When you are buying a home, the realtor will usually recommend that you get a home inspection. The buyer has to pay the fee, and you may be tempted to skip the inspection to save the money. Don’t do it.
You may have your heart set on a particular house. But would you still buy it if you have to pay $20,000 for a new roof and $6,000 for a new air conditioner?
If you are looking at some major renovations, if you know about them up front, you might be able to include the cost of the renovations in the mortgage. If you wait until after closing, you are probably going to have to pay for the repairs out of pocket.
If your roof is a certain number of years old, your insurance company might all of a sudden require an inspection and then require you to replace the roof. They might say that if you don’t get the roof replaced, you can’t get insurance. If you have a mortgage, insurance coverage is required. Wouldn’t you rather know about that ahead of time?
Your air conditioner may work, and it might look OK to you. But it might be on it’s last leg. Wouldn’t you rather know about that ahead of time?
You may have defective duct work or a lack of insulation in the attic that might be resulting in huge power bills. Those bills might be so large that you have no choice but to get repairs. Wouldn’t you rather know about that ahead of time?
If your home inspection is part of your purchasing agreement, and you find a problem, it could provide you with a way out of the contract. A quality home inspection can reveal critical information about the condition of a home and its systems. This makes the buyer aware of what costs, repairs and maintenance the home may require immediately, and over time. If a buyer isn’t comfortable with the findings of the home inspection, it usually presents one last opportunity to back out of the offer to buy.
A home inspection can reveal whether rooms, altered garages or basements were completed without a proper permit, or did not follow code, according to Chantay Bridges of Clear Choice Realty & Associates. “If a house has illegal room additions that are un-permitted, it affects the insurance, taxes, usability and most of all the overall value. In essence, a buyer is purchasing something that legally does not exist,” she explains. Even new homes with systems that were not installed to code will become the new homeowners’ financial “problem” to fix (and finance).
A home inspection can be used as a negotiating tool. The home inspection report presents an opportunity to ask for repairs and/or request a price reduction or credit from the seller. Work with your realtor to understand what requests can and should be made to negotiate a better deal.
Ruth Schoenherr is a mortgage broker who will help you find home loans in the Clearwater, Palm Harbor, Largo, Safety Harbor, St Petersburg and Tampa Bay area. For more information, go to her web site at www.ClearwaterMortgageBroker.net or call at 727 447-2418.