Home Inspection Tips for Property Sellers and Buyers
Home buying and selling are significant decisions. This is why it is crucial to have a trustworthy home inspector who can highlight any potential issues before you invest your hard-earned money. A C Home Inspections provides detailed reports about your home and valuable tips for a faster and smoother home inspection process.
For Sellers
In a competitive market, you can follow these simple suggestions on or before the day of your home inspection to speed up the process and close the deal faster.
- Confirm that water, electric, and gas services are on, with gas pilot lights burning.
- If you have pets in your home, ensure they will not hinder the process by removing them from the premises on the inspection day or at least securing them outside. Be sure to tell your agent or inspector about any pets at home.
- Before the inspection, replace any burned-out light bulbs. This simple trick will help you avoid any “light is inoperable” comments on your report that may suggest an electrical problem.
- Test smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Replace dead batteries.
- Clean or replace dirty HVAC air filters before your inspection. Ensure these filters fit securely.
- Remove stored items, debris, and wood from the foundation, as these may be cited as “conducive conditions” for termites.
- Before the inspection, remove items blocking access to HVAC equipment, electric service panels, water heaters, attics, and crawl spaces.
- Unlock areas the inspector must access, such as attic doors or hatches, electric service panels, closets, fence gates, and crawl spaces.
- Trim tree limbs to 10′ from the roof and shrubs from the house to allow access.
- Attend to broken or missing items, like doorknobs, locks and latches, sticky windows, windowpanes, screens and locks, gutters, downspouts, and chimney caps. This may have already been done proactively when you first put your home up for sale, but be sure to circle back and check things over to ensure you didn’t miss any of these items before the inspection.
Checking these areas before your home inspection improves your report and, ultimately, is an investment in selling your property. Your real estate agent and your pocketbook will thank you for it.
For Home Buyers
What Really Matters When You're Buying a Home in New Mexico?
Whether it is your first home or one of many, the buying process can be stressful and maybe a little scary. Getting a professional home inspection can give you peace of mind. Still, it may be challenging as you review the report and realize you are expected to absorb and understand a lot of new information quickly. Your inspection report can often include not only written data but also checklists, photographs, environmental reports, and more. There is also a seller’s disclosure form to review.
Our professional advice is to relax. While there appears to be a lot of information about your new home, most of it will be maintenance recommendations, life expectancies, and minor imperfections. All these things are nice to know about, of course, but should not cause concern. The issues that really matter will fall into one of four categories:
- A Major Defect
- Something That Could Lead to a Major Defect
- Something That May Hinder Your Ability to Finance, Legally Occupy, or Insure Your New Home
- Safety Hazards
What to Do
Anything in your inspection report that falls into one of these categories should be addressed. A serious problem can often be corrected inexpensively to protect life and property. Most of the time, sellers will be willing to work with you to get these items fixed to close the sale.
Of course, you should realize your seller is under no obligation to repair everything mentioned in the report. If there are items that fall into one of the major categories, talk it over with your REALTOR® and come up with a short list of items you want fixed (or an adjustment made in the sale price). At the same time, remember that no home is perfect. If you can keep things in perspective, you will not kill the deal over things that do not matter.
Ultimately, your REALTOR® is the best person to guide you in this negotiation. If you have questions about your home inspection report, I am here to help. Just give me a call so we can get started.
