You are ready to celebrate – your marketing was successful and you found a buyer, negotiated a great price and have a contract of sale. Unfortunately, deals can unravel even after this point. To smoothly get to closing there are several issues to keep in mind. In this post I discuss House Inspection – an event that can often lead to a deal falling apart. What can be done to avoid such outcome?
The question often comes up, is it better for the seller to inspect the house prior to putting it on the market or wait for the buyer’s inspection. Let’s look at the two possibilities.

Seller’s Inspection
Is it helpful or not to do such inspection, since it can reveal potential problems? These problems most likely would have to be disclosed to prospective buyers, if a seller decides not to fix them. Some argue that such disclosure can detract prospective buyers form making an offer or cause them to offer a lower price. On the other hand, discovering the problems early in the process, reduces "surprises" down the line from the buyers' inspection and allows you - the seller to budget for repairs. Fixing the problems prior to putting the house on the market gives you a better chance to get to a successful close.

Buyer’s Inspection
Buying a home is a very emotional process. Home inspection in particular makes a lot of buyers very nervous. If the inspection reveals serious problems, buyers often doubt their decision to buy such house. They may want to get out of the contract or demand additional price concessions and it makes the process difficult for everyone involved. If the seller decides not to address the serious inspection problems and the sales contract is terminated, the seller would most likely have to disclose the inspection findings to the next buyer which brings us back to the original point.

The right answer
There may not be an answer that is right for all. When I work with my seller- clients I describe the risks and implications of both approaches. This information gives them the basis to make their decision.

You may be interested to read:

                    "Princeton Real Estate - Tow More Things For A Successful Sale" -  other tips for keeping the deal together: contracts and disclosure.

If you are interested in a successful sale or purchase of your home, or need real estate advice, please call Faina Sechzer 609-553-4174