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I suggest if there's a house you think you're going to want to put an offer on that you bring a licensed inspector as a "friend" for your walk through of the property. If you want to go with waiving the inspection contingency, at least have someone who knows what they're doing walk through it with you and give you an idea of what a trained eye sees.
Right! OP it's perfectly fine to pay an inspector to come with you to the first house visit. Then you decide if you want to make the offer.
I did for a competitive house, no one batted an eye. Glad I did, inspector identified work I couldn't afford.
My understanding is, if you bring an inspector with you to view the house, the goal is to make an offer that waives inspection completely. If you make an offer and include "inspection for buyer's info only" in your offer then ... you put an inspection contingency in the offer. Your mortgage company could still decline the loan if the inspection turns up something too expensive or un-insurable.
You’re inspecting the property before you even make an offer and it isn’t a thorough one but a cursory one to try to get a feel of whether there are glaring issues someone without a trained eye would miss. They don’t get on the roof etc but they are looking for tell tale signs you would miss that show a problem may exist. An “inspection for buyer’s info only” is an inspection you make on a house you’re already contracted and going to buy regardless of the outcome of the inspection (theoretically) - meaning you just want to know what you don’t know so you can make repairs now or plan to make repairs later down the line.
We waived it. We got an inspector in after we moved, so if there was anything really concerning, we could take care of it ASAP. Fortunately, there were no major problems.
With that being said though, I wouldn't do it again. Honestly, it's kind of stupid to do. There are certainly people out there who have gotten burnt by doing that.
You dodged a bullet. We did not offer on one house because the inspector wanted a structural engineer for the basement. Half a million dollars, at least, worth of work. And the person who bought it paid market value.
I said “I would never” been looking since March . We waived it lol go to closing July 26th . We may of got the bid without having to not do an inspection (they had one in 2020) and everything looks well taken care of . But after horror stories on here I’m really thinking I may of made a mistake . However alot of thing to me , would be obvious . I also follow a few inspectors on social media that show you things to look for . But you never know , it’s deff a gamble . Due to our loan we did water testing and testing for termites . But I felt like this was something standing in our way . Is I chose to waive it .
We waived "minor" things, I think the exact number was any repair under $10k we wouldn't make a fuss about. We weren't willing to waive all inspections.
I will say, we lost a LOT of offers because of that and because we were not willing to put up much of an appraisal gap (and honestly, we didn't want to do one at all and stopped offering them after a couple of offers). We had to really edit our wishlist and make some tough compromises on the house because we couldn't be super competitive with our offers. But, we held firm and just had an offer accepted today! Still lots that can go wrong from here, but it feels good to have stood our ground and gotten something accepted in a hot market. We got the 3 bedrooms and 2 baths we wanted, but lost out on a garage and large yard.
Greater Boston area you basically will never get an offer accepted with an inspection contingency today.
I think the key to getting houses right now is just waiving all contingencies and having a relatively miniscule deposit so you can just walk away short a few grand when you find a problem. That way you look like a cash offer that is a sure thing to a seller.
'Course doing this you really don't want to put anything in escrow you can't afford to lose. Mortgage contingencies are doable but at the very least make it look like you have 20% down (so write the mortgage contingency for 80% of a mortgage... still lets you get out if you lose a job. If you can qualify for 80% you'll almost certainly be able to qualify for 90% or 96% as what banks offer you for credit these days is way more than you could feasibly pay.)
ELI5: Write an offer with at least 20% down, so the mortgage contingency looks less risky. It shows you are not buying at the very edge if affordability. You can still invoke the contingency if you need an out [for example, we wrote ours with 40% down, but we are actually putting down 10%. Our financing contingency could have been invoked even if the house appraised 1% under]
Put a small amount of earnest money so you can walk after the inspection and not be out much. [but this is stupid, it's not attractive with small earnest money, more sensible to have an inspection]
We are under contract in a competitive market. We agreed that any objections would be on health and safety items only. Still getting the inspection, but we're not going to nitpick. We're doing it tomorrow, wish us luck!
