Inspections are almost a guaranteed part of the home selling process (unless you sell your home “as is”) and sometimes they can destroy a sale and/or the sellers expectations on what it takes ($$$) to sell a house. Our house was going on 90 years old, it was a solid house, but it was still old. The house hadn’t technically been “sold” since 1980, we bought it from Eric’s Grandparents, so there was never any formal inspections done. You can guess we were a little nervous going into the inspections. In the end they turned out as good as one could hope for. We did have to correct a few issues and shell out some $$$ but all things considered it was not that bad.

Home Inspection

With almost every home purchase there will be a home inspection. A Home Inspector comes to your home and gives the potential buyers an overview of things they notice in the house, this can include problem areas, potential problem areas or just noting where different things are located. Since a Home Inspector is not a professional in the field of anything they are mentioning, they will suggest that you have a professional take a second look. It is then up to the buyers which items they would like looked at and corrected by a professional. Thankfully our inspection came back with out any major concerns and were simple fixes. The biggest issue we had to correct was the Radon in the basement. We had never tested the Radon levels, nor did I know it was a thing, so it was quite a shock (and a concern) when the levels came back really high!  (here is your science lesson for the day) Radon is a naturally occurring gas (that is linked to lung cancer) and any home can have elevated levels. The gas is invisible and odorless, so a test must be conducted to make sure your levels are safe. You can purchase a simple Radon test kit for around $15 at almost any home improvement store or online (here is one example: Radon Test Kit) We had to have a Radon Mitigation System installed in the home and that ran us around $1400.

Water & Sewer Inspection

We also had to have a Water Inspection and Sewer Inspection done. In the past we had our water tested and knew that it was high in Nitrates and had a Reverse Osmosis (RO) system installed for our drinking water. But I did learn a lesson with this inspection…. make sure to have the inspector take a sample from the drinking tap for the known issue!! When the inspector was out we told him that it was high in Nitrates so he did take a sample from the drinking tap, however that sample was not tested for Nitrates. In hindsight we should’ve had him take one more sample out of the drinking tap that day. They test for 4 components and take two samples; Nitrates & Bacteria (one sample) and Lead & Arsenic (two sample).  The Nitrate/Bacteria sample comes from pressure tank, the RO processes takes place after the pressure tank and before it reaches the drinking tap. Therefor when the results came back the Nitrates were high. Hindsight I tell you, it gets you every time! So the water guy had to come out one more time to take an additional sample from the drinking tap, the results came back crystal clear. The Sewer Inspection only resulted in an extra piece of concrete over the cover, so that one was easy!

The Appraisal

Not so much an inspection, but we had the appraisal done. The appraisal can make or break your sale since the financing all rides on it (in most cases that is) The housing market is in an upswing right now and like anyone else selling we wanted to get a good price for our home. We took a gamble and priced a little bit higher then we initially thought we would. The gamble…Did you price too high? What if you don’t get any offers? What if you get an offer and the Appraisal doesn’t come back high enough? What if you priced lower and got multiple offers?…. Argh!!!  All worries aside the gamble paid off, we got an offer, we agreed upon a price and the appraisal came back good! Sucky part is that as the seller we don’t get to see what the house appraised for.. not that it would change anything it would be nice to know if we priced it just right or maybe we could’ve went a little higher.

If it is your first time selling a house or if you haven’t been apart of the Real Estate business ( I tried my hand at being a Realtor sometime ago) then I would educate your self of what is normally expected of the Seller before putting your house on the market. Also the types of inspections or requirements that a Buyer might request in an offer.

Love Always … Tam