ResalesDon"t Forgo Inspections As a Negotiating Tool
In a housing market in which supply is woefully short of demand, some buyers have been willing to forgo a home inspection in an effort to get a leg up on the competition.
Wrong.
You’ve heard of buy now and pay later. By misusing a home inspection as a negotiating tool, the house you succeed in buying may cost you a fortune in the long run as you rush to correct problems a qualified home inspector would have easily been able to point out.
But buyers are doing just that. When I sold my house last year, two of the seven bidders, including the one offering the most money, waived the home inspection.
I certainly wanted to sell my house for the highest price, but I also tried to couple with the highest bid, which I accepted, of course, to hire an inspector.
They declined, citing my professional reputation and the fact that I had carefully listed and explained every potential problem on the mandatory Pennsylvania seller’s disclosure form.
As a result, I spent the two months between the agreement of sale and the closing looking for potential problems and repairing them, as well as solving most of the problems that I had inherited when I bought the house.
After all, my professional reputation was at stake. But, because of the time, effort and money involved, I would have had an easier and less-expensive time had we negotiated them after an inspection.
When I bought my next house three months later, I hired an experienced home inspector who, in three hours, crawled under the house and along the roof, as well as into every nook and cranny between the two.
I’ve had annual physical examinations that were less thorough.
I would never buy a house without an inspection. Even though home inspections were a new phenomenon in 1982 when I bought my first house, I hired one, even though the real estate agent and the seller were suspicious of my intentions.
The inspector missed just about everything and misread the reliability of the hot-water heater. But when I bought the next house, I hired an inspector – a different one, of course
Inspectors and inspections have become increasingly professional over the last 20 years. Many inspectors belong to associations that have established protocol and standards. In the belief that self-policing is not enough, many states have begun licensing home inspectors or at least requiring that inspectors belong to one or more home inspection groups, such as the American Society of Home Inspectors or the National Association of Home Inspectors.
The groups list members and locations on their Web sites. Another major source of home inspectors is word of mouth. Real estate agents will often provide lists of home inspectors they have used, but many agents suggest that their clients shop around before making a choice, because, in the words of Philadelphia agent Marilou S. Buffum, “if I recommend an inspector and the inspector misses something important, the client will blame me. That means no repeat business or referrals.”
Some major real estate firms offer in-house home inspections services, but again, it is better to shop around for the best service at the best price. Inspections typically run from $250 to $500, or more, depending on additional work the consumer might ask the inspector to perform.
One major recommendation: Accompany the inspector as much as you can – insurance liability issues limit your access to the roof, for example – and write down everything he or she has to say. Although the inspector will give you a complete written report as soon as humanly possible, that report may just cover the basics and not the nuances.
For example, I’ve never had a sump pump. My inspector gave me a quick course on sump pumps, including operation and maintenance, that he could not have possibly included in his report. In this way, I learned to clean it and test it myself, saving me the need for hiring someone to do so.
Even if he or she doesn’t uncover major problems, the home inspector should be able to determine whether or not you’ll need to hire an expert for further investigations. For example, the inspector can visually check out a fireplace chimney for cleanliness and structural faults, but will often recommend that you hire a professional chimney inspector to guarantee that there are no problems.
Many inspection associations don’t allow their members to recommend other experts or repair persons, even when their clients beg for such names. There have been highly publicized cases in which disreputable inspectors have fabricated problems and then recommended friends or relatives to do the work.
That’s why you should get credentials before you hire.
A final thought. It is not the inspector’s job to tell you whether or not you should buy the house. That is your decision alone. The inspector’s job is to provide you with thorough and accurate information to help you make the decision.