Homes across the country are selling like wildfire right now – and often over asking thanks to accelerated markets triggering bidding wars due to high demand, low supply and rock-bottom mortgage rates. 

But in a time when buyers often don’t feel they have the liberty to include a condition in their offer pending a home inspection, it’s more important than ever for sellers to take steps that protect them from hassles and even possibly a lawsuit if something major is uncovered after closing. 

While professional staging is a necessity when it comes to selling, a pre-inspection is equally important. Here are some tips to combine both these services to sell your home for top dollar and provide full disclosure at the same time.

Pre-inspection services

We understand that it’s not always possible to have a traditional home inspection completed post-offer, particularly in hot housing markets where bidding wars are the norm. That’s why we proudly provide more options to ensure homebuyers and Realtors alike will better understand the inner workings of your property. 

Before you put your home on the market, you can book a pre-inspection, which includes a transferable digital report to any prospective buyer, and with the optional buyer walk through service we add our lifetime appliance safety recall monitoring. We evaluate major systems, including the interior, heating/cooling, electrical, plumbing, exterior and roofing. This comprehensive report becomes the property’s operations manual, which details deficiencies, safety concerns, system shut-off locations as well as maintenance suggestions.

A pre-inspection highlights the sound investment buyers can expect upon purchasing your property. You’ll have a list prepared detailing any work that may need to be done in the future that can empower you to make some changes yourself prior to listing and/or equip you with the required information to show potential buyers that only minor repairs/upgrades are suggested by a trained professional down the road. This helps take the guesswork out of the homebuying process for many buyers by boosting confidence in your property.

A buyer is likely to discover issues with your home, so being forthcoming may mean one less condition on the offer as well as providing a higher level of confidence and transparency for your home sale.

And in cases when a pre-inspection isn’t plausible, we also offer a verbal consultation during viewing service. Our highly trained home inspector will join a potential homebuyer and their Realtor during the home viewing to provide a live verbal report. While you’re touring the property, we conduct a high-level, 45-60-minute non-invasive visual survey of the property’s major systems.

We also offer a complimentary technical advice service during viewing. If you see something you’re unsure of during a home viewing, we’re here to help! Simply snap a photo/video and text it to us. We’re happy to provide free, no-obligation remote technical advice to help ensure you’re confident in making an offer.

While neither of these two services replaces the value of a full pre-inspection, they offer some added support to the alternative where there is no professional guidance at all prior to buying a home. 

Professional staging

A professional home stager will evaluate the current condition of your home as well as your furnishings to determine what elements could raise the bar. They may recommend you buy or rent some items or simply reorganize what you already have in a fresh new way.

Stagers know the real estate market, and what sells, so it’s important to take their advice and not be offended when they make big changes. At the end of the day a stager’s job is to sell your home quickly and for top dollar – exactly what benefits sellers most. 

Here are some top staging tips from professionals above and beyond changing/adding furniture and décor, as well as reconfiguring layout:

• Clean, clean and clean some more. Everyone loves a clean home, but especially during a pandemic. Be sure your home is clean and smells good too
• Depersonalize your space. Buyers want to be able to picture their families in the home and it’s tougher to do so with your personal photos and items scattered throughout
• Repaint walls to neutral tones. Using bolder colours in your home is a personal choice. Neutrals offer a clean slate for buyers to better imagine the space how they’d like it to look once it belongs to them
• Retouch scuffs and marks. A bit of minor repair can go a long way – particularly when it comes to baseboards, walls and doors – to demonstrate how well you’ve taken care of your home

Find an Inspector near you: https://abuyerschoice.com/find-an-inspector/