John Hagan is the owner of Hagan Home Inspections in Raleigh, North Carolina. As the owner of a premier home inspection agency, serving homebuyers and sellers throughout the state, Hagan has built a reputation as an expert home inspector. In this article, he explains how getting a full inspection before putting a home on the market can benefit a home seller in the long run.
For home sellers today, it is important to know as much as possible about the condition of your home before putting it on the market. Understanding what problems are lurking in your home and what features are still in perfect condition can help determine a reasonable asking price. Not only that, but knowing what issues to expect can help prepare you before the buyer brings his inspector in to have a look around.
By getting a home inspection before putting your home on the market, you are giving yourself the opportunity to make the necessary repairs before you put the home up for sale. At the very least, these repairs are things that can be resolved before you find a buyer.
In all likelihood, any buyer will ask for a home inspection to be done by the inspector of his choice. For a home seller who has already put his home through an inspection, though, the results of the buyer’s inspection shouldn’t be too much of a surprise as any major issues will have already been caught and resolved.
A full home inspection for a regularly sized home ranges from $300 to $400. But that is a small price to pay compared to how much of a discount off the price of the home most homebuyers will ask for if they discover any major flaws on their own.
By catching these home problems and defects early, you can decide for yourself whether it is something you are willing to fix for the homebuyer, or whether you will deduct any amount from the home price to repair the issue.
One misconception that people have is thinking that they must make any repairs that show up on a home inspection report. That idea is something that turns a lot of home sellers off from getting a report of their own done. But that is simply not the case. Home sellers do not have to make all the repairs that are found on a home inspection that they have commissioned. They will definitely want to make the major ones, of course, since those are issues that will need to be taken care of before the home is sold. But minor issues are not likely to be dealbreakers for most buyers, which is why a lot of home sellers decide not to pay to fix the small things themselves.
If you have a motivated buyer, then he will be willing to purchase the home even if a few flaws need to be fixed. However, if your home has any major issues that will be costly to repair, that could easily scare off potential buyers. That is why home sellers should take the time to fix the major issues before moving forward with the sale of their house. It will benefit them in the long run.
Overall, I would say that having your home inspected by a licensed home inspector before putting it on the market is a proactive approach to selling a home. By taking care of the items that need to be fixed yourself in advance, you will likely save a lot of money compared to what a homebuyer would ask to have taken off of the purchase price to repair those same issues.
For sellers who do not want surprises, and who do not want to be rushing around trying to fix minor problems at the last minute before a sale goes through, I would say that having a full home inspection is certainly the right way to go.
