Asking for a pre-inspection on a home.

[discogranny]

We saw a home we liked a lot at an open house yesterday. The house has been on the market for 60 days in a market where the average is closer to 15-20. It's got some interesting finishes, including over 1000 sq ft of wall to wall animal print carpet and a lot of loud wallpaper. Per our agent, there have been no offers. It's got some possibly significant issues, including visible mold on the ceiling in the kitchen and water damage discoloration in an upstairs bathroom (not near the kitchen, so probably unrelated.) We got the seller's disclosure and expected there to be more information about at least the mold since it was obvious, but it was not listed under known issues. 

Rather than coming in with a conservative lowball offer and subsequent haggling only to go through inspection and discover a mold problem, we'd like to ask the seller to have an inspection done with a specific focus on the mold before offering. We would provide our letter of pre-approval with the request so the seller knows we can actually purchase the house. 

I'm going to as our agent tomorrow but thought I'd tap into the collective ML knowledge tonight. So, does this seem fair? Has as anyone done this successfully? 

[isabel]

I'm not sure what incentive they would have to do this for you. In fact, it could be to their detriment. They don't currently know what the issue is with the mold (or so we must assume), but if they grant you the pre-inspection and you decide the issues are too great, they are then legally required to disclose what was discovered. All the while, they've never even had so much as an offer to lean on.

Personally, I think you're better off going through to offer and inspection process. The alternative would be to find a company and go back in for another showing with your realtor and bring the professional with you. They wouldn't be able to do more than a visual inspection, but it might give you a better idea of what's going on without committing to anything. I don't know the legalities of that though. I assume it's fine, but don't know for sure.

[lilac05]

I've never heard of it, but maybe your agent will be able to get a few answers from their agent by showing your level of concern over things that are obviously needing repair.

[InBetweenDays]

Are you asking the seller to schedule/pay for the inspection? Or are you wanting to do it but want to do so before making an offer? If it's the former I don't see the sellers having any incentive to do it. If it's the latter, maybe. Around here, if the house is in a desirable location they sometimes list it then say they'll accept offers on a certain day (usually 4-5 days after going on the market). Buyers sometimes do a pre-inspection so they can then put their offer in without an inspection contingency. But of course that is a WAY different scenario that the house you are considering.

I guess there is no harm in asking, but as a seller I'd expect you to pay for the inspection.

[joenali]

We had a pre inspection done on a house as per the sellers request. The one caveat was that if you put in an offer, you could not back out. We didn't even put in an offer the house was in such disrepair.

Just go through the offer, inspection process.

[lavender444]

Ditto. The seller has no motivation to allow a pre-offer inspection. Once they find out the problem causing mold, it has to be disclosed and will further hurt the selling process for them.

[goaskalice]

It's the buyer's burden to do their own due diligence. Water damage can be a huge expensive issue. If you really want to write an offer I would have your agent communicate that you will be asking for either a large credit or repairs done before close when the offer is presented to the seller. Also, keep in mind sellers usually repair to the bare minimum and it usually a much better long term option to get a credit so you can do repairs correctly after closing.

[Captain Serious]

I did this with or ski house on Vermont with no problems. We had it inspected before we made an offer. I didn't realize that was unusual at the time, but it went smoothly because it was a for-sale-by-owner and I knew the seller personally.

I only found out that it is not common practice when we asked to do the same thing on the home we are currently planning to buy, also in Vermont. Our realtor tried to talk is out of it, but the sellers had no problem with it. If you really think you might buy this house if the report comes back okay, I say ask for the inspection. We realize that we've been working with our realtor for over a year (he one upfront that this was going to be a long-term search for our dream house and that we weren't planning to move until this year), and he's worried we'll walk away from this house without making an offer and he is hungry for his commission, which is why he wanted us to make an offer contingent on the inspection. My argument was that is the house really needs a new roof and boiler, like we expect, and who knows what else, my offer wool be significantly lower than if it doesn't need all that work.

In both situations, we paid/are paying for the inspection ourselves. If nothing else, the fact that we are willing to take on that cost is a show of our commitment.

[dojo]

I'd be concerned about a HO hiring the inspector. I'd rather have someone on my side who I paid for.

[pagas]

I would want the inspector working for me, not the owner.

[discogranny]

Thanks everyone. My H is a contractor, so he sees the dollar value associated with every deficiency clearly and is afraid that if we come to the seller with the repairs deducted from our offer she's going to reject it immediately. We'd like to be able to back up his estimates with a good collection of facts so we are seeking the best avenue for that.

At this point the offer we'd like to make is $25,000 less than she's asking but still $25,000 more than what was paid for the house when purchased 10 years ago. From the seller's disclosure we know there is a lot of emotion tied up in the sale, so we want to approach it carefully. The comps support an offer of about $20,000 less, so even though we're not too far off, no one likes being told their house isn't worth what they think it is/want for it.