Goerge, here is a basic list you should read
http://www.hribar.com/fifteen-things-to-sell-your-home.html


I have sold and built a few homes over the years, all maintenance on the house should be perfect, Gutters cleaned, no unfinished projects, no excess clutter. No pet smells, remove heavy window drapes or curtains, let in plenty of nat light. Mechanically, make sure no toilets run, no lightbulbs out, Clanging pipes in the wall, no visible water damaged walls. Thermostats should be working, no dripping faucets, basement must be neat and DRY. Any roof shingles off, or up?(curled). As home inspectors we will always find something, if we dont, we feel like the customer wasted there $ paying us. The trick is to make the list manageable and small. G

Hi George,

We closed on our home last week. The buyer did have an inspection completed of our home.  I will be happy to send you the report if you are interested.  (send me a PM and Ill forward it to you). 

Our buyer only asked that a few of the items be repaired.  Keep in mind, however, another  buyer may only want a price reduction rather than having something repaired.  And, like Gene says in his message, the home inspection companies will always findi something.  Having a good agent with a lot of experience to help you repond to the report is key. 

We had a two year "plan" to get ready for our home sale.  We found a very experienced realtor who went through each room and gave us advice on how to "stage" it. We removed a lot of furniture and all personal items, painted all the rooms a neutral color, and cleaned and organized every closet, bathroom  and kitchen cabinet. He even had us alphabetize the spice rack. Our bathrooms sparkled.  At the time we thought he was being obsessive, but it worked.  We had a great offer is less than 3 weeks (we actually got three all on the same day)

He cautioned us about doing any expensive improvements such as the roof because the buyer may not make it an issue.  He reommended having an estimate done only. 

Good luck, we hope your "honey do" list is not too long.

Carol

-- Edited by HapyKamper on Tuesday 23rd of March 2010 11:37:52 AM

We have been painting , cleaning and clearing for a year now.. Hopefully it goes on the market in June... I am sure if someone looks close enough and wants to find something wrong with it they will... but we will have to cross that bridge when we come to it...patti

I think a lot depends on the inspector.  Some are better than others.  In our case, we spent 2 years stripping all wallpaper, painting the rooms a nice fresh neutral color and we replaced all old carpeting.   All mechanicals were in excellent working order.  We have a newer roof and the outside of the house is in excellent condition.  We decluttered every room and cleaned out the basement and all closets.  We got rid of a great deal of our stuff before we ever listed.

The inspector found some minor items.  There were a few outlets in the basement with reverse polarity which we fixed.  One bathroom sink had a drain stop that didn't close completely.  We fixed that.  We had one window with a broken thermoseal.  We replaced the glass.  The problem came with what the inspector didn't find.  Because our furnace, air conditioner and water heater are older (about 15 years on the furnace and 5 on the water heater) the inspector said there was "potential" for problems.  He recommended a licensed electrician, plumber and HVAC technician inspect everything that was in perfect working order at our expense.  This caused the buyers to get overly worried and they wanted us to replace all the mechanicals after we had already agreed on a lowball price.  We ended up having to walk away from the deal. 

So, even though we had the house in excellent condition, the inspector caused lots of problems by pushing everything off onto licensed contractors to cover his butt.  It was extremely frustrating. 

We have also found that buyers want a new house at a very used price.  Our house is 34 years old with some updating.  It is priced below assessed and recent appraised value and buyers still aren't satisfied.  They want everything new, but don't want to pay for new prices.

Good luck to you.  We will be having the 33rd showing on Saturday.  Several buyers comment it is in their top 2 or 3 and may come back for a second showing, but still no offer.

Racer,
We are getting our home ready to go on the market. We are finished spending money on this house. The one thing that worries us is the age of the furnance. A couple of the realtors that we have interviewed has suggested we purchase a house warranty insurance. It will cost us $500 but will cover the furnance, hot water tank etc from the time we put it on the market and for 1 year after the purchase. We don't pay for the insurance until closing and not at all if they don't sell it. This is supposed to help take the worry from the buyer about a major repair in the first year. We live in New Jersey.

Ruth Ann & Bob

George we did the warranty deal and that was the best thing we ever did. Don't worry about it too much it will all work out.

We got our inspection notice yesterday.  We have the option to either fix the 5 items or reduce the purchase price by $1800.  We are probably going to opt for the $1800 because what she is asking for is probably going to exceed the $1800.  The good news is that there is not request for sewer repair or radon remediation.

1)  Service the furnace and repair a gasket - it is 8years old.  Correctly wire the condensation pump (which passed inspection) and better filtration.

2)  Repair leaking gas valve to water heater  (This was recently tested so we doubt there is actually a leak).  Reattach the flue - again passed inspection at installation.

3) Repair leaking water main valve - not leaking so have no idea what the inspector found.

4)  The flashing where the roof meets the brick chimney is not installed correctly.  Again passed inspection and we haven't had any leaks

5)  repair the brick chimney cap.

Really it is a list of deferred maintenance items and nit-picky things, it could have been much worse and we will take the the small hit on price and move forward.

Congratulations! I remember the relief we felt when that part of the process was over.