Advantages of a Pre-listing Home Inspection

There are good and bad surprises, getting $100 from grandma on your birthday is a welcome surprise but being told that the person who recently bought your previous home is suing you for $100,000 is an unwelcome surprise.  If you are the type of person who doesn’t like unwelcome surprises it is important to take measures to keep them from happening. The truth is there is no sure way to eliminate unwelcome surprises, but there are a number of things that you can do to lower the possibility of them happening after selling or buying a home.

The problem with most sellers is they don’t know that they have the option to get a pre-listing home inspection. It is not a must to do it but the benefit you get is a smooth selling process, why? One it gives you the opportunity to make repairs before listing the home and two it strengthens your negotiating power and make you look trustworthy. See the thing is if the buyer finds problems with your home, he or she may decide to give you less than what the property is worth. You may have no option but to settle because finding a buyer who is willing to buy a home as is may be difficult. According to realtors we talked to buyers prefer move-in-ready homes because it saves them time and money.

Not convinced yet? Here are some other advantages of pre-listing a home inspection:

• Smoother efficient transaction: imagine being locked in negotiations for three or four months and the buyer decides to pull out. That’s wasted time and money. The benefit of pre-listing a home in this scenario is all issues are disclosed ahead of time meaning no surprises.
• Accurate pricing: overvaluing your home will make it difficult to find buyers, undervaluing it means little or no profit. If issues are found and you don’t have the money to repair them, you can factor the repair cost into the asking price. In other words, the buyer will know exactly how much he or she needs to get the home up to code.
• It builds trust: buying a home is a huge investment; this makes it very important to know exactly what you are buying. Pre-listing inspection shows the buyer that you are trustworthy i.e. you are not trying to hide anything.
• Faster financing: very few people buy homes in cash, pre-listing a home makes it easier for the buyer to secure financing meaning the process will be faster.
• Repairs ahead of time: if problems are found before listing the home, you can make repairs ahead of time in effect minimizing unwelcome surprises and giving buyers a few reasons to do their own inspection.

Generally, pre-listing home inspection takes out the guesswork out of the equation, if you leave it to the buyer to do his/her own inspection. You may end up selling the home at a loss. The point is you get a clear picture of your property’s true value.