I recently represented a buyer client who found a great home to buy. Between his past construction experience and his friends, he felt that he could do a great job inspecting the home. So he decided to not do inspections. I recommended that he do his inspections prior to writing the offer. I added the items that my client discovered during his inspection into the offer to purchase the home.
During the negotiating phase, I made the offer contingent upon inspections, even after my client stressed to me that he would not pay for an inspection. The good part was we got the offer accepted with most of the repairs we asked for in the offer. Now the hard part was to begin. I needed to convince my buyer client that it was in his best interest to hire an inspector to professionally inspect the home.
I stressed to my client that it was really important that we conduct an inspection. My client still didn't want to do an inspection. He was convinced that he knew all defects about the home. He was thinking that he asked for the furnace to get replaced and he was getting a heck of a deal. Finally, my client said that he would pay for an inspection only if I agreed to reimburse him if nothing was discovered that he and his friends hadn't already discovered.
We'll we had the inspection last week and my client was thoroughly surprised. Not only did he happily pay for the 3.5 hour home inspection, he has thanked me numerous times. His lesson he learned is by not paying for a $295 inspection now, he would have been paying 10 times that amount within a year. The inspection that was preformed by an ASHI certified inspector took 3.5 hours and uncovered many items and some major that his friends and he didn't discover.
In my experience, a normal home inspector would have never discovered the items that this inspector discovered. In my 18 years of real estate experience, not only is my clients getting my knowledge, they are also getting my contacts knowledge which is second to none.
If you are thinking about buying a home in Kansas City, let's get together and see if we are a good fit.
Thank You!
Chris Dowell
The Dowell Taggart Team