Buying A Home
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Has anyone walked away after inspection?
We are buying an old home and about 15K needs to be put into it. I am really hoping the seller takes care of it as they are major issues... What has been your experience on either the seller or buyer side of something like this. My real estate agent seems pretty confident as it will all be disclosed to next potential buyer if they decide not to pay.
Re: Has anyone walked away after inspection?
we had a buyer walk post inspection. There were foundation cracks (minor) and they brought in a contractor to assess them. The contractor saw $$ and quoted us a huge number with zero proof the house was unstable. We told them we would not make that repair after an engineer had made an evaluation (which was provided to them) and recommended no work be done at that time. They walked. We had some less expensive repairs made and fully disclosed the issue on our disclosure papers. We are now under contract once again. Hopefully this inspection will end on a happier note.
Good luck with your negotiations.
Our house was an odd situation. The first buyers had gotten through the inspection and sellers had made repairs that were requested, but the buyers got in a fight (they were boyfriend-girlfriend) and walked away and lost their deposit. We were the back up offer and we requested around ~$1,000 in fixes. They did everything we asked as well as a few things we didn't request, which was nice.
If you trust your agent, then I wouldn't worry too much - I know, easier said than done. A lot depends on your market (if it's a seller's market they could be resistant) but it is true that they would have to disclose the issues to any other buyers.
We have walked away, but not for the reasons you're asking.
You're asking if the sellers are likely to pay. That answer depends on local custom. In my area, buyers turn the entire inspection report over to the sellers and the sellers fix every single thing, down to burned out light bulbs. There's no "negotiation" about it - you just do it.
For the house we walked on, we walked because we felt like we didn't trust that the house had been taken care of. The roof had been damaged in a tornado. The damage wasn't visible to the untrained eye, but was instantly visible to the inspector. It turns out that not only did the sellers not disclose it, they filed a homeowner's insurance claim and pocketed the money without making repairs.
Yeah, you know your roof is damaged, you don't fix it, and you don't disclose it? And the inspector found other mechanical problems with the HVAC and dishwasher? And insurance will cost a fortune in this neighborhood because of a history of tornadoes that you didn't tell me about? Forget it. I assume you're liars and want nothing to do with you. I was pretty indignant about it too because they were leaving the country to be missionaries lol. Thanks for being such swell representatives of the Good Word.
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Thinking of doing cosmetic updates to a dated home? These were our costs.
Part of it depends on what kind of a deal you're getting and what kind of interest the listing got. We're buying a house that was a total steal with a back-up offer in place. So unfortunately the sellers refused to do anything (though on the bright side, there was nothing major to do, just a few little things). If the house was sitting on the market for quite awhile or if you ended up on the high-end of comps, you're more likely to get more from the sellers.
Good luck!
It was a bit different for us, the inspection also came up with abut $13k of repairs that needed to be done.
FI works in carpentery and he is able to fix most of the problems easily on his own and save us money. So we asked the sellers to fix the major problems while leaving the minor problems to us. We were a bit leery of the sellers- they weren't very open, it felt like they were hiding something. The sellers built the house on their own and took several short cuts and left few projects unfinished.
So we decided we'd not want the sellers to fix everything- they'd probably not do it the way we want. We felt better doing the repairs on our own, so we asked them to leave the appliances and few other things instead because they refused to lower the price.
We would have not walked if the sellers didn't agree on anything mainly because we would be able to do everything on our own.
sewage - gross. good miss!
Yes, things will be disclosed to a next potential buyer. But, how old is this home? What are the major issues?
Are the mechanicals (furnace, AC, water heater, etc.) in working order but just near the ends of their usable lives? Or, are they downright unsafe?
If they are working but just old, then, I don't think the seller owes anything to update them (but, you can always ask and see what they are willing to do). If they are unsafe, then the seller needs to pay to do whatever is needed to bring them up to be safe.
It all depends on how much you can afford to pay on your own and how much you want this house. For everybody that picture is different. Everybody's tolerance for what is acceptable and what isn't is different.
I agree with this. If your inspector said X needs to be replaced within a matter of, say, months, then I think you are totally within your rights to ask for them to be repaired. If it is something that is more "this is old, but usable. You may want to consider upgrading it" then I think you have to be prepared to accept that the seller won't be interested in.
And listen to your gut. H and I had some nonnegotiables we discussed beforehand that we would walk if it came to that. Fortunately it didn't come to that.