During your home inspection, a licensed inspector will come to your property to evaluate the condition of your home. After the inspection, they’ll provide a report to your buyers, detailing anything in need of repair. Once your buyers get a chance to review the report, they’ll send you a request for repairs. This post will explain what your options are when buyers come asking for fixes.
What Happens When You Get a Request for Repairs
When you receive a list of repair requests, you have a few options.
You can:
- Offer to handle all the repairs.
- Say you’ll do some repairs, but not others.
- Counter with a dollar amount you’re willing to put toward repairs.
- Offer to fix certain things and offer money towards others.
- Tell buyers you’ll provide supplies for repairs, but that you won’t do them. There’s really no limit on the number of ways you can counter repair requests. Just keep in mind that you want to sell your house, and you want to feel like you got a fair deal and so does your buyer. Give and take is a necessary part of the deal. Generally, it’s a good idea to handle small repairs yourself and strike a compromise on any larger or more time-consuming repairs.
Save Time By Assessing Your Home in Advance
If you are thinking of selling, you probably already have a pretty good idea of your home’s condition. The best way to play your cards is to collect some bids for the repairs you know are necessary before the inspection occurs. You can even have an inspection done pre-listing to get a comprehensive idea of what will be found later on. Doing so will allow you to proactively handle any necessary repairs or to disclose them up front so your buyers can put in an offer with those considerations in mind.
Always keep that in mind as you decide how to answer repair requests. The last thing you should consider is to simply walk away from an offer. Be as reasonable as possible and look ahead to closing, moving out — and moving on.