How to Make Sure Your Prepared for the Home Inspection When Selling

Do you want to have your home sale be a stress-free and pleasant experience? For many people who put their house on the market, the house inspection is the most stressful aspect of the entire sales process! Let’s say you have listed your house using a real estate agent and have received a beautiful offer on your house.

You’re now impatiently waiting for the closing to actually occur. But before any of that can happen, you have to jump the final scary hurdle and go through the house inspection.

Next you have complete strangers arrive in your home and go through every inch of it, top to bottom actively looking for any sort of fault. In the meanwhile you are expected to simply be cooperative, nice and cheerful.

As you already know, home inspections are a very stressful ordeal that ultimately determine whether or not the sale is made. Therefore it is extremely important for the home seller to be fully prepared for the house inspection process and make sure that it doesn’t interfere with the life changing windfall that selling a house usually brings. Remember that house inspections are not some sort of test that you can simply sit down and study for. Our team is knowledgeable about Home Seller Disclosure Laws and they will guide you.

That being said, there are many things you can do to prepare before a house inspection to ensure the process goes smoothly. With all that being said, we at Austin Home Inspection Group have prepared this article to help prepare you for your  Seller’s home inspection.

It is very important that you have a file containing all documentation as well as receipts of all repairs and maintenance that have been completed on your house. For example, making sure to have papers of any insurance claim you may have had as proof that the problem has been taken care of.

It’s important to keep documentation because oftentimes home/apartment inspectors will find problems, and you want to make sure you are able to show that the problem has been taken care of professionally. To be able to do that you should know the ultimate home seller’s checklist.

Austin Home Inspection Group advises to ensure that you start off on the right foot with your inspectors. Asides from being friendly and patient with them, make sure you’re providing them with total access to your house. This means all doors and gates are unlocked.

This extends to inside your home as well. Easy access to roof spaces, basements and any other area of your home. Make sure that everything is de-cluttered and put in its place. And a reminder that the majority of inspectors really are not comfortable with the owner being around for the inspection. Being friendly to them includes not being around to make them anxious while they work!

That being said, the real estate agent you hired is the one who attends the inspection. One of the reasons that you hire them in the first place is so they are present to represent you during the inspection process. They aren’t there to argue, simply to understand and observe the inspection process and any faults that may be found. Austin Home Inspection Group would like to give you a tip and mention that you may not want to hire a dual agent, as they are required to remain neutral and cannot help you, should you need it. 

Keep in mind that anything said in person by the home inspector will most likely differ from the language used in their report. They do this to cover themselves, so be aware that any problems you find in the home inspection report will probably seem worse than it actually is.

Another tip from the Austin Home Inspection Group for when you are preparing for a Seller’s home inspection – you can be proactive and carry it out yourself first! This is a very smart method of ensuring you don’t run into any big surprises. The last thing you want to run into is a major problem being found during the buyer’s home inspection, potentially ruining a deal that might have gone in your favor. 

Doing this is essential in figuring out any potential problems so that they can be fixed before the buyer sends their own inspectors. Of course, this isn’t a guarantee that the buyer’s inspectors won’t find anything. However having your own inspector come through first at the very least allows you to identify and solve any of the major problems that you might be missing. 

There may be many areas that you discover require repairs, however it is recommended that first and foremost you repair anything that you feel is significant enough to affect the decision of any potential buyer.  

Remember that the very last thing you want to happen to you is to be in the middle of closing a sale only to get blindsided and then having to put your house back on the market. Avoid deal breakers and keep your sales on track by any means necessary. 

A good rule of thumb to remember is that water issues are a major concern for any potential buyers. Ensure your drainage works and that the gutters are cleaned. Also remember to fix your air conditioner, roof, heating systems and any other mechanical or structural defects. In the interior it doesn’t hurt to look over some of the obvious cosmetic features that will get noticed. 

While preparing for a seller’s home inspection, ensure all your lights are working properly, as well as making sure there is nothing that leaks – sinks/toilets, etc. Approach looking over your home not as someone who has lived there, but as a fresh set of eyes that has never seen inside before.

It goes without saying that you should fix any bug problems you may have. Termites and carpenter ants in particular can destroy homes if left untreated. We at Austin Home Inspection Group recommend hiring professionals to fix any problems that you are not familiar with. A professional will save you the headache of a potential red flag being raised during inspection day.

Preparing for a Seller’s home inspection is of major importance these days and can no longer simply be brushed to the side. Home inspection is a vital aspect of house sales, and can very well be a hurdle to you when it comes to making a deal. It is also worth mentioning that everything we have mentioned in this article can be applied to mobile home inspection, new home inspections as well as new construction home inspection. 

Remember to get all your paperwork together, allow inspectors full access to your house as well as giving them the opportunity to do their job as they see fit. 

Above all else, we at Austin Home Inspection Group recommend you have a pre-inspection done of your own, find the problem areas and fix them before the buyer’s home inspection. Due diligence is crucial in improving your chances not only of having a deal go through but also of you being on the good side of the deal!

We hope this helps, and that we have helped you understand the importance of making sure you are prepared for a home inspection! We have a home seller’s tip that guarantee to sold out the house.