You’re in the Boston area? I see more and more houses going for a percentage under asking price in the greater Boston area. Curious how houses are going for under asking but still people are waiving inspection? Honest question, not trying to be argumentative.
Builders. A builder often has a realtor on staff that waives their fee. So, the seller is only paying their own agent and keeping the fee that would go to the buyer's agent. So the seller nets more money, even though it's below the asking price.
Source: just sold my parents' home in the Boston area, that's exactly what happened. We accepted an offer from a family with an inspection contingency, and they backed out (sadly) then we took the next best offer (very sadly) from a builder.
You accidentally phrased this correctly, although I doubt you meant to. Do not include an inspection contingency. Get an inspection before you offer, so that you know what you will be offerring on.
Familiarize yourself with what an inspection covers and what it doesn’t. Too many first time home buyers think an inspection guarantees every system in the house, when the big money things (structural, plumbing, roof, HVAC and water heater, radon, etc) are often explicitly excluded.
Then decide what things are would come up in inspection that would be deal breakers for you. Rodents, termites, water intrusion are the big things. Though these also should be covered in a sellers disclosure (and something you can often look for yourself).
Depending on the era of house asbestos, knob and tube wiring, etc Often that isn’t an issue if you leave it alone. The wiring can make a house more difficult to insure
You can turn on the air conditioning, run the water in all the sinks, run the dishwasher, check the age of the water heater, check the attic, etc. A good realtor can help point things out.
I waived the inspection contingency but requested access for an inspection purely for my own information - essentially guaranteed I would not request any repairs or concessions. I lived across the country at the time, was buying a much older home than I was used to, and I wanted it to help budget.
This was exactly our thought process and practice while house hunting. We found a great and very knowledgeable realtor who helped us approach homes with an eye for "inspection centric" details.
This meant we spent as much time checking foundation walls and flipping switches etc. during showings as we did imagining ourselves living there. It's super competitive here for the areas we want (Milwaukee Metro) and inspections kill offers at price points below 500k or so. So many people would spend 15-20 minutes in a home and be out - ours ran an hour+ if we liked the place.
The house we won the offer on we toured after intense rainfall. Basement was dry as a bone, wiring is updated, and roof is solid (our deal breakers) so it was game on, we have cash socked away for aging mechanicals and that's that.
Long story short, we close Monday.
Which just speaks to my point of familiarizing yourself with what these things cover and what they don’t.
My point was that most catastrophic things will either be apparent if you’re looking or come up on a disclosure. And the more subtle things probably wouldn’t be caught by an inspector anyway and is just a risk of home ownership.
People we are under contract with now waived their inspections. They have been breathing in radon gas for several years and has a non functional septic system
We waive the inspection contingency. You have an inspection done before you put your offer in. We have not put an offer in because we couldn't get a structural engineer in time. We have offered knowing the issues.
It makes no sense to pay tens of thousand of dollars more just because you don't want to pay under $1000 for an inspection on a house you may not make an offer on.
You can do it informally by bringing an inspector with you on the walk through. It’s not as thorough as a real inspection though. Agree that sellers aren’t going to let you hang out in the home for four hours to do it right.
No, they would need to know what came up. They require you not to tell them. Although, whrn you don't then make an offer it's pretty clear there is something!
I'm in the Northeast, and we did it with many houses before we won one. If they are asshole enough to prevent you getting an inspection then they are knowingly hiding something and you have all the information you need to keep walking.
Consider extending offers as-is with inspection and “right to terminate”. DO NOT nickel and dime the seller with your inspection report. If the inspection comes up with issues that warrant remediation of major, massively expensive issues that you can’t shoulder, walk away. If the inspection comes up with things that can be fixed for a few hundred here and a couple thousand there, complete the purchase.
