The Eagle's View

Following up on my last post about inspection issues, here's a story of how fixing something early will prevent costly repairs later on and improve the sellability of your home.

The home that I recently purchased has a nice covered patio over the back porch. There are gutters on the porch that drain rain water away from the foundation. At least that's what they are suppose to do. But there are also large trees in the yard, and those trees drop leaves each year.

Now all the owner should have needed to do was clean out the gutters once or twice per year to keep them clog free. But by not doing that, the gutters became clogged so water couldn't pass through them. This caused water to build up and drip directly down onto the concrete slab of the patio. The water ran off the edge of the patio and over time caused it to sink into the ground just a bit. The sinking of the slab on one side caused the opposite side to rise and it was located under the sliding glass door. Now the door won't open and close properly.

To fix everything, the gutters need cleaned, the slab needs mudjacked and the door will possibly need replaced. The seller did not pay for these things to be done directly, but it did cause the home not to show as well as it could and we were able to purchase the home at large discount as a result. Just by cleaning the gutters the seller could have potentially sold her home for thousands of dollars more.

The best advice...when you see a small problem, fix it before it becomes a big problem.

When you sell your home or when you buy one, there is almost always a tense moment when it comes to the Inspection Notice.

This is the buyer's opportunity to have a professional inspection completed on the home to uncover defects, deferred maintenance, and other issues that could be a concern to the buyer.

A buyer needs to be aware that some things are to be expected when buying a used home. For instance, an 80 year old home will probably have some cracks in the foundation walls, aluminium wiring, asbestos, lead-based paint, and other things that are typical in an older home. A buyer would be unreasonable to asks the seller to repair the cracks, replace the wiring, remove the asbestos, etc. because those are expected items. If the buyer doesn't want to deal with those issues, he should look at newer homes.

But some things, even in a newer home will often come up on the inspection and generally, if they fall into the category of deferred maintenance or safety related issues, a buyer can request the seller to correct them and most sellers will agree. There are always exceptions like if the buyer puts a contract on a home that's advertised, "as is" or even if the buyer got a huge discount on the price.

Some of the common items to take care of before an inspection if you are the seller include:

1) Make sure the furnace is cleaned, tuned, and working properly. Furnances are suppose to be serviced every 1-3 years and by not doing this you open the door to the buyer making a request. Why pay for something to be done on a home that you are selling when you could get it done at your leisure and enjoy the benefits of the work for a while before you sell.

2) Check all sinks and faucets for leaks and fix them.

3) Make sure your switches and outlets are all working properly.

4) Make sure all doors open and close properly and locks are installed and working on exterior doors. You may feel safe with a front door that doesn't lock, but a buyer probably won't and they will ask you to repair the lock.

This is stuff that is easy and inexpensive to fix yourself but if a buyer request it in an inspection notice, you'll be under time constraints and might even have to hire professionals to do the work at a much higher expense.

There are many myths in real estate selling, and one of my favorites is the legend of the St. Joseph statue.

The way it works is you bury a small statue of St. Joseph in the year of the home you are trying to sell and within a couple weeks you'll have a contract! There are instructions with the statue kit that tell you exactly how to bury it to work, but it also tells you that you should beforehand stage and price the home properly.

Some people will swear that this works. Others think it's just a silly myth. But for about $5 you can try it out yourself. When I list your home for sale, if the seller ask me about it I'll give them a statue of their very own to bury.

If it works or not is a subject of debate, but I'll tell you this. In the past 6 months I have had two listings that buried the statue and sure enough, both listings sold within 2 weeks of the burial. One listing had been on the market for about 2 months, they buried the statue and a week later the home sold. The other listing had been on the market for 2 weeks with little showing activity, they buried the statue (and did a price reduction) and 2 weeks later the home sold.

It can't hurt to try and in a slow selling market you might as well try anything you can!