Hot market forces home buyers to pay for multiple home inspections with no sale guarantee
The competitive housing market is forcing many home buyers to spend much more than planned before even making an offer.
Demand is high, supply is low, and sellers are encouraging bidding wars. It's forcing propsective buyers to make tough choices about home inspections.
Today's buyers must not only be prepared with down payment and approved financing- they also need extra cash for home inspections. Real estate broker Kelley Meister says pre-inspections, mean serious buyers must pay for structural inspections 'before' making an offer.
"So a strategy that most sellers use now is they'll list a home, and they won't reveiw any offers for say, 5 to 7 days," Meister explained. "Giving the opportunity for any perspective buyers to come in and do pre-inspections. So that means that the buyer is having to shell out 3-5 hundred dollars on a structural inspection, in addition to possibly another 200 for a sewer scope, not knowing that they're actually going to get the house."
Meister says realistically, buyers should be prepared to spend as much as 2-thousand dollars on multiple pre-inspections. One way to save money on a home inspection is for the buyer to document the inspection themselves, rather than receive a full written inspectors report. The buyer, and ideally their realtor or other representative must there when the inspector scrutinizes the structure and take notes and photos of everything.
"That takes about 150 to 200 dollars off of the cost of the inspection," said Meister.
But the trade-off means you must be meticulous about documentation. You must take good quality photos, record the inspectors comments and evaluation and take very detailed notes. It also means you buyers must be very clear about when to commit and when to move on.
And no matter how badly you feel you want a home- most agents warn you should never waive the inspection, unless you can accept the risk of potentially thousands of dollars in hidden repair costs.