Pre Listing Inspection
Potential buyers will have a professional home inspection performed by a home inspector. If the buyers home inspector finds a problem, it can cause them to get cold feet and the deal can often fall through. Surprise problems uncovered by their home inspector will, at best, cause delays in closing. Usually you will have to pay for repairs at the last minute, or take a lower price on your home. You can get your own pre-listing home inspection before putting your home on the market. Having a pre-listing home inspection done will make the whole sale process easier. You can bet that if the buyers home inspector finds a problem it will be at the worst possible time, causing delays and costing you money. One of the key benefits of having the home inspection done early, is that if there are any problems discovered that need to be repaired, you can have the repairs done on your own terms, on your own schedule. When a problem isn't found until the buyer has a home inspection performed, the deal could fall apart unless you act quickly to get the repairs done. Or you may have to take a lower price, in order to keep it moving. In either case you'll almost certainly have more headaches, and spend more money, than if you'd known about the problem and had it repaired before negotiations began. You could potentially save thousands by simply being able to shop around and get competitive bids from contractors, rather than being forced into paying for a rush job at the last minute. You can also benefit from simply offering certain items as is. Often you can negotiate with a buyer to accept items in the current condition by stipulating that they are reflected in the purchase price. But that same buyer may walk away from the deal if the conditions come as a surprise, after an offer has already been made. If the home is inspected before the house goes on the market you will be aware of the condition of the house, there won't be any surprises. It takes a lot of effort to get a sales agreement signed in the first place if the inspection turns up problems, the buyer will want to negotiate a new deal which is usually even harder to get done than the first one.