What is the purpose of a pre-listing inspection?

I logged in to do my final three blogs for the week when I saw Robert Snowden's Featured Blog titled "Is there any value in a home inspection?"

The answer, of course, is a resounding yes.

I might be slightly prejudiced, though, because I worked as a home inspector from October 2001 to August 2005.

One of the comments to Robert's post was made by Russ Ravary of Detroit. Russ was one of the first people to comment on my early blog posts back in August 2008, and I continue to visit his blog on a regular basis, and he, mine.

So his comment caught me off guard:

"I recommend an inspection to all buyers but I wouldn't recommend it to a seller.  Because as a buyer I wouldn't trust a sellers inspection."

That, of course, begs the question, "Why not?"

The inference is that a home inspector would not do a honest and thorough for the Seller. Again I ask, "Why not?"

All home inspectors will do both pre-listing inspections and buyer's inspections when asked, so the inference is also that the home inspector is simply dishonest or unethical, period. So can a home inspector be bought by Sellers' but not by Buyer's? That boggles my mind (and I have no idea where I got the word "boggles" from, although readers might know).

The other inference, which I believe is totally wrong, is that the Seller's are getting a pre-listing inspection to provide to the Buyers, possibly in the hope that the Buyer's will then use the Seller's inspection and forego an independent inspection of their own.

That is simply bad business due to one fact and one fact only:

• Real estate conditions can, and often do, change overnight, either due to people and pets living on the property and causing damage, or from neglect because no one is living there to take care of it.

In my view -- keeping in mind that I worked as a home inspector for over four years -- a pre-listing serves only one legitimate purpose:

• It provides the Seller with information about his home that he might not know, regardless of how long he might have lived in that home.

Once the Seller has that information, I see him as having three choices as to what to do with it:

1. Provide it as part of the disclosure, thereby indicating to the Buyer that he is very interested in making the sale go as smoothly as possible.
2. Get three quotes for any major defects and provide them to the Buyer along with the report and the disclosure, perhaps even offering to take the middle quote and have the repairs done while in escrow.
3. Have major defects repaired and provide receipts to the Buyer along with the report and the disclosure.

In my view, the more helpful the Seller is, or indicates being, the more likely that a trusting Buyer will be found.

Additionally, NAR and SDAR, as well as many home inspector trade associations and independent research groups, regularly report that homes that have a pre-listing inspection done on them:

1. Sell for a higher price than a comparable home without a pre-listing inspection
2. Sell more quickly than a comparable home without a pre-listing inspection
3. Have fewer problems during escrow

What Realtor would not like that?

Back when the company that I worked for, The HomeTeam Inspection Service, was getting started here in San Diego, one of our attorneys provided us with the summary of a court case against a listing agent. Within that summary was a telling statement by the Judge, that went something like this:

"Well, Mrs. Listing Agent, since you stood to make a $15,000 commission on the sale of the subject home, you should have spent $300 on a pre-listing inspection so that you would know exactly what you were trying to sell."

I could not have said it better myself. If my Sellers don't get a pre-listing inspection, I get one done for them. They are usually at least $100 less expensive than a Buyer's inspection, and the knowledge that my Sellers and I gain from them can do nothing but help the transaction go more smoothly since we can then price the home more appropriately knowing that it is highly unlikely that we'll have to re-open negotiations because of what the Buyer's home inspector found.

And for the record, I always recommend to the Buyers that they get an independent inspection of their own since, as I stated earlier, real estate conditions can, and often do, change overnight.