The Best $500 A Potential Seller Could Ever Spend

In the home selling process there are many situations that can cause the seller/s to "lose money." The most common one is the home inspection.

So your home has been listed and marketed for sale, you receive offers on the property and after some back and forth, you sign a purchase agreement with the best buyer.

Now the fun begins. The standard purchase agreement allows the buyer/s to have some time (usually 17 days) to fully inspect the home so they can make sure they know what their buying, defects and all.

It is quite common with homes that were built 50 years ago, as were a lot of Culver City residences, to find a number of things that are "wrong". These issues are in most cases, not deal killers, but they do give the buyer/s some negotiation ammunition to try and garner some discount off the previously agreed price, or some contribution from the seller towards paying for a large portion of the repairs.

There is a very simple way for sellers to head off a lot of this back and forth over the inspection report. Do an inspection before you put your home on the market.

This way, sellers have the opportunity to fix a lot of the problems, and remove the negotiation power of the buyer/s during their due diligence phase. A home inspection would cost around $500 for a typical 1,400 square foot home in Culver City. This is well worth the expenditure in almost any market. It's even more powerful in a sellers' market, which we are currently experiencing in Culver City.

Currently sellers have their home on the market a few days before they will receive multiple offers to consider and negotiate with. This is called "leverage." A seller who has already carried out a home inspection, can counter back all the buyers vying to buy their home, and send them a copy of the inspection report with the counter offer.

This allows the buyer/s to agree to your terms knowing the issues surrounding the home contained in the inspection report. Thus, when the successful purchaser gets to their home inspection phase during escrow, they have already agreed to by the house with the knowledge of the repairs necessary and have included that calculation in their previously agreed price.

The best $500 you will ever invest in getting your home sold.