Should a buyer forego a home inspection?

In our current inventory starved market, many agents may be tempted to advise their market weary buyers to waive or skip the home inspection. A misguided step for sure, since a home inspection is one of the best protections afforded to buyers. Some may argue that today’s sellers are less likely to negotiate repairs or make monetary concessions in lieu of repairs and certainly that seems to be true in many instances. But, when it comes to inspections, seller concessions aren’t the point. Information is the point. More specifically, information that could be pertinent to the sale of the home.

A good home inspection can reveal serious safety issues, major system defects and reveal insurability or financing concerns.

When it comes to buying a home there’s no such thing as too much information. A complete home inspection is a snapshot of the condition of a home on that specific day. A home inspector’s job is in large part to push the systems to the point of failure. As agents, we frequently see issues arise of which sellers were completely unaware. The lack of disclosure often is not the problem, a lack of technical expertise or knowledge can be. Our goal as agents should be to provide as much information as possible and then to allow our buyers to make an informed decision about their purchase.

Information is the key and protecting our buyers in a market where sellers are seeing upwards of 50 offers on a single property is challenging. We have a fiduciary duty to our clients to provide any and all pertinent facts about their future home and a thorough home inspection is a great place to start.

Debbie Remington is the owner/broker of Remington Team Realty (remingtonteam.com) in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. She is also the inventor of the Real Estate Mentor App.