Todd,

In this day and age you forgot the lending stress, many Buyer's are on the edge of qualifying and with how dynamic the credit markets are this adds a new stresser.  Will the Buyer make it out the back door with funding.

Take care!

RJH

Todd - I can see the benefit of an inspection. If something is found wrong the seller could have the time to fix the problem and shop for the best price to do it, so when the Buyer's inspector comes the same problem is not found. I would encourage the buyer to have their own inspection, and not take the sellers. Of course, the buyer may want to 'save some money' and not get another, but I would not recommend it. Ethically speaking if the seller, and/or the Realtor, knows of a problem found in the pre-inspection report, the problem has to be disclosed or corrected.

I would rather spend the money on a home warranty that carries over to the buyer and protects the seller during the listing, than on an appraisal.

The buyers in a declining market will want to offer what they want, and not be looking at the sellers appraisal. Besides the seller may be harder to see the benefit of an offer from a buyer, if they are all pumped up about 'the appraised price' to reinforce the price. If the appraisal can have comments regarding the direction of the local market ( depreciating at x% a month - or just declining, or stable or increasing ) than that will help in getting the seller and buyer more real about the appraised price - an opinion of someone who can do an appraisal - an opinion, that is all.

Todd - This is great advice for sellers.  I often recommend the inspection ahead of time as well.  I hope you're having a great weekend.

Robert - I can see your point, but from my sellers point of view it works great. Most of my seller and buyers don't use lenders.

Richard - I wrote this article for people here in Oregon, but it can be used by others. I also suggest buyers get their own inspection and appriasal, but in our market where prices are still on the rise and not falling most sellers aren't so worried about getting the appriased value for their property. My sellers usually make between $25,000 and $100,000 more than appraised value anyway.

Jason - The pre-inspection is a wise thing even if you do have to disclose problems. Most my sellers fix the problems before the first buyer sees the property.

Todd, Great advice, these things would help to ease a buyers mind.

This is such solid, logical advice, but when I suggest it, you'd think I'd just asked them to drink poison!

Todd - Glad to see that you are located in an area that is appreciating, and that you have cash buyers. Lucky you !  Just goes to show that real estate is local and not any one approach can work everywhere.

Richard - Not a lot of cash buyers, I specialize in Owner Financing and that is where they make the money and don't have to use banks.

Good advice, Todd. We often recommend sellers get inspections done before listings to see what their problems will be---before negotiations.

Roberta - It is such a simple thing to do and it actually can ease the sellers mind also, no surprises.

Jennifer - It is that Portland Kool Aid - LOL

Bonnie - It does help the buyers know that the seller really does want to sell the best product to them and not hide anything.