Sellers should consider paying for inspection early in process

PHILADELPHIA — With today's wider selection of homes making buyers pickier, some people are raising questions about the value of pre-inspections by sellers.

Is there an advantage to hiring a home inspector and disclosing the findings — and any repairs or corrections — to potential buyers, or is a seller better off simply not knowing until a buyer's inspection uncovers a problem?

In this litigious society, ignorance is not necessarily bliss, and the words "seller should have been aware of the problem" is being heard in a lot of courtrooms these days.

Still, says Philadelphia lawyer and educator Joseph Manko, "I think you're getting a little ahead of yourself when talking about litigation. With an inspection before the property goes on the market, the seller is better able to control the transaction. If you don't preinspect, it could give the buyer all the leverage."

Manko speaks from personal experience, paying for an inspection before he and his wife sold their home of 41 years. "We found a few small things and took care of them," Manko says.

Fred Glick, a Philadelphia real-estate and mortgage broker, said a seller's pre-inspection is more important in a market with a surplus of homes for sale.

"With a pre-inspection, you know the problems, you take care of the problems, and then you are able to price it right for a quicker sale," Glick says.

"It will cost the seller money, and the buyer will probably have an inspection done anyway, but at least you won't have the aggravation of having to negotiate a lower price for problems of which you were unaware."

Real-estate agents, too, seem much more willing to recommend pre-inspections to sellers. "The sellers can provide a better disclosure of the condition of their property," says Michelle Leonard, an agent with Long & Foster Real Estate in Devon, Pa.

With a pre-inspection available for them to look at, "buyers are not as afraid to make their offer. You remove the stress of renegotiating the agreement of sale after the home inspection," she says.