Pre-inspections: A good source of revenue for home inspectors

The idea of buying a home without having it inspected by a professional home inspector first seems almost unthinkable, but there also are many reasons for a seller to have an inspection before putting a home on the market. The increase in demand for pre-inspections can only be a win for home inspectors.

In the article “The trend of inspecting your home before you sell is catching on in Utah” by Rodger L. Hardy on HeraldExtra.com, Massachusetts realtor and blogger Bill Gassett listed seven benefits of having a home inspected before being sold.

According to Gassett, pre-inspections:

1. Reduce the stress of selling a home — An inspection will tell the seller what needs to be done to make the home more sellable.
2. Help with pricing the home correctly — Buyers won’t be able to so easily attack the price of the home.
3. Speed up the sales process —  Any issues found during the pre-inspection can be taken care of in advance.
4. Allow you to make repairs —A home that is free of problems is a great marketing tool.
5. Avoid the need for renegotiation —A buyer’s inspection that finds major problems can kill a carefully crafted offer.
6. Help improve buyer confidence — The last thing you want to do when selling a home is create doubt about its integrity.
7. You make your agent’s job much easier — Pricing and negotiating the sale of the home are more difficult when repair issues come to light.

“Once the pre-inspection is completed, the listing agent and their client can then sit down and prioritize the repairs that must be done in order to ensure a smooth sale,” Chad Taylor of Taylor-Made Real Estate Service in Kansas wrote in the ShawneeMissionPost.com article, “Your Home: Pre-inspections – best money a seller can spend.”

Taylor also noted that when repairs are made from a pre-inspection, the home can then be marketed as having been pre-inspected, which helps defend the listing price of the home.

According to Taylor, other benefits of a pre-inspection include:

• Higher bids for the home — Buyers tend to bid the price up more aggressively.
• Fewer surprises — You don’t want a buyer surprised by an unexpected defect in the home.
• As is: two very sweet words to a seller’s ears — In many cases, a buyer will accept a pre-inspected home as is.
• Good faith — A pre-inspection starts the buyer/seller relationship off on a good note.
• Limited opportunity for recourse — A pre-inspection disclosed to the buyer before contract helps protect the seller in the event something fails on the home after the sale.

As pre-inspections become more popular among sellers, it may be a good idea for home inspectors to include information and rates about pre-inspections in their business’s marketing plans.