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Ready Set Sold with Bryan Vogt #08-03: Kathy Popovich Transaction Coordinator Bryan Vogt Team: Why occupancy inspections are so important

July 15, 2017


Speaker 1: Welcome back everyone to Ready Set Sold. Thank you so much for spending some time with us this Saturday morning. I left you with the question of the problems of the home inspection. The sellers many times feel somewhat defenseless, that they have agreed on pricing, they’ve agreed on everything, but now suddenly the inspection comes, and everything can change. On those rare occasions, they have a situation where buyers can walk away.
But you also have the situation of what to do about it. One of the things that we have found is to be proactive in getting an inspection. The seller’s having the home inspection prior, either while it’s on the market, very shortly thereof, before putting it on the market. So you have those situations, those things won’t trip you up.
Kathy, as I mentioned last segment, I know you’ve got situations and stories of not having that home inspection done prior that has created some serious problems for sellers.
Kathy Popovich: We’ve had sellers who have chosen not to have that pre-inspection done. Then when the buyers decided to do their inspection, there were a number of items on the list that could have been taken care of and could have saved a lot of heartbreak and hassle had they just done that ahead of time.
Speaker 1: Right. Just so you know, this is Kathy Popovich. She works with me, so I didn’t … I’m so used to talking with her. She sees a lot of these things that go on. That’s where the [ticks 00:01:47] comes in for like 500 dollars or less, you have all these inspections done beforehand.
We talked about termite. We had a situation, Kathy, not that long ago, when there was water in the crawlspace, if you remember that?
Kathy Popovich: Right.
Speaker 1: The buyer walked. I mean, just literally walked away. Look, we weren’t expecting it either. But all of a sudden, the seller … Again, sellers don’t realize that buyers have that right to walk away. It doesn’t happen every day, but it can happen.
We’ve had issues with radon. We’ve had issues again with the termite situation. The simplest fix is to do that and do that the day you list your house, maybe a couple days beforehand. Many times, I don’t know Kathy, it seems to work out. You coordinated many times with that timing-wise. Is there a good time, bad time?
Kathy Popovich: Really just when you go on listing appointments, you usually suggest that people have this done. That generally is when they decide to take advantage of it, just having it done right away, relieves a lot of the stress that goes along with the home selling process. They already know what may come up on an inspection if the buyers decide to go ahead with their inspection. Many times buyers don’t bother with the second inspection because this first inspection’s available to them and they know exactly what’s been done and what’s been repaired, replaced or whatever.
Speaker 1: That’s a good point. I think, Kathy, that you hit on something that I really love because the peace of mind. That’s really what you’re buying. You’re buying peace of mind. It’s also great for marketing purposes too, but it’s that peace of mind. I give you an analogy of going to the doctor. We worry about a lot of things that never happen. If they do happen though, to be ahead of it. You’re pushing the deal towards the buyer.
You’re not on the defensive mode. Many sellers hate that, that they have offer and acceptance, and now they got to kind of almost take their beating. You’ve ran into that too. From listening to you, I’ve heard you talk about many times about how people wished they would have had that home inspection prior to that.
Kathy Popovich: Exactly, yes, because it becomes a big surprise to them when the buyers decide to have this inspection, and the inspection comes back with this list of things that supposedly need repair or the buyers would want the sellers to take care of. The sellers are going, “Well, we had no idea. How much is this gonna cost?” and things like that. If you’re proactive and do it ahead of time, you’re familiar with all of this. You know what’s going to come up, and you can for probably a lesser cost and a lot less stress, if you just get it done and take care of it right away.
Speaker 1: You’re right, because now it’s a situation … and you ran into this too … is the buyers are now dictating more so to the sellers.
Kathy Popovich: Exactly.
Speaker 1: That can create problems of what they want and who the people they may want to have it done, whether that’s good or bad. Whereas as the seller, you can take those things … As you mentioned, it’s a cost savers, peace of mind, it’s done, there’s no bad thing going to happen to you. That’s a major component.
Kathy Popovich: It also helps with hurt feelings too because the seller is feeling bad because they have these things come up in this report. The buyers are feeling anxious because they don’t know if the seller’s going to take care of all these things. They’re already preparing themselves to fight to get these things done. It’s just really stress all the way around.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, that’s a great point. I tell you, we’re going to be wrapping up this segment. In the next segment, we’re going to be talking about maybe the biggest, biggest thing that you really need to focus on that many times gets overlooked by either the agent or the sellers. That’s the [occupancy 00:05:38] inspection. So you want to stay tuned for that. We’ll be talking about that more with Kathy. You’re listening to Ready Set Sold. Go get the book. Readysetsold.org, not .com. Readysetsold.org, not .com.

I’ll see you in a few.

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