Full Disclosure: How Pre-listing Home Inspections Even the Score for Sellers

By Jay Gregg

When we were kids, we stuffed our closets full of our toys in lieu of putting them neatly away, hoping that our parents would never find the mess we made. We thought we could spend as little time as possible on chores to maximize the amount of time for fun. But eventually, we would come to learn that, time after time, our parents would soon enough find our mess, negating any time saved—and then some.

That lesson is just as germane for those looking to sell a home. Unfortunately, many fail to translate that knowledge to the process of putting a house on the market, with sellers often deferring the home inspection process to buyers. In doing so, sellers are making the same mistake we made as kids, hoping that any surprises won’t make themselves known to buyers. Only now, the consequences of their inevitable discovery are far more serious than earning a grounding.

For the small price of a pre-listing inspection like that offered by Pillar To Post, sellers stand to save big when it comes time for a buyer to put pen to paper and complete the transaction. Below are just a few of the many benefits of having a pre-listing home inspection done.

You stand to earn a return far closer to your initial asking price. When a buyer invariably performs his or her own inspection, should he or she find undisclosed flaws, you stand to lose more money off your initial asking price than you might assume. In fact, for every flaw a buyer finds that would cost $1,000 to fix, you stand to lose $3,000-$5,000 off your asking price. In truth, the average buyer doesn’t really know what it would cost to fix an issue found. Yet the fact of the matter is, flaws that are not made apparent to buyers before their own inspections are performed are seen as far more egregious than those disclosed beforehand, even if you bring an issue to their attention and make it known that you won’t fix it. It really comes down to a basic cost-benefit analysis: For a $500 pre-listing inspection, a seller could stand to save thousands more than the costly perception of an undisclosed flaw.

You become the most knowledgeable person about your listing. It may seem self-evident, but a pre-listing home inspection report will make you the most educated person on a listing. Yet sellers often fail to see the value of being completely aware of a home’s condition before trying to sell it. While a seller might be legitimately ignorant of a home’s flaws, that ignorance is no excuse to initiate the selling process blind to a home’s condition. Should a would-be buyer’s own inspection turn up hitherto unknown flaws, the seller appears incompetent at best and as though he or she is taking part in deceptive obfuscation at worst. By having a pre-listing inspection performed, you can be the authority on your property, conveying both credibility and expertise to a buyer.

You gain considerable leverage in the negotiating process. Beyond connoting competence and professionalism, you stand to gain considerable leverage during the negotiating process by having a pre-listing home inspection. With Pillar To Post, for example, you are given a full report on the condition of the property, leaving you to determine which changes are worth fixing on your own, and which are better left to the future owners. Many changes that need to be made are inexpensive, affording sellers the opportunity to nip them in the bud before they can become known to others. But if you find some issues that would cost more to fix than you care to spend, you can get your own direct quote from a respected home repair professional about how much it would take to fix them. You can, in turn, pass them onto a would-be buyer, saving them time by giving them an accurate, upfront assessment of their potential costs.

Moreover, Pillar To Post prints a hard copy of a completed summary—including pictures—that sellers can leave sitting on the table at an open house, for example, which goes a long way in conveying transparency and integrity within the process. This helps to build trust and ensures a smooth, open transaction. Save for meeting disclosure requirements, a seller is not obligated to share the pre-listing report with potential buyers. But in the event that a seller wishes to leave found issues to the would-be owners, it’s entirely possible to convey that fact in a way that suggests you’re still providing a service—issues that would necessitate having to repaint a wall, for example, could be articulated by suggesting that the buyer would probably want to paint it in his or her own preferred color.

When it comes down to it, we’ve found that homes that have had a pre-listing inspection sell faster and at a price far closer to the listed price relative to homes that have only had a home inspection performed by a buyer. Pre-listing home inspections make you better informed, give you control over issues that are found, and make it so that you stand to make a far greater return on your investment. It’s a worthwhile step that should be an integral part of any real estate transaction.

Jay Gregg is Pillar To Post’s director of Marketing, as well as a certified home inspector based in Orangeville, Ontario, Canada.

For more information, visit www.pillartopostfranchise.com.

Mike Spruell
Realtor®/Broker/ePRO
The Lake Norman Homes Team
Southern Homes Elite
www.LakeNormanRealEstate.pro
866-LakeNorman
704-907-7907

Reprinted with permission from RISMedia. ©2014. All rights reserved.