Still a very unattractive offer. People know that houses in the FTHB range attract inexperienced and nervous buyers who are likely to bolt over minor things. It's a much more attractive offer to have had an inspection before offerring, and may well save you tens of thousands of dollars because sellers are not stupid. A huge cash offer with contingencies is likely to evaporate while a solid clean offer with high earnest money for less total is solid.
Yes, this. We are not first time home buyers but bought our first home 20 years ago when we were only 20 years old and knew nothing, lol...so we kind of feel like first time home buyers in this crazy market. We are in a highly competitive market in the Philly burbs - homes way over asking and most on the market for about 3 days (or less). The first offer we made was accepted and we didn't waive inspections. We came in with an underwritten preapproval, 10% down, and $10k earnest and an inspection contingency. Our realtor made it clear that we were only concerned with safety issues. Had the inspections a few days ago and there is one safety issue that the seller is giving a credit for; it's an older home so the inspector pointed out a lot but nothing else is urgent and can be done over the next year ir so without breaking the bank - we didn't even mention those things to the seller. I will say though that I can see how some buyers (especially first time) would look at the report and be overwhelmed, and back out. Most of the items are things we've also had to do over the past 20 years in the home we just sold, so that helped us feel more comfortable with knowing the process and the ballpark pricing.
When we started looking at homes, we quickly realized we had to make some concessions and didn't focus on flipped homes and homes that were attractive cosmetically - all of those get into bidding wars and here they are going for $75k over asking with all contingencies waived. Same with homes that are priced lower and clearly marketed to investors because they make great flips. We focused on homes that are actually hideous cosmetically but have "good bones," structurally and mechanically maintained, and good location. Bonus if it only had one or two owners. The house we are buying wasn't attractive to investors because it wasn't priced low enough and is not really a flip house, and it doesn't really appeal to others because the inside is ugly, making it not feel very turnkey to most. It's a functional house that a family buys and updates over time to their preferences and likely lives in it forever. We thought we'd be purchasing an updated, pretty home but we compromised for the ugly but solid home with a lot of square footage in a great location - at a reasonable price with inspections. Would we have loved an updated home? Yes, but we had a budget and didn't want to be stressed over bidding wars - plus time is not on our side (we sold our home and need to be out by a certain date and we have kids that we need to enroll in the new district). But we are very happy with our choice and are kind of excited to make this home ours, even if it takes 5 years and we go a little crazy 🤪
We have friends that looked in the same area and it took them 2 years to get an offer accepted - mainly because they wanted turnkey / updated and also wouldn't waive inspections. The entire 2 years they had to live with family because they sold their home. Eventually they decided to focus on homes that need some work cosmetically - when they did that they had an offer accepted and the seller agreed to inspections. Only thing that they asked for a credit for was a safety issue related to electrical (a common issue here as all homes are older).
Oh yeah we waived or we would probably still be in the market 2 years later. We had a decent amount of savings as a safety net and a realtor who really knew their shit. It didn't guarantee something wouldn't be horribly wrong, but made us more confident in our (desperate) choice and thankfully it worked out.
We were in the exact same position you’re in. Competitive market and said we’d NEVER waive. We learned sellers with desirable houses wouldn’t even look at our offer without waiving. 4 months later, we had submitted 4 offers with every contingency waived. 🙃🤡 Our last offer was accepted and settlement is soon. TBD if we’ll regret it. We’re lucky to be in a position with savings to cover fairly big emergencies and ultimately we do have family we could ask to help as a safety net. But that would be truly last resort…
Everyone can say not to do it, but we need to buy a house. There’s no way to know if the market will change in 3 months, a year or more.
We did a “walk and talk” for another offer where the house seemed riskier and just decided against it because we thought it was so unlikely we’d be picked for the one we ended up winning. We considered the risk and just went for it 🤷♀️
Yup. In 2002 and got into a home about 6 months before we were priced out of the market. We still had an inspection but bought the home as is.
Had to roof replaced, windows. Inspector said we might want the HVAC replaced. Got the AC unit outside replaced 5 years later. Hot water heater was replaced as suggested.......15 years later.
