Posts with tag 'Selling A Home in Charleston SC'

One of the things I have learned over the years is that most inspection reports do not fall apart because of one giant problem. Certainly, every once in a while an inspector discovers a major structural concern, significant water intrusion, or an expensive system that has reached the end of its life. More often, however, inspection reports become intimidating because they contain pages and pages of smaller items that have accumulated over time. None of them seem particularly important by themselves, but when a buyer receives a report filled with photographs, arrows, comments, and recommendations, it can create the impression that the house has not been maintained.

That is one of the reasons I spend so much time talking with sellers before a home ever goes on the market. I am not looking for perfection. I have never listed a perfect house, and I do not expect to. What I am looking for are the little thing...

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When I recommend a pre-listing inspection to a seller, the first questions are usually not about the cost of the inspection itself. Most sellers want to know what happens if the inspection finds something serious and whether they will be required to disclose what is found. Those are fair questions, and the answer is usually the same. If a significant issue exists, there is a very good chance a buyer's inspector is eventually going to discover it anyway. The difference is whether we learn about it before the home goes on the market or after a buyer is already under contract and emotionally invested in the transaction.

Over the years, I have become a strong believer in pre-listing inspections because I have watched too many transactions become unnecessarily stressful after an inspection report arrives. Contrary to what some people assume, I am not looking for perfection. I have never seen a perfect house and I...

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A professional home measurement is about more than square footage. It helps buyers, sellers, appraisers, and lenders work from the same information and reduces surprises later in the transaction.

When I tell sellers that I would like to have their home professionally measured before we put it on the market, I occasionally get a puzzled look. After all, the county already has a square footage number. The tax records have a square footage number. Previous MLS listings have a square footage number. Why spend money measuring it again?

The simple answer is that those numbers are not always the same, and they are not always correct.

Over the years, I have hired professional measuring companies to measure homes before listing them. Some homes measured larger than previous records. Some measured smaller. What surprised me most was that...

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A missing inspector, a crawlspace adventure, and an unexpected plumbing leak became a reminder that some of the most important parts of a home are the parts homeowners rarely see.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a living room with some sellers while their pre-listing inspection was taking place. The inspector had gone into the crawlspace, and after quite a while we realized we hadn't seen him come back out. At first, we laughed about it, but after calling for him several times and getting no response, we started to wonder if we should check on him.

We walked around to the crawlspace entrance and called again. Nothing. I called his phone twice and still didn't get an answer. We looked around the house for another access point but couldn't find one. Finally, I did something that probably wasn't in any real estate training manual. I crawled under the house.

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I was thinking recently about a homeowner who spent nearly a year preparing herself to sell a house.

The interesting thing is that the challenge wasn't really the market. The house was in a desirable area, well maintained, and there was every reason to believe it would sell when the time came. The challenge was that the house represented a chapter of life she wasn't quite ready to leave behind.

Years earlier, she had purchased the home after a major life change. It represented a fresh start and a new season. Over time, life changed again. Family circumstances shifted, responsibilities grew, and eventually she found herself maintaining two properties. Financially, it no longer made sense to keep both, but that didn't make the decision any easier.

For months we would talk about selling. Then we wouldn't. Then we would talk about i...

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