The Home Sale Inspection

It comes as quite a shock when you get the home inspection report on the house you thought you were doing such a good job of keeping up.  Oh sure, some of it is knit-picky stuff that no one would look for or repair – like replacing rusted nails in exterior window trim.  But some of it kind of hits you with a why didn’t I notice that surprise.  Really, the hand rail on the back steps is loose?  How did I not know that?  And then there are the things that have been there the whole 10 years we have owned the house.  Yes, there is some water that seeps out of the shower in the master bathroom and is discoloring the baseboard trim.  It hasn’t gotten any worse or better in 10 years.  We re-did caulking; we resealed the door; we put on new water-proof trim at the bottom of the door.  None of it had any effect.  So now I guess we are just oblivious to it.  So yes, I understand you either have to fix some things or give an additional concession on the price.  Perfectly understandable.  In our case, the buyer really only wants a price concession since her plan is to do an extensive interior remodel anyway.

But then, on the inspection report we got back from the buyer is this completely baffling issue.  The report says the downstairs HVAC does not work.  We need a new unit.  What????  It’s working just fine.  What are you talking about?  We even have a service contract on it and it was completely inspected two weeks before the home inspection.  Clean bill of health.  Part of the buyer’s proposed price reduction is related to HVAC.  But wait, the HVAC works.  We submit our clean bill of health paperwork dated two weeks earlier to the buyer.  We offer to get the service company back out to re-certify that the HVAC works.  No, the buyer, who we graciously let come to the house multiple times so her contractors could measure and estimate for the re-model, says the system wouldn’t work any of the times she was there.  What????  I’m sitting here now and the unit is on, keeping everything toasty.  As for our service contract inspection report she dismisses it.  That company “owns” the area, she says.  What?  How is that relevant?

So the buyer will split the HVAC cost with us.  That’s her “concession” after already refusing to negotiate on the cost of any of the other work.  So the final decision is in our court.  Do we accept what is seeming to be a very unreasonable price reduction and start over or accept it and move on?  Can we get a better deal with a new and different buyer, I ask our agent?  Well, maybe not, he says.  What if we put the house back on the market?  Well, he says, agents talk….  What?  He elaborates - the real estate agents in this area all know each other and they talk.  If an agent brought a client through before and wasn’t wowed by the house, they tell other agents not to bother showing the property.  Now this really floored me.  I’m from Los Angeles.  There are thousands of agents and, of course, they don’t all know each other.  But then I remember I am in Nashville.  And in one of those enclaves of Nashville where most everyone went to grade school together, often at the same grade school their parents attended.  Okay, game over.  We’ll give the buyer a price concession.