Are you putting your home up for sale? Have you considered having a pre-listing home inspection? A pre-listing home inspection is a home inspection that is performed before your home goes on the market for sale. A licensed and professional home inspector will come into your home and complete a thorough home inspection to identify any issues that may come up further down the road when trying to sell your home. In today's real estate world, most home buyers have the ability to walk away from a contract, as the deal is contingent on the home inspection.
Therefore, a major benefit of a pre-listing inspection is to help you create a powerful marketing tool, that is to show that you carefully prepared your home for sale by taking the time to do a pre-listing inspection and address any issues that came up during that inspection.
In addition, it helps you alleviate any surprises and may make the process of selling your home a lot easier. A pre-listing inspection will help the seller identify any major defects, safety hazards or maintenance and monitor issues that would be included in a buyer's home inspection report and give you, the seller, time ahead of listing the property to fix these issues.
Here are some examples of the types of items found on an home inspector's checklist during a pre-listing inspection:
1. Inspection of All Major Systems:
During a pre-listing inspection, the home inspector will look at all major systems of the home, to include the roof structure and coverings, foundation, basement, and/or crawlspace, heating and air conditioning systems, electrical systems, and plumbing systems. If trouble or issues are found with any of these systems during a buyer's home inspection, this could potentially impact the sale of your home. We believe a pre-listing inspection is a crucial time to check and fix any "major system" issues before listing your home.
2. Maintenance Improvements:
Before listing your home for sale, you may want to ensure your home looks it's best! While these types of items may not impact the overall sale of your home, they will definitely impact the impression of your home. Remember, first impressions are often the hardest to change. A clean, well maintained home will most definitely give a great first impression! Some things to consider (and a pre-listing inspection will help you identify) include: trimming shrubs and trees and making sure the landscaping is well maintained, cleaning and replacing bathroom caulking, cleaning out gutters, and washing windows and window sills, In addition, simple fixes such as changing light bulbs that are burnt out in lamps, ceiling fans or other light fixtures can go a long way or making sure your smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors have fresh batteries in them!
3. Focus on Details:
A pre-listing home inspection can help identify issues that you may not notice yourselves because you live in the home and are used to your living environment...but buyer's will notice! Here are some examples of items a licensed and professional home inspector will help you identify: leaky faucets that need to be restored, door knobs that need tightening, damaged screens and window panes that need to be replaced, broken fixtures that need to be replaced, small holes in walls that should be repaired, as well as loose railings needing to be secured. Loose railings are also considered a safety hazard during a buyer's home inspection..so this would be an important issue to address before you put your home up for sale.
4. Safety Check:
A pre-listing inspection will help you identify if any safety issues exist in your home. These types of issues will be identified in a buyer's home inspection and would need repair. It makes sense to fix these things ahead of time! For example, faulty smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors, lack of smoke detectors in important parts of your home and lack of carbon monoxide detectors. Nowadays, you can purchase a combination smoke detector/carbon monoxide detector. It may be a good idea to upgrade to these before you list your home for sale. In addition, having adequate outdoor lighting for safety and making sure your circuit breakers are up-to-date. Missing hand rails in the interior of your home as well as exterior would also be important to fix before listing the home.
In conclusion, having a pre-listing home inspection is an important step to preparing your home for sale. Hiring a licensed and professional home inspector trained to identify issues as mentioned above may make your home selling process go much smoother! Bayside Home Inspections, LLC is happy to provide you with a detailed and thorough pre-listing home inspection. To schedule your pre-listing inspection, please call us at (302) 500-0130.
As always, we hope you found this information informative and welcome your calls and questions.
Sincerely,
Joe Cusumano, Owner
Bayside Home Inspections, LLC
