The Real Estate Blog

You’ve almost certainly heard of how important it is to conduct a home inspection before buying a home, but did you know that it’s nearly equally as important to have a home inspection done on your own home before you sell it?

Why get a pre-listing home inspection?

You likely believe your home looks fine the way it is and you haven’t run into any major issues, so why bother even getting a home inspection? The top reason why a pre-listing home inspection is so important is because prospective buyers are going to go through your home with a very critical eye and could identify issues that you might not have even considered. This could ultimately cost you the sale of your home and might turn into something you need to repair before anyone will actually buy your home. Before becoming frustrated with unknown issues, consider the following benefits of a pre-listing home inspection:

• If you’re upfront with the condition of your home, you’ll reduce the likelihood of getting conditional offers or having issues during the negotiation process.
• You’ll reduce your odds of having to sell your home more than once if a buyer backs out.
• You will have in itemized list of potential issues that you can rectify before the house even goes on the market.
• Your house might sell quicker because the buyer might decide to forego a home inspection since you have already completed one.
• A pre-listing home inspection offers peace of mind for the buyer and seller, and generally makes the process go more smoothly and with few issues.

How does the pre-listing inspection work?

Generally, the pre-listing home inspection is done before your house is listed on the market. This enables prospective buyers to see the exact condition of the home before any offers are actually made. The home inspector will go through their usual inspection process and they will provide you with a detailed report of their findings. Once you go through the report, you can adjust the selling price of your home or make other arrangements to fix any issues found. What many sellers decide to do after this is to simply leave the inspection report out for potential buyers to view while they are in your home for a showing.

Have you done a pre-listing home inspection before? Let us know what you thought of the process!