I think the saying “You sell your house twice” is VERY true. Once, to get it under contract. Twice, to negotiate repairs after the inspection. Repairs can be a major roadblock to a successful close. You spend all that time and effort to market the house and get it under contract, and then you have to sweat the inspection. And you know they ALWAYS find something! And have you noticed that each year the inspectors seem to focus on a “new” issue. One year it was wobbly fans, then mold in crawl spaces, then broken seals on windows. It just grows and grows.
After dealing with the repair issues on a lot of listings, I think I am going to tackle my repairs somewhat differently. As I mention in my post “Get Top Dollar For Your House”, you should have an inspection done BEFORE you put your house on the market. I will do this, make any major repairs that are necessary, and then sell the house “AS IS”! No more repairs will be done! You want the house, you deal with the minor issues. I will give them the inspection report and let them have their own done, too. But they will have to do it before they put in the offer, cause I ain’t dealing with repairs when I sell! They can adjust the original offer to take any repairs into account, if necessary.
I plan to sell my house ONCE.
(Of course you should be keeping your house in great shape anyway. It is probably still your largest asset.)
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