Pre-Offer Home Inspections – A GREAT Idea

Every real estate market is different; this one has brought more pre-offer inspections than I have ever seen (in part because I’m more comfortable suggesting them to my buyer clients).

1 – Allows for an As-Is Sale

2 – Removes one phase of negotiations from the process.

3 – Allows for fewer emotions clogging the negotiating process. The home inspection negotiation is often the most emotional, vindictive, painful and difficult periods of the negotiation; a pre-offer inspection removes phase.

4 – It’s cleaner, procedurally.

Risks:

– Even in this market, homes are selling; some are selling with multiple offers and buyers can lose properties if they opt for the pre-offer inspection path

– Some sellers don’t want to allow these; they want assurances that a buyer is really committed before allowing a home inspection.

As with every question and answer in real estate, whether a pre-offer inspection is right for you is situationally dependent. One must evaluate all factors involved, some of which are the buyers, the sellers, the buyers’ agent, the sellers’ agent, the respective companies, the days on market, market activity to name a few …

Transcript:

Hey, Jim Duncan with Nest Realty and realcentralva.com here in Charlottesville, Virginia talking about pre-offer inspections. I’ve done several pre-offer home inspections, (or I’ve attended, I don’t do them) several times in this market and I think that it’s actually a really, really good thing.

The slower market allows for this sort of luxury from a buyer’s standpoint, but also from a seller’s aspect, it makes the transaction potentially much smoother. The buyer has the home inspection, determines what the home is worth to them, ascertains the repairs, conditions, etc. and makes, frequently, an offer where it lays out what their expectations are from a price or repair standpoint and just removes one realm of negotiations from the equation and that’s a really, really good thing because in my experience, I’ve found that the home inspection negotiating phase is actually a second tier negotiation and often times can be the most emotional, the most divisive and the most horrible part of the negotiations because this toilet has been leaking for four years and we’ve always lived with it. How dare these buyers come in and expect something different. Have a pre-offer inspection works out in everybody’s interest.

Now if and when the market turns to where time is not a luxury that we all have, I might have a different opinion on it, but right now, if the market is where it is, I think that it’s certainly a wise thing to consider, to have for a buyer to contract to have a pre-offer home inspection.

Any questions, give me a call anytime. My name is Jim Duncan in Charlottesville, Virginia, (434) 242-7140, realcentralva.com.In other words: