The worst thing that has happened in real estate in the last ten years is risk reduction preachings. “Don’t do anything except open the door. You might get sued.” I’d rather go with the thousands of times all parties were well informed by being at an inspection, than the one or two times there was a lawsuit about it.

I’d rather see both agents present at the one inspection, than the cost of an additional inspection added. There are already enough costs associated with buying and selling homes. We don’t need to add to the consumer’s cost burden.

Pre-inspection required or extended liability for not having a preinspection is way down on my list of what WA needs to improve. But given your affiliation, I can clearly see your self interest in every property hiring two inspectors instead of just one.

I didn’t know that you were the “punctuation rule breaker”! Glad you had a laugh. Just for kicks, I’m going to send a questionnaire around with sentences done both ways on Mensa Games Night and see if they spend the night arguing with each other over where the period goes.

I very much appreciate your response. I’ve been wondering why pre-inspections are starting to be recommended by agents to sellers.

I’ve had two situations this year where the seller had reports saying the houses were solid as a rock…and the foundations were slipping. Both needed whole new foundations poured to remedy the problems. My clients did not buy either of them. Someone bought one of them. The other was taken off market, as I don’t think the agent for the seller knows what to do next.

On the first one, the agent for the seller said a whole new foundation had been poured around the original. We inspected it, and only one corner had been poured. Response, “Oh, yeah…well.” I really had trouble with the fact that the agent wasn’t surprised by our findings. Was he just hoping that someone was going to take their word for it and overlook it? When asked for the paperwork regarding the foundation improvements, agent response was “The seller’s attorney advised them to not release the report.”

The second one actually had NO foundation for half the house. Seller’s response was, “Oh, we just put windows in”, not NEW windows, but windows. I said, what was there before you put windows in? Appararenly half the house used to be a porch. There were many bandaid fixes to the foundations on both.

I agree that buyers would like to know everything before making an offer. But any common practice that suggests that a buyer doesn’t need to do their own due diligence, is dangerous for both the seller and the buyer.

As to shifting from a seller’s market to a buyer’s market, I don’t see pre-inspections being the answer. Most times when a buyer perceives that a house needs a lot of work, they are talking more about aesthetics. Kitchens, bathrooms, flooring, etc…and not latent defects.

That said, I do think that one in ten times, a pre-inspection could be of benefit…its the other 9 I’m concerned about.