Handling Your Objections

I have stated before that one of the important milestones during the process of buying a home is the inspection period.  It's the period during which a Buyer can verify that the home doesn't have any significant problems, such as roof leaks or a cracked heat exchanger in the furnace.  It's a chance for the Seller to address issues that they didn't know about when they priced and put the home on the market.

What it is NOT is a time to renegotiate the price after buyer's remorse sets in.  In this fast-paced market, buyers know that attractive homes sell quickly.  In Louisville this spring, homes are going under contract within hours of going on the market, often with multiple offers and closing at a price well above listing.  In the frenzy of negotiation, buyers sometimes don't stop to determine if they should be paying what they are being pushed to offer.

The Inspection Objection is the document that is used to convey any unsatisfactory results of inspections from Buyer to Seller once a purchase contract has been signed.  It includes specific requests to be done in order for the transaction to move forward, such as cleaning and certifying the furnace or having GFCI outlets installed in the kitchen and bathrooms.  Issues regarding safety and health and those that affect the integrity of the structure are perfectly reasonable items on which a Buyer would request repairs.

Other items, such as having popcorn ceilings scraped and repainted, are subjective and may not be something the Seller is willing to take care of.  The Seller would expect that the Buyer saw the ceilings already and took the cost of that work into consideration when submitting the offer.  In addition, in a competitive market like the one we're seeing this year, it's likely that there are back-up offers waiting in the wings.  Should the Buyer make capricious or unreasonable requests, the Seller might just refuse to make any changes and let the Buyer walk in favor of another Buyer who will accept the ceilings as they are.

It's important to discover unknown material facts about the home you are about to purchase; it is equally important to know how to handle this information once it is received.  It's one more reason why the experience of a Realtor is so valuable.

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I would love to help you with your real estate journey. 

Please contact me at 303-917-7143 or robbin@stauferteam.com

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