Get a Home Inspection Before You List Your Home

June 7th, 2007 categories: Disclosures & Inspections, El Dorado County Real Estate

Part 1 in a 3 part series on preparing your home to sell in a buyer’s market:

If selling real estate in El Dorado County over the last 3 years has taught me anything, it has taught me that Buyers can change their tune on a dime when the market turns in their favor. Because of the lack of homes on the market two years ago, it seemed that I could not get an offer in fast enough for the buyers I was working with. Home_pre-inpection

Buyers were forced to accept the home “as-is”.

I would call the listing agent to let them know I had an offer for them and before I could press send on the fax machine, I would get a call back telling me that 2 more offers had come in and that my buyers would have to compete for the home. 

That was a different real estate market.

Today, El Dorado and Amador County homes and real estate have entered a more “Buyer Friendly” market. Inventory is higher and quite simply, there are a lot more homes to choose from for the avarage buyer. Because of this, most buyers have found that it is much easier today to ask for repairs and credits than it was two years ago. Sadly, many deals that would have stayed together two years ago have fallen apart due to small problems that could have been corrected ahead of time if the seller had a pre-inspection performed before the house went on the market.

What is a Home Pre-Inspection?

In short, a Home Pre-Inspection is a home inspection performed by a knowledgeable, experienced home inspector before the property is listed for sale. The goal is to find and correct all of the potential problems that may arise during a buyer’s investigation period.Home_inspection

I have found when most buyers discover problems in the disclosures or when performing their inspections during their 17 day investigation period, buyer’s remorse tends to set in. The idea that they are purchasing the perfect house at the time they submitted the offer starts to be replaced by insecurity and doubt. Especially if they are not experienced home buyers.

No matter what condition the real estate market is in, most sellers tend to feel resentment toward a buyer when the buyer makes any kind of request for repairs or asks for a credit or reduction in the sales price. Also, having to perform the repairs during the last half the of escrow period always seems to put an unecessary amount stress on the homeowner who is usually trying to close their own purchase and pack to move.

Having your home pre-inspected and correcting the issues before you place it on the market will not only eliminate the last minute stress of multiple repairs, it may also potentially save you thousands of dollars in credits and price reductions.   This has been a common practice in the Bay Area for years.

When I purchased and sold a house as an investment last year in Oakland, I was suprised to find that most agents wanted copies of all the inspections and disclosures before they even wrote the offer. My experience with this showed me that it would make a much more efficient escrow period, with very little hassle toward the end. Even in a buyer’s market.

If you are looking to sell you home in the near future, please feel free to email at edde@realestatetrekker.com or call me at (530) 644–2687 anytime for a list of very qualified home inspectors.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 2:16 am and is filed under Disclosures & Inspections, El Dorado County Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  1. Marty Van Diest said at June 24th, 2007 at 10:35 am

    You have a good site going here. I read several of your posts after adding you to my “Ripening on the Real Estate Tomato Vine” post.

    I like this one about Pre-Inspections the best. I also advocate that sellers do a pre-inspection. It saves a lot of hassle and also shows good faith on their part.

  2. Edde Anderson said at June 24th, 2007 at 2:41 pm

    Thanks Marty…

    It it eliminates so many issues… After selling a house in Oakland and seeing how the Bay Area agents ask for all the disclosures before they even write the offer, it just seem sto make a lot more sense.

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