You’ve decided to sell your home so you call in some real estate agents for their opinions. You select one after considering all the options and go on the market. This seems reasonable but you’ve forgotten a very important step. When selling your home be sure to get a home inspector first.
You want to get the most you can for your home. You chose an agent based on marketing because marketing builds value. A pre-listing home inspection does this too. If you get a home inspector first you might save thousands.
Here’s how it works – You put your home up for sale, a buyer comes along with an offer you accept, the contract gets finalized and then the buyer does a home inspection. If the inspection reveals issues, the buyer will try to:
A. Negotiate to lower the sales price.
B Make you fix something
C. Make you give them a credit towards their closing costs
D. Do a combination of these.
Can you blame them for trying? Can you blame them for being concerned if, for example, their home inspector tells them that your roof needs to be replaced in 6 months? 
Living in a house for years doesn’t always mean we know our homes intimately well. I don’t know about you but I never went on top of my roof to see how it was doing or took the cover off my electrical box to check its wiring. We really don’t know what a home inspector will find which is exactly why you do a pre-listing inspection.
Doing a pre-listing inspection gives you a huge advantage. You can fix things often for much less than what a buyer will be quoted and eliminate minor issues that look like a list of headaches in an inspector’s report.
You’ve heard the cliche – the best defense is a good offense. Put your offense on when selling your home. Do a pre-listing home inspection. Use the results to your best advantage. You are now pro-active rather than waiting for a buyer to act upon you.
