Home Inspection Tips For Sellers
If you're a homeowner trying to move to a new property, you may be less than excited about the thought of a home inspector coming into your home. In Albany, NY especially, home inspectors are incredibly thorough. The inspection process can take anywhere from a few hours to a full day, and you'll be there to watch as the inspector goes through every nook and cranny of your home while turning on all of your appliances, flushing your toilets, climbing your roof, and wandering through your basement to check for all the minor problems you may have been overlooking.
About four out of every five buyers in the country choose to have a personally hired home inspector check out a property before they purchase, and while you may feel as though your personal space is being trampled, keep in mind that you can end up getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in the end if the home inspection checks out!
But, what can you do to help make sure that the home inspection is completed quickly and without any hassle or holdups? While it's the buyer's responsibility to hire a home inspector, it's the seller's responsibility to prepare the home and make sure that the home inspector is accommodated as they walkthrough. You will likely choose to be present during the inspection, and the buyers may choose to walk through the home with the inspector too.
The purpose of the home inspection process is to identify the home's overall condition and make sure that it is being maintained properly. So, the very first tip you can follow when you're ready to have a home inspector come through your door is to simply tidy up. This means clear the boxes off the crawlspace entrance and make sure that the inspector will be able to check everything they need to. This means clearing things away from your water heater and double-checking all of the little things that you may not have thought about.
The second tip is to get your paperwork together. If you have had any repairs done to your home, no matter how big or small (whether a leaky faucet or a new water heater), find the paperwork to back these claims and provide it for your home inspector to look over. Having this paperwork will help show them that the home has been properly maintained.
After the inspection is complete, the buyer will be handed a complete report detailing all the things the home inspector has checked and what they have found. Hopefully, there won't be any major issues and the sell will go through without a hitch. However, if the inspection does turn up a problem, your buyer will have the chance to renegotiate with you or back out of the deal all together.
With that in mind, it can save you a lot of days waiting on the market to have a home inspection completed when you list your home. This will allow you to avoid a buyer hiring an inspector just to reveal the problem weeks or months later.
The Author Adam Clark is the owner and operator of Shield Guard Home Inspections. Adam Clark is a local Home Inspector located in Albany NY that has performed over 6000 Inspections
Book online Phone: (518) 720-7152
