Ellicott City Realtor Catonsville Realtor

What do you do when a house comes on the market and it is perfect for your Buyers?  Not only is it perfect for your Buyers, it is also significantly underpriced.  Of course, you write a full price offer and have a home inspection.

What do you do when that home inspector comes up with a significant repair?  To give you an idea, on a $490,000 sale price, the inspector found $25,000 in repairs.  The Buyers do not have $25,000 to put into the home.

What do you do when the owner that you negotiated the sale price with is no longer the owner of the house?  A relocation company now owns the home, and working with relocation companies is like working with a bank on a foreclosure - there's no give.

I have my own strategy for working this out - what's yours?

We all know the value of home inspections, but is there intrinsic value in the home inspector himself?  Everybody knows that experience is important, as is certification, but isn't a great portion of the real value of a home inspection the way that a home inspector handles himself in explaining issues that arise during the inspection process?  I think a home inspector can make all the difference in the world as to how the buyer actually hears what the problem is and the extent of its seriousness.

Last Saturday I had an inspection during the inspection a significant structural issue arose.  What first came to my mind was I'm glad that John is the one doing this inspection.  John is likeable, can explain issues to the buyer without emotion, and will recommend possible solutions or ways to follow up.  In my 25 years of experience, I've had the fortune of being at inspections with good inspectors and bad ones.  Even some of the really good inspectors can't really communicate a problem without a great deal of their own personal opinion or emotion.

The structural problem in this case was with a deck/screened in porch being attached to the house improperly.  That in and of itself sounds like "quite a serious problem", which could be of great concern to the buyer.  In this case, John explained in detail how it could be rectified and the approximate cost of repair.  He did this all in a manner which was very professional and without personal emotion or bias.  So what seemed to have been a big issue, and I guess it could be in some people's eyes, left the buyer feeling confident that he had an inspector who was not only very thorough, but who also gave him the sense that he understood what was being said, knew what steps to take next, and he was not sidetracked by agreeing with what the home inspector might believe personally about how the problem might have happened.

Lots of times buyer's guards go up because they pick up on the home inspectors overreaction to a situation.  I think this is just one of many differences that gets overlooked when Realtors and buyers choose home inspectors.  Tell me your thoughts about good interactions with your home inspectors.

Life Expectancy

We all know how home inspections can go.  We know there are good inspectors, and some are not so good.  A good inspector can explain things to buyers in terms that are very unemotional.  Unfortunately, there are some inspectors that inject more than their professional opinion about certain issues.

"Life expectancy" is a term used by home inspectors, generally in reference to certain systems or components of a house, such as a heating unit or roof.  Recently I dealt with a home inspection issue regarding life expectancy.  I represented a client in respect to a house that has two zone heating.  The first floor heat pump and condenser have been replaced and are operating fine.  The second floor's heat pump is 21 years old.  The "life expectancy", according to the home inspector, is 15 years.  The unit is operating fine.

When the heat pump on the second floor needs to be replaced, there is not adequate access to do so, which may mean additional costs for replacement, above and beyond the cost of the unit.  As you might guess, the buyer wants a credit of several thousand dollars toward a new heat pump.

Part of this whole business of "life expectancy" has to do with inspectors putting it into their report, maybe so that they are not left open to litigation - but is "life expectancy" really fact?  They put it into the report as a generalization, without really knowing how long a unit may or may not last.  I have a boiler in my home that is 40 years old - well past any inspectors "life expectancy".

In these circumstances, a seller will generally say, "The unit is working fine.  I'll have it serviced and that's all I will do."  Sometimes that is enough to satisfy the buyer, and sometimes it is not - usually it depends on how the issue was presented to the buyer by their home inspector.

What my thoughts are is to have the seller purchase a one year warranty.  Most real estate companies offer this type of warranty.  The warranty would allow for repair or replacement of the unit if needed within the first twelve months.  This at least provides some protection for the purchaser.

It's always important for me to calmly and rationally approach a situation from my professional experience, and not so much what I think personally, irrespective of who I represent in a transaction.

What are your thoughts about life expectancy?  Have you run into this challenge, whether selling or buying a home?