One of the immediate next steps after getting an offer accepted by a seller is to schedule and attend the home inspection. As stated in the standard purchase contract, you have 5 business days to conduct the inspection, though that can almost always be extended if needed. The buyer’s agent is the one to facilitate getting the inspection scheduled and will work with the buyers, inspector, and seller’s agent on timing.
It is important to hire a reputable, trusted, and licensed home inspector. I have my go-to inspectors who I have used dozens of times with satisfactory results, including on my own home. Most of my clients take my recommendation and use my go-to inspector. There have been cases, however, where my clients had someone else in mind, often a family friend. As long as they are a licensed inspector, it is absolutely your right to hire whomever you want. At that point, however, I cannot vouch for their service. Unfortunately, I have attended more than one inspection where I left wondering what the inspector actually did, as they sat at the kitchen table typing the report for most of the “inspection.” Choose who you hire wisely.
Once at the inspection, expect the inspector to evaluate every aspect of the home, from the electrical components, plumbing, roof, attic, crawlspace, foundation, masonry, and much more. It depends on the home, but this typically takes 3-4 hours and costs somewhere between $450-500. Typically, the inspector shows up early and does the majority of the inspection, and then the buyers and I show up for the last 15 minutes for the summary/walkthrough. During this walkthrough, the inspector will take us through the entire home and point out the issues he found. This is typically where the buyers freak out. As much as I try to warn my clients ahead of time that there will be MANY issues with the home, it is impossible to avoid the gut-punch of hearing dozens of items are wrong with your prospective new home. Want to know the average page count of an inspection report? Somewhere between 60-80 pages! All homes have problems. Your home WILL have problems. It is our goal to find those problems, evaluate how serious they are, and make a plan to move forward.
After the home inspection, the inspector will write up a very detailed report noting every single issue they found, making it clear and easy for us to understand. Once we have the report in hand, I will email it to the attorney, and the three of us will communicate about what you as the buyer would like to do. We have three main options to move forward: 1) accept the problems as they are and move forward with the deal, 2) request some form of seller credits at closing OR ask the sellers to fix some of the issues before closing, and 3) back out of the deal if the issues are serious enough. The route we take varies significantly depending on the many nuances of the deal. For instance, is it a buyer’s market or a seller’s market (who has the leverage)? Are the issues too major to deal with even with some sort of cash credit from the seller? How motivated is the seller? Is the home being sold as-is? Did the seller already take a major blow by accepting an offer well under asking price? This is my favorite part of the whole transaction because it allows me to whip out my well-trained negotiation skills. In many cases, even in this tough seller’s market, I have gotten the seller’s agent and sellers to agree to significant credits. This was the case in one of my latest deals where we got a $15,000 credit at closing, reducing the amount my client needed to bring to the closing table by that much. That said, don’t expect that to be the case on every home. More times than not, sellers will scoff at that amount and counteroffer with a much lower number or simply go find a new buyer. Negotiations go back and forth until both parties come to an agreement or one of the parties decides to back out of the deal.
After both parties come to an agreement regarding the inspection items and requests, the deal moves on to the next stage of financing, and you are one step closer to closing.
Oh, and one last thing. Your dad is not a home inspector. Please leave your parents, uncles, neighbors, and whoever else you’re thinking of bringing at home. Please listen to the professional home inspector who inspects dozens of homes every month over your parents who bought a few homes in their lifetime. I can’t stress this enough that if the parents come to the home inspection, invariably they will only create panic and freak out the buyer over minor issues. The deal will likely fall through, and you’ll waste a bunch of money repeating this process home after home until you realize every single home on the market has problems. Trust the inspector, myself, and the attorney. We will not let you buy a home that’s about to fall down.