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Inspections & Appraisals

Author: Ryan | September 5, 2017

Inspection day can be exciting, scary, and informative. It means the sales process is moving along, but inspections and appraisals can also be speedbumps on your road to closing.

Inspections and appraisals can both take some scheduling and turn-around time depending on how active the market is. 

Inspections

The buyer's lender or agent will often recommend an inspector, our Service Provider page also includes licensed inspectors.

You should come to the inspection prepared with:

Workwear. You will likely be visiting spaces that have not been visited since the last inspection or when the house was built. Be prepared to get at least a little dusty if not dirty.

Inquisitiveness. Your inspector should be happy to answer questions and help you get a better understanding of the condition of the home.

Reasonableness. Let the inspector help you decipher which issues are cosmetic and which items are hazards.

Time. You should plan for it to take an entire morning or afternoon, keeping in mind a thorough inspection is to your benefit.

Resourcefulness. Have friends or family that are contractors or have real estate experience? Ask them and your agent for recommendations on where to get quotes, how to DIY, and what their experiences have been.

There may be some items on the inspection report your lender requires to be corrected. There may also be items that it is reasonable for you to ask to be corrected. Although the seller typically pays for the corrections there may be circumstances where the cost is shared between the buyer and seller, the buyer raises or lowers their offer price, or the seller simply makes the correction and that item is re-inspected. Your Purchase Agreement may include additional information or direction on how to handle inspection results.

When our clients are unsure how to read the inspections results or negotiate we recommend they contact us right away.

Appraisals

The buyer's lender will often select the appraiser. Since the buyer typically pays for the appraisal the seller often does not find out the appraised value, as long as the value was at or above the buyer's mortgage amount. In the event it appraises for less than the mortgage amount the buyer may lower their offer to meet the mortgage amount or make a larger downpayment to cover the difference.

Our Service Provider page includes licensed inspectors and appraisers as well other contractors that can asisst with remedying inspection items.