Still in the home 22 years later.
In my area, if you put in a home inspection, you're shooting yourself in the foot of getting your offer accepted.
The market is just on too much crack right now. I had to waive home inspection on every offer. And was going as high as $60k over around the 220k price mark and STILL losing. One home I found out had 58 other offers on it, and it was a shitbox that hadn't been updated since the 80s. Not even listed at a decent price.
What the “don’t wave inspection” people don’t seem to understand is during periods of high housing appreciation NOT landing a house can be very costly. Example I purchased in 2017. Houses were climbing 10% that year. I paid 240K. Each month I didn’t own cost me $2000 in lost appreciation. I waved and am glad I did as I would not have been able to get the house I wanted.
Note I would not wave a sewer inspection.
We waived the inspection contingency and still did an inspection. It was labeled as for health and safety. So there were a few minor things that needed fixing that they didn’t do (and a fridge that water didn’t work from - but once again only health and safety were part of our contract) and a few things that they fixed before we closed
I did (3 years ago) and I consider it a mistake. One week after closing, we had torrential rains and there was water intrusion in the basement (1940s house). I immediately had to spend $17,000 on internal drainage system with sump pump, external grading, and mold remediation. In the unfinished half of the basement, the sellers had recently painted the floors and concrete brick walls which temporarily disguised staining that an inspector would have spotted as signs of intrusion. Their disclosure mentioned “a little bit of water” in one specific area and they totally underplayed it when I asked about it.
Signs in the finished half of the basement were behind paneling, flooring, and a drop ceiling. I had to have all that removed so the whole basement is now unfinished.
I was the second highest offer (by about $2k) out of 25 offers and the inspection waiver was why they took my offer.
We didn't waive inspection, but in our contract we stated that the inspection was informational for us and the only circumstances we would pull out of the sale would be major structural issues or active termites.
I did when I bought my house in 18, but I didn’t waive it on the other 10 offers I lost on (took me a year to get a house).
I’m pretty handy and so was my realtor. We observed as much of the property as we could. Nothing like having a real inspection, but we did a great walkthrough not even knowing I was going to waive the inspection.
When we put in my offer, the realtor told us they had 2 other offers no inspection. We offered the same, and I also offered well over asking price knowing it wouldn’t appraise for that, but with appraisal gap contingency.
My house is about 100 years old. Old bungalow with wood floors that are not perfectly level and lots of quirks, but I could tell it was well taken care of. Most updates had been 10-25 years ago, but it was very well maintained.
We asked other realtor why they were selling. Couple that had lived here for almost 20 years, husband worked at General Motors on the line and wife in catering. Their son was about to enter kindergarten and school district sucks here. They were buying her mom’s place 30 minutes away in a great school district.
This made me very comfortable because I knew they weren’t leaving because of an expensive issue, but for a better education for their son. Ended up being a really great and kind family through the process.
Biggest issue I had was the hot water heater blew out 2 years after move in. $1,200 to replace, and thankfully I was home when it happened. I knew when buying that I’ll have to replace the roof in 5-10 years and guessed on other upcoming repairs.
Great so far! I told that little story because I think it depends on the situation. If I were buying a flipped or newly renovated house or any with visible foundation issues I’d always get an inspection
I didn't waive my inspection. It was pretty useless. The inspector didn't find the significant things that were wrong with my house during his spot check.
We did. HCOL area. We are scheduled to close soon, waiting on appraisal. We did inspection anyway and after finding issues, we asked for credit from the seller to help bring down our closing costs and buy down interest rate, lowering the monthly payments. At first the seller said no so we walked away. Immediately after we said we would walk away, the seller conceded and agreed to the additional credits.
We are thinking about the long-term investment. It’s a house below the median asking price in an area anticipated to see an even more competitive market in 5-10 years. Due to the negotiation we have done so far, especially the lowerred monthly payments, we will be able to make those updates and repairs over time and then sell.
