Most of the Sellers I have had the pleasure of representing have had tremendous “pride of ownership” in their home. Most of them have lived in their residence for a long period of time (these days, 5 years is a long time!).
When you live in a home for an extended period, you begin to loose your objectivity about the house. The longer you live there, the less you see the imperfections, however slight or significant they may be.
One of the things I typically counsel my Sellers is to have a pre-marketing home inspection performed on their house. This helps to identify any issues prior to putting the house up for sale. If something significant arises, my Sellers then have adequate time to make repairs, using their own choice of contractor or repairperson, negotiating a good price, and making sure the corrections are done right. This is a much better approach than waiting for the Buyer’s inspector to find the same issue; the Buyer getting to select the contractor; the Seller paying for this contractor; and rushing to get the work completed before closing.
When we put the house up for sale, we put a copy of the inspection report in the home book, and detail any repairs that were made, along with copies of the receipts from the contractor/repairperson.
For the minimal cost of hiring a licensed, professional inspector, Sellers can eliminate a lot of the hassle and stress that many times occurs in the home selling process.
Rich Jacobson, www.KitsapLife.com
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