Several times I’ve shown homes to potential buyers and sitting there on the kitchen table is... a pre-listing inspection binder.  What’s this? The sellers have hired a professional home inspector to come in prior to listing their home. This helps them in knowing what to expect when an offer comes in - just in case some things in the home need attention.  It’s rare, but sometimes this can be a very prudent thing to do. Here’s a real life example of when a pre-listing inspection can pay dividends:

I recently showed a Milton home to some of my clients. The house was approximately 15 years old and built by a very large, reputable builder.  The sellers had turned off the air conditioning (as they were away), but since it was August, I turned it back on to make my clients (and myself!) feel more comfortable.  As we looked through the main level, upstairs and basement of the home, I could feel the cold air coming up from the floor registers.

Traditionally when I look through homes, I look for “faults” and things that don’t seem right.  I always want my buyers to be informed of what they’re potentially buying. When I was in the main floor powder room, I looked down and noticed there was no floor register.  This was odd. I had never seen that before and it was definitely a building code violation.

I immediately when to the basement, looked up, and found an air supply from the furnace going to what I thought was the powder room.  I measured the distance of the ductwork to the back wall at 4 feet, went upstairs into the powder room and measured 4 feet from the back wall.  Surprise, surprise - the builder had tiled right over the floor register! I put my foot on the tile that I thought the register was under and sure enough the tile was freezing cold, meaning the air was coming up and being stopped by the underside of the tile.

Fast forward to if and when this house sells.  If the buyer hires a reputable, experienced home inspector, this is definitely going to be an issue and chances are it could either scare the buyers into backing out of the deal or cost the homeowners a pretty good chunk of money to have it fixed.  They would have to break the floor and hopefully match the existing tile. In a 15 year old home, that may not be easy, resulting in the entire powder room being retiled.

In this case a pre-listing home inspection would have been very handy and saved a lot of aggravation.  Better yet, a new home inspection way back when the house was built would have been the best investment of all.  Yes, builders do make a lot of mistakes and if you don’t have a keen eye for construction, as a new home buyer you’re really at their mercy.