Prepare For The Home Inspection When Selling Your House

How to Be Ready For The Buyer's Home Inspection

Want to make your home sale a pleasant experience without much fuss? For many home sellers, the home inspection is arguably the scariest part of the sale process. You’ve listed your home with a real estate agent and probably received a nice offer on your home.

You now can't wait for the closing to actually take. However, before that can happen, the scary process of a home inspection remains the last truly significant hurdle.

Strangers arrive at your home and turn every inch of your personal space upside down looking for any form of fault. All the while, you are expected to remain cheerful, nice and cooperative.

As you can imagine, a home inspection is a distressing ordeal that can either break or make the sale. It is therefore important for home sellers to prepare adequately for the home inspection process and ensure that it doesn’t impede on a big windfall that selling your home is likely to bring. It’s important to note that home inspection is not some form of a test that home sellers have to sit down and study for.

However, there are a number of things that you can do before a home inspection to make the process as smooth as possible. That said, here’s how to prepare for home inspection.

Get the Paper Work Together

It’s essential to create a file that has documentation and evidence of all maintenance and repairs that have been done on your home. For instance, you should keep the papers of any insurance claim on your house as proof that you took care of the problem.

Documentation is key because home inspectors often will find evidence of prior problems. You want to be able to show a buyer that its been taken care of professionally and not by your uncle John.

Offer the Inspectors Unrestricted Access to Your Home

It’s always advisable to start on the right foot with the inspectors. In addition to being friendly to the inspectors, it’s smart to provide them complete access to your home. Make sure that the gate and all the doors are unlocked.

Again, it’s vital to provide easy access to basements, roof spaces and de-clutter every area of your home. Remember to start early and put everything in place. It’s also important to note that most inspectors are not comfortable with you being around during the inspection. So it would be really nice of you to put on your shoes and go out for coffee and leave them to do their job without any anxiety.

Your real estate agent should attend the inspection though. It is part of what you are hiring them for - to REPRESENT you! They are not there to argue with the inspector but to observe and understand any issues large or small. It is difficult to know if a problem truly exists or if it is being blown out of proportion. Hopefully, you didn't hire a dual agent though because they will not be able to offer you guidance. A dual agent must remain neutral.

Quite often what is said in person by the home inspector differs with what he puts in his or her report. Keep this in mind - home inspectors have to cover themselves. Problems in home inspection reports often seem way worse than they really are.

Carry out a Pre-inspection of Your Own

Carrying out a pre-inspection of your own using your own inspectors is a nice way of eliminating any surprises. It’s also a sure way of highlighting your honesty and protecting you from being blindsided by a major problem that might be detected during the buyer’s home inspection and hinder the deal from going through in your favor.

This will be vital in pointing out any problem so that you can fix them before the buyer sends his/her own team of inspectors. However, it isn’t a sure guarantee that the buyer’s inspectors won’t find anything in addition to what yours did. The importance of a pre-inspection on your house is to point out faulty areas so that you can repair them.

While there are many areas that may need to be repaired, some of the main areas that should be repaired include anything that is significant enough for a buyer not to want to proceed with the purchase.

Keep in mind the last thing you want is to be in the middle of a sale only to find out you need to put it back on the market. That is a terrible position to be in. By avoiding home inspection deal breakers, you keep your sale on track.

Remember to clean the gutters and ensure that the drainage system is working properly. Water issues really scare buyers to death. You should also fix the roof, the air conditioners, heating system or any other structural or mechanical defects. On interior do look over some of the more cosmetic features as well.

Make sure all the lights are working properly, the toilets and sinks don't leak, there is no evidence of leaks anywhere. Look your home over with a fresh set of eyes, not someone who loves it like the day they bought it.

Lastly, you should also take care of any bug problems. Carpenter ants and termites are two species that can wreck havoc on our homes. All in all, it’s advisable to hire a professional to fix any issue that you aren’t familiar with. Using a certified professional will save you from any red flags that may be raised during the buyer’s home inspection.

Concluding Thoughts

Knowing how to prepare for a home inspection as a seller is of great importance and can no longer be disregarded. The home inspection is crucial when selling your home, as it can prove to be a major hurdle in making or breaking the deal.

It’s therefore important to get the paperwork together, give the inspectors unrestricted access to your home and give them the chance to carry out their job as they deem fit.

Above all, it’s highly recommended that you have a pre-inspection of your own, point out faulty areas and have them fixed before the buyer’s home inspection. Doing all these and carrying out due diligence will improve the chances of the deal going through and leaving you on the good side of the deal.

Hopefully, you now realize the importance of preparing for a home inspection!