You need to protect your investment, every time you buy or sell a property and one of the best ways to do this is by having a home inspection done. Whether you are a seasoned investor or looking to close your first deal, there are things that our home inspector will find, but you won’t. Instead of paying for the inspection, the cost of overlooking a major item or not replacing something a buyer would want can cost you thousands more.
You don’t know what you can’t see, and unless you are an inspector yourself, you will overlook seemingly small housing items that can come back to haunt you. Having a professional inspector check a subject property is critical.
Don’t let your roof collapsing on your dinner table be your wake-up call. Get a home inspection before investing in a new home. An often forgotten part of the home buying process is the home inspection. This critical step protects the buyer from purchasing a home that might have issues or flaws by uncovering and disclosing them before the final contract is signed, so prepare a checklist and always make sure your investment is not a hit and miss.
If you are searching for a home to move in with your family or shopping for homes to resell, never skip a home inspection and read on to find more reasons to get a home inspection.
9 Important Reasons To Get A Home Inspection
Home inspections may not always be compulsory. Buyers may be caught up in the excitement of buying a new home, and the sellers often ditch their inspection because they think that it saves time and money. Regardless of the convincing reasons to skip it, the following are nine good reasons to get a home inspection before buying or selling your house.
#1 Home Inspections Protect Your Investment.
Every home has minor issues or quirks. They’re human-made, and inevitably time and weather will cause small leaks, cracks, and mechanical failures in different areas of your home. But there’s a big difference between minor, fixable issues like a leaky window that needs new sealant and major issues like a problem with a home’s foundation.
A home inspection will help you to identify all problems, big and small, so that you can understand the state of a home before you sign on a dotted line. When you’re about to spend tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on a home, you would want to make sure it’s in the best condition possible.
#2 Home Inspections Give You Bargaining Power.
Inevitably you’ll uncover something in your home inspection that needs to be repaired. When these issues are discovered, your real estate agent can help you negotiate a lower sale price or ask for these issues to be fixed. The seller can then decide whether or not they want to fulfill your wishes. With the knowledge you gain from a home inspection, you might be able to save some money on the back end by having the seller fix pre-existing issues.
#3 Home Inspections Ensure Your Safety.
Safety issues are critical to any housing, even when you are leasing. Imagine buying a house and later finding out that it has some major issues, and you have to move out. It is annoying, and it becomes emotionally, physically & financially draining for you & your family members.
Safety should be the top-most priority for a buyer. A home inspector will find out all the negatives faster than you or anyone else. The buyer & seller can agree on the way forward, depending on the result of the inspection report. However, under no circumstances should you ignore a home inspection.
In older homes, windows are often painted shut. It is a safety hazard – as all the rooms in your house should have an emergency fire exit. Our Trained Home inspectors can identify necessary safety features in a snap. They can also notify you in case any of them are missing. Some mortgage types require safety issues to be resolved before you can close the deal, and often a seller will oblige and accommodate these issues.
#4 Home Inspections Reveal Secrets
All buyers need to keep in mind that it is impossible to tell the demons hiding beneath the beauty of that house without adequately inspecting it. Some homes do not attract the attention of the buyer, yet all they need is a good paint over them.
However, serious issues like mold or even termite infestation often go unnoticed during the showings. For sellers, just because you lived in the house for years, doesn’t mean you know all the flaws. The most common problems are in the foundation, the electrical systems, roofing problems, HVAC systems, and termite infestation problems only a home inspector can reveal.
It’s especially tricky to keep an open mind once you’ve already fallen in love with a property. Also, to an untrained eye, staging can do wonders to cover up a home’s deficiencies & other shortcomings.
Our inspectors will also alert you based on the age of the house and other specific characteristics. They will note previous renovations, and specify issues that must be addressed immediately versus ones that can be remedied in the future.
#5 Planning
Home inspections are an essential tool when it comes to planning. The transparency of the results and the cost of your plan will be instrumental when planning for the future.
It is also easier to know what you need to upgrade as a buyer, in the long run, and, more importantly, having a budget that works for you and your family will help with the changes you need to make.
For sellers, it is equally important because, through an inspection, before selling your house, you can know which areas need an upgrade, and you work on them. Many sellers use these repairs & replacements as an advantage and increase the price of the house. This way, there are minimal setbacks after an inspection. And this makes the process easy for both the seller & the buyer. This makes skipping a home inspection a big mistake for both parties.
#6 Negotiations
When a buyer does a home inspection, he/she gets a potent tool for negotiations. After an inspection, you can walk confidently to the seller and tell them that you did an inspection, and you have concerns about the house as a subtle way of asking for a reduction.
Knowing what problems lie in a house will make it easier for you as a buyer in many different ways. You can ask the seller to fix the house or reduce the asking price; either way, it is a win-win situation for you, financially speaking. Having a home inspection as a seller is an equal negotiation tool, and some people even use it as the reason for increasing the selling price. But knowing a problem and fixing it before presenting it to a buyer is crucial—it’s also cheaper and less exhausting than lowering the price or arranging for repairs.
#7 Savings
While some of the home inspections are usually costly, it is often a reasonable one-off cost. It is cheaper to pay for a home inspection now than to have to pay for the extensive damage after several years. Problems like water leakage get worse with time and will cost more in a few months from today.
So skipping an inspection is not only a bad idea, but it can burden you financially in the long run, greater than paying for a home inspection. As a buyer or seller, you have the right to ask all the questions you want to ensure that the inspector is legit and is fair to both parties.
#8 Deciding Factor
When you have a home inspection, and you’re not able to agree with the seller on the terms of fixing the issues, you can decide whether you want the house or not. When a buyer doesn’t feel comfortable, the seller may put the other requests on hold. Having an inspection beforehand will expedite the process & help a buyer decide whether they want the house, or want to look for another one.
#9 Peace of Mind and Confidence
Buying a home is a very resource-intensive process. You should ensure your finances are in place and try to put various measures in place to ensure the process runs smoothly.
Having a home inspection instills confidence in you as it tells you that you are purchasing a great home. It reduces the element of surprise of a collapsed roof or a damaged wall. Before you start a sales process, call our professional home inspectors to give you peace of mind in your investment.
Home Pro Inspections Will Help You To Protect Your Investment
Whether you are a home buyer or you want to sell, a professional home inspection should be compulsory. Protect your investment by getting detailed information about the ins and outs of your potential new home. Also, it allows the damage to the house to stop in its tracks rather than allowing to increase significantly. If you have questions about home inspections, or need a certified home inspector to take a look at your property, connect with Home Pro Inspections! We can help you in Austin, TX, and the surrounding areas of Central Texas to meet your needs.