Checking The Pulse Of The Kansas City Real Estate Market

4 out of 5 listing agents surveyed say Kansas City home Sellers should have their homes pre-inspected. Here’s an opinion from the 1 out of 5 group. I believe pre-inspections are a bad idea for Sellers because they leave Sellers facing a double jeopardy situation in dealing with inspection repairs. One of the main reasons many Kansas City real estate agents recommend pre-inspections is because it allows a Seller the time to get multiple bids, thus saving them money on necessary repairs (versus having to deal with them in a rush during the Buyer’s inspection process). Although it’s possible a Seller could get repairs done for less if found during a pre-inspection, there’s usually enough time to deal with inspection repair bids during the alloted contract time frame — so this isn’t reason enough for me to recommend pre-inspecting.

Another reason I often hear is that pre-inspecting can help prevent contracts from falling apart later. While it’s possible that pre-inspecting could prevent a deal from falling through, it could also prevent Buyers from ever even making an offer on the home — depending on the issues, addressing repairs may not be enough to ease a buyers concerns that the issues were present in the first place. Some agents say that Sellers should pre-inspect because doing so allows the Seller to choose the inspector and that a Buyer may not even follow-up with doing their own inspections. But why would they trust a report that was ordered, paid for and, most likely, completed under the influence of the Seller? And don’t forget the reports aren’t free – they will cost Sellers several hundred dollars.

So what do I recommend Sellers do? Sellers should complete repairs to all issues of which the Seller is already aware. Sellers, by law, must disclose all known defects. So they’re better off disclosing completed repairs than having to disclose the problems unaddressed. Also remember that the inspection burden is on the Buyer, not the Seller. It’s a Buyer’s inspectors job to work at uncovering unknown defects. I’d let the Buyer’s inspector do their job and avoid double jeopardy when it comes to home inspections. Sellers who go through with pre-inspecting should plan to fix ALL items listed on the pre-inspection report. Otherwise, they’ll be giving Buyers reasons to NOT even make an offer on the home. Also keep in mind that no two home inspectors are alike, so Sellers should prepare to  open their checkbooks a second time after going under contract.  If you want to read more (much from the 4 out of 5 agents,) here’s a forum thread with agents discussing pre-inspections.

Posted by Jason A. Brown