There are many sayings, adages on how life will return to you what you put into it. You reap what you sow, what goes around, comes around are a few that come quickly to mind. The same can be said about houses. By taking care of and maintaining your home, you will reap the benefits of your conscientiousness when you sell.
I think it can be said that home maintenance begins during the home inspection. Many clients have said to me the report has been a help in knowing where to begin making repairs and performing usual maintenance. The main purpose of the inspection however is to identify defects or potential hazards to the buyers before purchase.
In my years of inspecting houses, I have come to learn what troubles one person, can hardly raise an eyebrow with another. Since I have seen this reaction hundreds and hundreds of times, I now try and impress on buyers, especially first timers, that the house they are buying today will one day be sold again...by them. That at this point in time the house still belongs to the seller and any defects uncovered are in essence the sellers.
Recently I pulled up to a house and had that Deja Vu feeling. As I began working my around the outside of the small ranch house, that feeling continued to get stronger.
"Boy," I said to myself, "that addition sure looks familiar. And so does that deck".
By the time I was inside the house, I was certain I had been in this house before.
When I had worked my way finally to the finished basement, I was remembering quite a bit about this house. I was later to learn I inspected it four years before. One of the concerns I recalled from the basement was asbestos on the ducts. And I was to find it was still there. In fact it was also exactly in the same spot on the furnace and water flue pipes.
The past and present photos are shown. They look exactly the same. I did inform my present clients of my Deja Vu. What I did not do, and gave this some thought, was use the photos or report from four years ago to the benefit of my present clients.
Interestingly, the sellers had done several recent, expensive upgrades, I was told in order to sell the house. There was a brand new roof, just days old, a new furnace and A/C compressor. And yet the asbestos remained. As I said earlier it is very hard to figure people. I usually don't try.
Karma, sometimes it's hurts.
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