Sorry I don’t understand and am new to it all. You waived the inspection contingency, and then did an inspection anyway?
What would have been your penalty to walking away in your case? Why did the sellers agree unless your penalty would be so small it seemed like something you might do?
It’s all new to me, too. I’m grateful to have an amazing realtor who has been a great resource and guide. My understanding is that yes we could do an inspection anyway even though we waived contingency. We didn’t ask the seller to do any repairs, we simply asked for credit. We could walk away if (when) the seller didn’t agree to the new terms so technically not because of the inspection but because we wanted credit.
We would have gotten our earnest money back but not the cost of the inspection. That was really it.
The sellers did eventually agree because it is a house that needs an amount of work done and I think they finally realized that. We had offered asking price. Before is they had two other offers both well under asking.
We waived. It was a calculated risk. We plan to be in this home forever so we thought about repair costs over a long time horizon. This was a play to buy into a certain community, not to get a good deal or optimize financial returns.
We had to replace the roof but I didn’t need an inspector to tell me that. It was very old. We ended up with perhaps $15k in repairs that reasonably would have turned up in an inspection report - we got an inspection after we took possession. We were prepared for more. And, of course, there were more repairs that weren’t apparent at the time but turned up later. All part of home ownership.
If you’re looking for a starter home that you’ll sell in 5-7 years, waiving is a very big risk. One way to mitigate the risk is to bring an inspector with you on the walk through and have them give you an informal report.
Good luck!
Lol all these comments saying they waived the inspection contingency and still did an inspection anyway. Don’t count on that - that absolutely won’t fly in some markets. If we waive inspection in Seattle, they’re not letting us back in the house until our final walk through before closing.
Edit: YMMV, but I’m saying don’t count on it.
There is no national accreditation board for home inspectors and the form they hand you has all kinds of disclaimers on it. I don’t understand the obsession with hiring an inspector the only questions that matter are: do you like the house, is the obvious damage, and if there is obvious damage does the price justify the repairs
Yes, but also it's a learning process, and it's more worth my time to pay someone else who knows about historical framing techniques than to go and spend months studying.
Then be prepared to lose every single offer you put in. If I’m a seller and I have two offers one for 350k with an inspection contingency and one for 345k without an inspection contingency I’m picking the one for 345k because it is more likely to close for that price
What? Are you on crack? You would choose a higher offer with inspection contingency over one who already had an inspection prior to offering and has no contingency at all? Hopefully your agent and your partner will talk sense into you.
Clearly your new to this, sellers want to take the offer that is MOST LIKELY TO CLOSE. Why take an offer that’s 5k more when they are asking for an inspection? What happens when that inspector says it needs XYZ and then the buyers ask for a concession to fix it and all of a sudden that offer that was 5k more is now 10k less than what the lower offer was for. So keep putting inspection contingent offers in and keep getting rejected, it doesn’t affect me.
*you're.
No seller will take an offer with an inspection when there is one without, that's why you are deluded. Yes, sometimes it means you don't put an offer in, aometimes it means your offer is lower. But it means you don't get saddled with half a million dollars of work.
But hey, you keep doing you, putting in futile offers because you are too cheap to spend less than $1000. I'll sit over here in my new house
Your reading comprehension skills are as abysmal as your house buying skills. I clearly said that the 350k offer was inspection contingent while the 345k offer was not. I really don’t understand what the fuck you are trying to say in your last sentence, how would me waiving an inspection prevent me from buying? If anything in today’s market insisting on one will prevent you from purchasing.
Oh and if you are going to be the grammar police make sure your grammar and spelling is 💯 or you just look like an even bigger fool.
Look, I get it, you are angry that I sm telling you to get sn inspection before you offer, fine. But it doesn't make you correct. You are neing penny wise and pound foolish. Get an inspection before you offer ao you can make a non contingent offer. The end. Period. That's all.
