It can be quite stressful to sell a home due to the
complications that involve lots of paperwork and fixing the issues. And when it
comes to house inspection, the sellers hate it more to see a stranger opening the
doors of every room and closet and checking every appliance. This situation can
turn into a nightmare for most of the homeowners.
While most of the people consider seeing home inspectors as
a sign of getting some really bad news, there are some actual positive factors
that can be helpful in making the home selling more effective process. Home
inspector visiting a home gives the sellers and opportunity to fix every hidden
and outstanding issue. After following instructions given by the inspectors,
the seller can actually qualify to stick with the asking price of the home.
So, if you are a seller’s agent and you are facing a
situation in which home inspectors have caught you off guard or while during
the process of you inquiring things on your own, the key thing here is to keep
calm and not to react out of fear. After that, you can consider following tips
to navigate home inspections with your clients.
Prepare your clients
for the inevitable
While the home inspectors can shock home sellers by pointing
out any hidden issues, their attitude might make the seller to go into
defensive mode. That is something you, as an agent, should prevent from
happening. The best practice is to inspect the home on your own and mark the
issues that may invoke inspectors to ask questions from the sellers in a bit
harsh or mocking manner. Since there might not be any time to fix those issues,
you can discuss with your client regarding how to react in case the client
feels inspector’s way of asking a bit offensive.
Follow a proactive
approach
Ask the sellers if they are planning to be present at the
time of inspections. Nevertheless, you will definitely have to insist on
keeping the seller away if you are informed about buyer’s presence during the
inspection. If you are certain that seller will not be able to answer the
questions put forward by the inspection team or the buyer, you need to ask the
seller to leave their contact information. It would be more beneficial if buyer
is not monitoring the inspection process. In this situation, you can ask the
seller to stay outside the home. You can take the inspection team for the tour
of interior of the house. This way, you will be able to answer the questions by
inspection team a bit more confidently.
Calm down the
situation and the seller
Just before the actual inspection, tell the seller to calm
down even if they get offended during the process. Tell them that inspection
team would be there only to do their job. If seller keeps on insisting on
staying in the home especially if you are informed about buyer taking part in
inspection process, convince them by stating the fact that most of the real
estate deals fail only because buyers and sellers get engaged in a spat before
the home selling process even begins.
Remember, keeping calm with a focused approach is good for
both the seller and the agent.
