Working With Your Agent on Next Steps Post-Inspection

After you get a home inspection, it is important to go over your inspection report with your agent and decide what the next steps are in terms of purchasing the home or moving on to other options. 

Go Over the Findings

Each inspection report will have various items that were noted by your inspector. There are three tiers of findings – Significant Defects, Marginal Defects, and Minor Defects/Maintenance Items/FYI Items. 

Significant Defects

Significant Defects are the things that you need to pay the most attention to, and find a price point for the cost of repair. These are items that you should be concerned about and need to be repaired in order for the home to be safe. 

Talk with your agent and price out repair costs (including hiring contractors & materials needed). These are items that you should use during negotiations with the seller – and are great leverage to get a lower sale price to cover the cost. 

Additionally, Significant Defects may also be a reason to walk away from the sale, in the event that the item is costly to repair, time consuming, or greatly affects the overall integrity & safety of the home. 

Marginal Defects

Marginal Defects are items that need to be repaired, but aren’t a deal breaker of the home. Depending on what the defect is, you can decide with your agent whether to ask for a lower price, ask the seller to repair the defect before you continue with the purchase, or if it is something that you can repair after you purchase the home.

Typically these defects are not reasons to walk away from the home, but are significant enough that your inspector noted that it needs to be repaired. 

Minor Defects

Minor Defects are typically items that your inspector noticed weren’t working correctly or need repairs, but don’t need to be repaired immediately. These items are things that you’ll want to fix eventually once you purchase the home, but aren’t significant enough to use in negotiations and shouldn’t deter you from the home! 

Next Steps

• Work with your agent & draw up a list of all of the items that you want to negotiate with the seller on. 
• Decide whether or not the Significant Defects are deal breakers on the home or not. 
• Price out the repair costs & total of how much you want to ask for in the overall sale. 
• Talk about whether or not you want the seller to be responsible for repairs or if you want to hire your own contractors to make the repairs with the money you save from negotiations.  
• Talk with your agent and decide which defects are most important to you and whether or not you are willing to purchase the home if the seller chooses not to bend on price. 

Check out our Repair Request Builder feature of our reports that makes drawing up defects quick & easy for you and your agent! Always ask us about defects on your reports for an explanation or an expert opinion!