Jun 21, 2021
Matt and Garrett have been preaching the pre-listing home inspection for many, many years, and today they devote an entire episode to break down why. Pre-listing home inspections are an important step to make sure you’re putting people in safe homes. They also increase buyer confidence, raise your trustworthiness, protect both buyers and sellers, and decrease stress for all parties involved. They offer up all the knowledge you need to negotiate from a place of power, and to achieve the best possible offers for your clients. They prevent contracts from falling through during the transaction phase, since everything has already been disclosed, and help you avoid having to put a home back on the market - a huge red flag for potential buyers.
Our hosts point out that top producers almost always have the pre-listing inspection built into their process, and even though you may uncover an issue or discover that your seller is unwilling to negotiate, Matt and Garrett explain that this will come out in the process no matter what. It’s better to find out before you’ve invested your time, energy, and marketing dollars into a property. You can fix the problem or simply disclose it to buyers so they know exactly what they are dealing with. In addition to offering clarity, confidence, and marketing appeal, pre-listing home inspections also give you peace of mind as an agent, knowing that all parties are completely informed about the property being purchased. And they serve as another opportunity to demonstrate your role as a trusted advisor, and raise the value level of the industry as a whole.
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Episode Highlights:
- Matt and Garrett have been preaching pre-listing home inspections for many years
- This part of the process may not be necessary, but it is advisable and it will help your clients get better offers
- You may find something wrong with the property, but this is going to come up no matter what
- Part of the listing agent’s responsibility is helping sellers with whatever defects or issues come up
- Homeowners Disclosure is still required, but homeowners do not always know what they need to disclose
- Important to put people in safe homes
- It would be extremely unfair to skip pre-listing home inspection to the parties that rely on you to be their expert
- Garrett’s story of an inspector who discovered that homeowners had slapped a coat of paint over rotten material
- Matt loves pre-listing home inspections because it helps you avoid the second round of negotiations
- They allow you to negotiate everything upfront and have all the knowledge you need to achieve the best contract possible
- Even if you think buyers are getting higher offers than ever right now, completing pre-listing home inspections can help them do even better
- It also helps eliminate buyers’ fears that something is wrong with the house, and they’ll be that much more confident putting in a great offer
- It offers clarity and lets buyers know exactly what they’re dealing with
- Analogy of buying a used car versus a certified pre-owned car
- Having the home pre-inspected can also be used as a great marketing tool
- Helps avoid having the home go under contract, and then go back on the market - this is a huge red flag for potential buyers
- Gives you peace of mind knowing all parties were completely informed about what was purchased
- Makes you more trustworthy as an agent and protects your clients
- A seller who does not want to complete a pre-home inspection is also a red flag
- Pre-listing home inspections increase your trustworthiness, confidence with the buyers, and decrease stress for all parties
- It also adds a huge convenience factor, and consumers pay for convenience
- Garrett addresses complaint that agents have lost listing over pre-listing home inspections
- It’s better to find out you have an issue or a seller who’s unwilling to negotiate before you’ve invested your time, energy, and marketing dollars, rather than during the transaction
- Also, you don’t have to fix everything - you just have to disclose it
- Let the buyer decide how they want to handle it
- This is another opportunity to raise the value of what you do as a realtor, and for the entire industry as a whole
- Top producers have this built into their process
Quotes:
“This is a piece of the listing process that I am very, very passionate about.”
“There's so many ways that sellers can win bigger by doing pre-listing home inspections.”
“I hear people say, Well, why would you want to point out there's something wrong with the property? Aren't you hurting yourself by putting that out there? And then finding maybe something that's wrong? I always laughed at that - I was like, Usually it's going to come up no matter what.”
“Putting people in safe homes for one, I think is a big thing.”
“That's not an uncommon thing for someone to be like, Let's just touch some things up here, and maybe it isn't that big of a deal. Like, Hey, it looks great. It looks nice. We've been living with it for so long. How bad could it be?”
“To skip a step like this, I feel is extremely unfair to the parties that have relied on you to be their experts, to help them through this process.”
“The reason why I love pre-listing home inspections, not because of this market, and because of helping buyers, but because I hate the second round of negotiation. I think it's a waste of time. I think it's just riddled with problems.”
“That's one of the things that you're doing when you get a pre-listing home inspection, is you are setting yourself up to have all of the knowledge so that you can negotiate from a position of power, so that the sellers can achieve the best contracts.”
“I don't care if you're getting the most that you've ever thought you would, you could probably do better.”
“One of the four buyers’ fears is there's something wrong with the house. And if, as a seller, and as a listing agent, we can eliminate buyer fears...it’s amazing.”
“Anything we can do to make sure that that property does not go under contract and then go back on the market, we want to do as a listing agent. You don't want properties to leave the market and come back on because there's a huge red flag attached to this property now.”
“Me as a listing agent, I am actually pretty concerned - this property isn't going to come back and haunt me a couple years down the road. I would be able to sleep better at night going, I feel good because all parties were informed on what they just purchased there.”
“Listing agents out there, please, please, please, please, please do a pre-home inspection. Figure out what they look like in your marketplace. Figure out how to sell it to your seller - that this is actually a really powerful thing to be able to present the property in this way. And all the benefits are going to come out of it. It's not a negative. I think it should be done to protect the clients.”
“I don't even know if there's any negatives really to it. Other than, you might find a lot of stuff about the house that you're going to find out about anyway. And if you have a seller that doesn't want to do it, that's also kind of saying something too, right?”
“Do this stuff, guys. You get increased trustworthiness, you get increased confidence with the buyers, you get less stress.”
“And it's not like you have to fix them. You just have to disclose it.”
“This is one of your opportunities to raise the level of what a real estate agent is, to provide more value than the other real estate agents out there.”
“There's a reason why we've dedicated an entire episode just to this one topic. Clearly, we think very, very highly of this.”
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