Should You Go Back To The Negotiation Table After A Home Inspection?

As a homeowner who has made the (wise) choice to get a home inspection before signing off on a home, you may be wondering whether or not you should try to negotiate the price based on the results. While home inspections often reveal underlying issues with a home that can be valuable bargaining chips, this isn’t always the case.
Here are a few things you need to understand about negotiating based on a home inspection:

Understanding Your Home Inspection Report
A home inspection report is generally pretty through and will cover most aspects of a home including the:

  • Roofing
  • Exterior
  • Garage
  • HVAC
  • Plumbing
  • Electrical system
  • Appliances

in great detail. You may think that this would give you a lot of room for negotiation, but just because an issue is raised doesn’t mean it should be brought up in the purchasing process. Not all flaws are made equal, as you will see.

Not All Flaws Are Equal
No home is perfect, and by that logic you can’t expect a completely flawless home. You also can’t expect the seller to turn it into your flawless dream home for you. Often you’ll need to perform these repairs yourself, after the purchase. That said there are legitimate reasons why you would want to negotiate the price. Here are just a few examples of valid items for negotiation:

  • Severe roof damage
  • Issues with the foundation
  • Aluminum wiring
  • Plumbing leaks
  • Gas leaks

Basically if it’s something that could severely impact your safety or the structure of your home, negotiation is fair game.

Let’s look at a few counterexamples as well just to be thorough. Is the issue something minor like a sloppy paint job? No seller is going to negotiate with you on that. Was the issue already something you were already aware of before the inspection? Again, this is not a good reason to renegotiate the price. Even some safety concerns are better dealt with after the purchase.

Alternatives To Negotiating The Price
Even if you do find something majorly wrong with the home, that doesn’t always mean that trying to negotiate the price down is the right choice. In many cases sellers are more amenable to performing repairs than negotiating the price, and if it’s a home that you are otherwise in love with it’s easy to see why this would be a better route.

Repairing an issue always has the potential to shed light on even more issues, and let’s be honest you don’t want to already be saddled with the house if that happens. By asking the seller to perform repairs before the purchase you are ensuring that the house you buy really is in good condition.

The bottom line is that you should be careful about what you try to negotiate. A tendency to nitpick and demand that sellers make tons of small changes or lower the price is not helpful when buying a home. Buying a home is a large undertaking and you should always be prepared for the responsibility that comes with it, which may include performing some minor home improvements yourself.

Please contact us at Super Inspection Pros. today to learn more about our home inspection process or to schedule an inspection. You can also check out some more helpful home inspection tips on our website.

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