What should you as a seller expect during a home inspection when selling your home. In my last video, I covered an appraisal gap and how that all worked and what you need to do as a buyer and how it affects you. Today, I’m going to talk about the inspection period, and I’m going to look at this from the seller’s side of things and just let you know if you’re thinking of selling your home right now, some things that you can do up front to make the home inspection process go a little smoother. If you’ve been through the inspection process, it’s the toughest part of the transaction. I’m going to cover some items to make it more smooth during this period. Usually when I’m working with my sellers, I have them do these things up front just to assure the buyer that the house is fine and make them feel good about the house that they’re purchasing.
One thing I’ll do right away is I will have my sellers get their roof checked out. I have people to help you on this if you need it, but basically what that consists of, they come out, get up on the roof quick, walk across it, make sure there’s no damage. If there is, it gives you a notice that you’re probably going to have to file an insurance claim, or we get what’s called a roof certification up front, or if there’s a little damage to be repaired, we get it repaired. Anyway, that is one of the things that I have my sellers do upfront before listing the home.
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Get your FREE Sellers Checklist today and be ahead of the home inspection.The second thing I have them do …I have the furnace cleaned, serviced and certified. Really an inspector is going to always call for this to be done anyway during inspection. It’s under $200 to get that done, I also have a company to give you if you need one.
The next thing that I tell my sellers to do is get their Carbon monoxide detectors working. Make sure the batteries are in them. Make sure they’re in the proper living areas. Under Colorado law., they need to be located around the living areas. So make sure those are in good working order as well.
The next thing that I have people do is make sure that the attic or crawl space is accessible. Inspectors like to get in those areas and if they’re blocked by your moving boxes, if you’re already packing up to move or you got a bunch of things in front, they’re just going to make a comment about it that they weren’t able to get in there and then they’re going to want you as a seller to get in there yourself, take some pictures or explain things. So you might as well just let that have some access.
And then one last thing that I do if the house is vacant is make sure that the power is on. If the house is vacant, I’ll usually make sure that my sellers have the power on.
At the end of the day, if you’re getting ready to sell your house, DO NOT try to hide any problems you may be aware of.
If you do these items up front, you’re going to make the buyers feel more at ease because when they’re doing the inspection and you’ve already got these receipts and. such, laid out on the counter, they’re going to feel better about purchasing the home instead of having an inspector word it in a way where it tends to get them feeling uneasy and then possibly back out of the transaction.
One thing sellers have asked me, should they get a pre-listing home inspection? My answer to that is, it can go both ways. The pros of getting a home inspection, you’re going to know, what’s wrong with your house and so forth. So you can do the repairs up front. But the cons of it at the end of the day, the buyers usually end up getting their own report. So you’re spending money on a report that they probably won’t even use.
Anyway, I just wanted to cover a few of the items that I have my sellers do ahead of time just to make the home inspection process easier as a seller and make the transaction go smoother. So if you’re thinking of selling your house and you need questions answered on this or anything else, feel free to reach out to me any time. I also have, my contractors from my real estate investing side, so I can help you get the qualified people in there to help you with whatever items you have. And again, as usual, like my Facebook business page, David Novak Homes, follow me on YouTube, David Novak Littleton Real Estate Agent, and keep up with some more of my video series on the buying side and the selling side. And then also keep up on our rescue dog organizations that we support as well. Feel free to reach out to me anytime. 303-929-9660.