“Good,” “Better,” and “Best” Inspection Timetables
The best way for a Buyer to prevail in multiple offers?
Easy.
Come in with the highest price and the lowest financing risk — or none, in the case of a cash offer. See, “Tiebreaker in Multiple Offers: the Buyer’s Loan Officer.”
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways Buyers can make their offer more attractive to a Seller choosing amongst multiple suitors.
So, another good strategy is for the Buyer to reduce the Seller’s Inspection risk.
Inspection Timetable
Of course, the ultimate way to reduce the Seller’s inspection risk is for the Buyer to waive their inspection.
No doubt, there are at least some hyper-motivated Buyers out there now willing to do just that.
Although I NEVER recommend that a Buyer do that — even at the risk of “losing” the house in multiples — there are other ways to reassure Sellers.
I’ll call the following options “good,” “better,” and “best” — at least from the Seller’s perspective:
“Good”: Contractually agree to accelerate the inspection timetable from the standard “5-1-1” to “2-1-1” (the intervals refer to the number of days the Buyer has to do the inspection; follow up with a list of written issues to negotiate; and finally, how many day to resolved any issues).
“Better“: Offer to do the inspection within 24 hours of Final Acceptance.
“Best“: Have an Inspector along at the Buyer’s showing, to do at least a cursory exam, so that the Buyer’s offer already addresses any inspection issues.
“But, But . . .”
Does such a strategy put (time) pressure on the Buyer?
Sure.
It also precludes some additional inspection tests — such as radon and a main sewer optical inspection — that require more setup and/or turnaround time.
However, in the majority of cases, both of these tests come back negative, and even when they don’t, have finite associated costs (about $1,200 to remediate radon, and up to $5,000 to repair/replace the main sewer).
For the right house, at the right (otherwise) price, those are risks that at least some Buyers may be willing to assume.
