Inspections by Right

Soon enough, the inspection contingency is going to be a thing of the past, and inspections will be allowed "by right."  Admittedly, not a ton is known about the details or dates here, but I can assure you that this is going to be a major shift in the industry.  Those who stay on top of it will benefit.

What does it mean for sellers?  You will no longer be able to favor offers that waive inspection because you won't know (for sure, at least) which buyers are conducting inspections and which are not.

What does it mean for buyers?  Many things.  For one, although conducting a pre-offer inspection will likely still put you at an advantage, they're going to become less necessary as the process becomes (necessarily) more accepting of inspections on the whole.

Will there be loopholes?  Almost definitely.  Non-refundable offer deposits, super short P&S windows, love letter wink-winks, etc will be clear signals from buyers to sellers of their intent to not send Mr. Grumpy Pants inspector into the house to criticize everything.

But what about this revolutionary idea: a seller conducting their own inspection ahead of time, fixing what needs to be fixed (or what they want to or can afford to fix), to better position their home on the market.  What if we even took it a step further and shared this inspection report with interested buyers?  Sure, they should still have their own inspector do their thing, but what a refreshing breath of transparency this would be!

Look, I am pretty 50-50 on buyers vs sellers these days (in terms of my client load), so I can tell you from both sides of the aisle that it is just wildly weighted towards sellers in terms of who has leverage.  And I like balanced, healthy markets.  I believe this rule change will help get us there.  Now, I just hope that there are enough quality inspectors left to fulfill the increased demand!  We shall see.  But one thing I can assure you is that I'll be staying on top of it, and advising my clients accordingly.