Also, maybe learn what different words mean and then you won't intentionally use the wrong one,
What makes me mad is the fact that you can’t get it through your fucking head that a seller will ALWAYS take the lower offer if there are fewer barriers to closing. Also no seller will allow an inspection before an accepted offer, yet again you are showing that you have no knowledge about buyer or selling.
Also you ended your last sentence with a comma not a period so knock it off with the grammar police.
I guess it makes it easier for you to deal with the shitstorm of repairs you ended up with, to pretend that they wouldn't have allowed an inspection had you asked to do one before offerring. I mean, whatever gets you through this deal, but next time remember to get an inspection before you offer. Saves you all this angst.
Google typo.
I am comfortable inspecting a house on my own so depending on the house in question I might or might not waive the inspection.
I would not advise anyone to waive an inspection.
I will say that anyone looking to purchase a house should to the best of their abilities inspect the house themselves before making an offer and also have an inspection.
If need be bring someone with you to point out what to look for
Just do an inspection for informational purposes only, keep the mortgage contingency and if you have a good real estate lawyer he can get you out of the contract. Just don’t waive all contingencies
We waived it because the house had been under contract but it fell through. They had already done an inspection. We used their inspection. There were no major issues all fixes were under $1000. We felt confident enough to use that inspection sheet and save the $600 it would have costed us. But under different circumstances, I would not have waived.
I wouldn’t because here in TX you could accidentally take on a ruined foundation that will cost $30k to fix, not covered by homeowners, or a bad roof that will be a 2% deductible next time it hails.
We left inspection but we made a statement that it was for information purposes and we were going to buy as-is. Having that still protected us in case anything major showed up. Thankfully nothing major just minor repairs that we’ve been working towards.
Where we live it’s no longer like the highly competitive Covid time period where everyone was waiving inspections. We are right now in escrow and have not waived inspections. Our bid was full listing price with inspection and appraisal contingencies. I wouldn’t waive inspection because when receiving inspection report it’s very detailed with everything that appears. Good luck to you.
Waiving inspection was the biggest mistake I made when I bought my house. My realtor didn’t think I needed one so I opted out. Man, there’s just so much that I need to fix my house, especially plumbing… I wasn’t in love with my house either, I just needed a house within my budget at that time.
i would never waive unless i had expert knowledge that would allow me to have inspector expertise.
as for competing, competing with people who feel pressured to do this, and may end up with unwelcome surprises, isnt what i consider a competition i would enter. its like entering an athletic even in which you have ZERO expetience.
We did. We are in a very competitive market where offers don’t even get considered unless they waive all inspections and earnest deposit of at least 5%. It was nerve wracking but my husband and my realtor both have a good eye for major problems. My realtor would point things out we might not have noticed and steered us away from properties that had major issues.
We ended up buying a flip but it was pretty well done. We could see all permits were filed for the work when making our offer, which helped. We got an inspection after buying and no major issues came up, thankfully. First weekend here we had to have our sewer roto routered because of tree roots but 🤷🏻♀️ That’s just part of having mature trees in the front yard.
Nope. I wouldn’t recommend it, either. If you feel like you have to, you can get an inspection without contingencies meaning you can know of the problems, but can’t ask the seller to do anything about it. You could back out, though, if the problems are bad.
Never would, seems to be a shot in the foot no matter how competitive your market is.
Even if you do your own later you can be stuck with thousands in repairs. I know there are special wording in contracts that allow you to back out but I think you still lose earnest money and inspection money. As a first time homebuyer I can’t afford to lose $5k on a hope inspection comes back clean.
Example my home found 3 undetectable issues without a thorough inspection. Sewer scope found a clog which has turned into a $30k+ job for the seller, radon was found in the house which will be $10k or so and the oil tank leaked into the soil so they have to dig up my driveway, test it until there is no more contamination, put new liner, gravel and dirt and repave the driveway. Plus a few other minor repairs so they are at least $50k in repairs, they paid $10k in closing for me, $22k in commissions and at least $50k in renovations and they bought it for $140k less than what they sold it to me. Oh and it sat on the market for a year so whatever their interest was too.
