Randy Steiger, RE/MAX Del Oro

When you sell a piece of real estate the more information you can provide to a buyer, the better! The method by which most real estate is sold today involves at least two periods of negotiations between buyer and seller. The beginning negotiations involve price and terms. Once a meeting of the minds has been achieved between a buyer and seller, the whole deal is nearly always contingent upon a buyer’s right to have the property inspected by various professionals.

As you may have noticed, our society today is extremely oriented toward protecting consumers. Therefore when and if a buyer discovers something about a piece of property that may be considered a defect, or even “disagreeable” to them, the buyer usually has a contractual right to cancel the contract if the seller is unwilling or unable to provide a remedy. This is the second period of negotiations which I mentioned previously. If these negotiations fail, and trust me, they often do, it’s not a pretty sight!

Homeowners can save themselves alot of grief and potential surprises during the selling process by having and giving the buyer as much detail about the property as possible. Two excellent methods of educating yourself about your property are to have a pest inspection and professional home inspection.

A pest inspection is often erroneously called a “termite inspection”. I call this eroneous because it is much more than just a search for peskly little wood-chewing critters. The inspection may also identify such issues as faulty grade levels outside the house, excessive moisture conditions both inside and outside, leaking shower pans, leaking roofs, and improper ventilation to name just a few. The potential for unexpected expense and frustration is immense, not to mention the inconvenience of having to deal with any surprises under the pressure of time constraints during a pending sale.

A home inspection is quite different from a pest inspection. Professional home inspectors usually investigate such issues as plumbing and electrical systems, operation of appliances, windows and doors, structural integrity, broken or missing fixtures, etc. Suffice to say that a home inspection, when done by a professional, often times reveals a variety of problems which you, as a homewoner, may not have known about. When this happens during a pending a sale, all parties can be disappointed and upset. The next thing you know the buyer may be asking you to make expensive repairs in order to continue with the sale.

So just imagine how much easier and more pleasant this whole process could be if you handed your prospective buyer a copy of a pest inspection report, and a home inspection report, during the initial negotiations. You can disclose in writing that these are the issues you know about, and whether you have elected to fix none, some, or all of them. The price you ultimately accept for your property should reflect what you know and what you’re willing to remedy.

Keep in mind, however, that the buyer still may have the right to have their own inspections, at their own expense, but if you’ve had good reliable professionals working for you there should be no new surprises! Your cost of these inspections are very minimal (often under $400.) compared to the tremendous potential benefits!