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Pre-marketing Property Inspection
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Prudent purchasers will have your property thoroughly inspected
before they buy it. Expect inspectors to poke into everything --
your house's roof, chimney, gutters, plumbing, electrical wiring,
heating and cooling systems, insulation, smoke detectors, all the
permanent appliances and fixtures in your kitchen and bathrooms, and
the foundation. They'll also check for health, safety, and
environmental hazards.
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Exploring the advantages of inspecting before marketing
The best defense is a good offense. Beat buyers to the punch -- get
your inspections before they get theirs. Discover everything wrong
with your house before putting it on the market. Defusing a crisis
begins by discovering that a problem exists. Consider these four
reasons to have your property thoroughly inspected before putting it
on the market:
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Damage control: Suppose that your house needs a new
foundation. The problem is there whether you know about it or
not. Why wait passively for an ultimatum to fix the foundation
at a cost established by the buyer's inspection or kiss the deal
good-bye? If you discover the problem before marketing the
house, you can disclose it to prospective buyers with a repair
estimate. Your negotiating position is much stronger if you know
about problems in advance -- and accurately know the cost to
correct them. Some buyers won't want to tour your house if they
know that it needs a great deal of repair work. Forget them.
Concentrate on buyers who are willing to do corrective work
after the closing if your price and terms are fair.
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Financial planning: It's very important to have a
realistic estimate of your present house's net proceeds of sale
before committing to buy a new home. If your house needs major
repairs, you'll pay for them one way or another -- either by
doing the repairs yourself, by reducing your asking price to
reflect the cost of repairs, or by giving buyers a credit to do
the work. Latent defects -- flaws hidden out of sight behind
walls or concealed in inaccessible areas, such as under your
house or up in the attic where you can't see them -- are time
bombs. A good premarketing inspection can reveal all these
problems.
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Fine tuning: Professional property inspectors can help
you spot minor defects, such as dirty filters in the heating
system; ventilation problems in the basement, garage, or crawl
space; blocked gutters; loose doorknobs; stuck windows; a
missing chimney hood or spark arrester, and so on. Eliminating
small maintenance problems like these gives prospective buyers
who tour the property a favorable -- and correct -- impression
that your house is extremely well-maintained.
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Peace of mind: The inspector alerts you to health and
safety precautions you should take. Installing smoke detectors,
grounding electrical outlets, and keeping flammable products
away from furnaces, heaters, and fireplaces, for example, make
your house safer for the next owner and safer for you as long as
you continue living in it.
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