things were not fixed to everyone's standards.
If you sold a house recently, what did you do about the list of things on the home inspector report? Did you fix everything or pay money to the buyer to waive inspection? Tell us how you came up with your decision about what to do.
I have sold three homes in the past and this is all part of the game to get the price lowered. All homes more than 30 years old are going to have problems to contend with. Sellers will push the concessions they want to the maximum dollar amount. Your broker's job is to find an acceptable amount they are willing to go down to without chasing them away. Example: replace old pipes. Buyers want a $10,000 subtraction from the selling price. Seller's broker: "How about $4,000? No? $5,000? No? $6,000 is the highest my client is willing to go. Yes? Okay, $6,000 it is." And so on. Don't be too greedy but at the same time don't give the buyers all they ask for. It's old fashioned horse trading.
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