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Pros And Cons Of Pre-Purchase Inspection Report For Home Sellers

A house inspection report is very important for buyers looking to purchase a new property. It is often the case that a pre-purchase inspection report is required to obtain a mortgage. There is much information out there about the importance of such reports before buying, but what about for home sellers? Here comes the importance of a house inspection report, that the sellers cannot be understated. If the buyer discovers hidden problems with the property, this may void the terms of sale and home warranty. Here are the pros and cons of obtaining a pre-purchase inspection report, for home sellers.


Pros

Spot hidden defects

Although you might have spent a lot of time to make your property look great from the outside, you can never know if there are internal issues until you have a report completed. This can ensure that any hidden structural defects, foundational, plumbing, electrical and air conditioning issues can be identified and dealt with before a buyer decides to purchase.

Making repairs to solve these issues ahead of time

As these issues have been identified with the pre-purchase inspection report, they can be fixed. By repairing these issues ahead of time, you can go ahead with your property examinations knowing that your property has no unknown or hidden issues, and that it will be ready to sell when the time comes.

Increased value of property

Having a pre-purchase inspection report gives a good impression to potential buyers. This is because it shows them that you took the effort to get your property inspected, and that there are definitely not hidden issues. Due to this, their initial offer may be boosted.


Cons

Additional expense

Man writing a house inspection report

In order to get a pre-purchase inspection report, you will have to hire a building inspector to carry this out, which costs extra money to do so. More so, people who are looking to downgrade to a cheaper home will see this as an additional cost and see it as unnecessary. The cost of a pre-purchase inspection report for a standard 4-bedroom home usually costs around $450. To add a pest-inspection report to this, it would cost another $250, bringing the total to $700. This is a significant amount for someone already looking to downgrade to a cheaper home, and is a primary reason why most people skip out on this process.

Furthermore, any problems and hidden defects that are identified in the documents become additional costs that must be fixed, further adding to the cost of the reporting process. If they are not fixed, you may look bad in the eyes of the buyer, as you identified the problems but will not do anything to fix them.


The buyer’s building inspector could find new issues with the property

When a potential buyer is seeking to purchase a property, it is common for them to hire a building inspector of their own to identify any hidden issues/defects the property may hold. This is to ensure that the asking price for the property is reasonable, as well as showing the true cost of the purchase.

If your report finds issues, and then the potential buyer’s building inspector finds more issues, you may be left with a large list of additional costs, leaving you even more out of pocket.