Ashley Answers: Should we do a home inspection before we list our home?
Q: Hi this is Ashley Gronewald with Hunter Rowe Real Estate and I’m answering questions I typically get from my sellers before listing their home. And this question is should we do a home inspection before we list our home?
A: You definitely could and some agents will even recommend it but I don’t and here’s why: Once you do home inspection you have to either disclose or fix the items you find, or at least your agent does. My guess is that you did a home inspection when you bought the home 3 to 5 years ago and you have maintained it since. So there shouldn’t be any significant surprises, instead what I would recommend is taking care of deferred maintenance will maintain the integrity of your home and help the inspection go better for your buyer. Maintaining your service records that you can share those with a buyer makes them feel really good about how well you have taken care of your home, plus the buyer is going to do a home inspection anyway and they are not going to rely on yours. So why pay 5 to $700 for a home inspection when you know the buyers are going to do it? Of course if you know of any issues take care of them now and don’t wait until you list your home or until the buyer does their inspection, be proactive with home maintenance if you need a referral to a good vendor let me know, I’m happy to make an introduction.
So in short, would I recommend home inspection before you list the home? No I wouldn’t and again the reason is it’s a cost that a buyer is going to incur once they’re under contract with you. And if you maintained your home and made sure that your HPAC system has been serviced, had your roof checked periodically, and cared for your home, overall the inspection shouldn’t be that different from the time that you purchased it. Now again if you have concerns about structural, roof, or HPAC systems have those types of vendors come out. But again, as soon as you know those types of things they become material facts that have to be disclosed in a real estate transaction. So we want to be careful to do too much investigating of a home because those things become disclosable facts that we have to share with the buyer. In short, take care of your home, maintain it, maintain your service records, and hopefully the info inspection will go really well.
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