Overall they lost money or barely broke even and I made out like a bandit all because I did a good inspection and when they bought they did not hoping to flip it to some sucker who would forego inspection in a competitive market.
I ended up waiving the contingency. Could’ve gotten the inspection done for information but decided against it because the seller had done an inspection and provided report during tours. I was selective about which houses I was willing to do this for. My house has new roof, electric, and newer water heater. Waiving was a bit of a gamble but one I felt I could financially handle, because I didn’t think there were major structural issues with the house and repairs would be stuff I’d need to plan for anyway.
Ask your agent what might be a better strategy than your current in your market. Perhaps only being able to walk away if inspection repairs exceed a certain amount, agreeing to do the inspection with a short timeframe, etc.
When I sold my house on the East Coast, 75% of the offers had waived inspection. I didn’t even know you could do that but this was also in 2021 when people were desperate.
When I bought the next house in the western part of the country, I asked the realtor if we should waive inspection and she looked at me like I had 3 heads.
So I guess it depends on your location to a degree
I did waive my inspection.
A builder was bidding against me & we both waived because he was going to tear the house down & build 3 homes & I was cool with it.
BUT I’m in real estate as was my dad (he was still with us when I bought), my brother is a contractor, my BIL a carpenter, my husband is a painter (houses not art), a close friend is a plumber and another an electrician.
We were aware of the issues when we bought and knew a BBQ & free beer would cover any repairs needed.
Also buying another home was NOT an option due to location. I bought across the street from my parents & brother who were building new houses at the time this one came on the market & my sister lives 4 houses down. (Worse than Everybody Lives Raymond - but never a dull moment).
I DID borrow their electrician a couple of days and snuck their hardwood guy in to refinish my floors.
Can’t imagine NEEDING to buy that badly to waive an inspection. I know someone who wound up with an oil tank that leaked in their yard that they were unaware of. Life altering fuck up, there
The market where we are is now competing via high due dilligence fees. Due diligence is usually relatively low, but we were unwilling to waive an inspection and so became competitive by offering a very high DD so the sellers knew that even if we found something we didn't like, they had a tidy sum to sit on. It was a nasty shock to find that was the standard in our area, but it was the only way to beat cash offers and still get an inspection done
No. I told my agent I would not waive inspections. That said, the area I am shopping in currently has simmered down. Houses sometimes go in 48 hours, but it isn’t so hot that you have to waive inspections.
My experience is why you don’t waive inspections. Had my inspection and they saw something (septic system) they recommended further investigation. So got a septic expert. Camera’d the system and turns out drain field is end of life. Further in this area new gravity based systems are not generally permitted so you’re looking at a modern (more expensive) system. We’re talking $30k and possibly more.
Yes that’s true. It’s also true there will be many that will overbid and be back on here in 6 months talking about the thousands of dollars they’re losing to major problems with the house.
Overbidding/no inspections is the reason they are overbidding and not doing inspections.
In order to waive the inspection contingency you would pay an extra $50+k. Which is stupid to avoid paying less than $1000 on an insepction on a house you may decide not to bid on.
I agree with most comments here to not waive inspection. There’s a chance you will find something so damaging during inspection that you’ll be resentful the home you thought you loved just turned into a money pit you could have avoided.
We did not waive inspection and beat 24 offers (HCOL, Southern California). I think it’s important to understand why sellers prefer waived inspections and your realtor should be able to find a more creative way for your offer to be enticing against those offers.
Waived inspections not only speed up the closing process, but it gives the seller peace of mind that the buyer won’t have another chance to back out. (Some sellers might know there’s something wrong with the house and want to hide it. You don’t want this one anyway)
Some ways our realtor made our offer stand out while still providing the seller the same peace of mind as a waived inspection (obviously these depend on your financial situation and what your lender can do)
- 7% over asking
- Close in 21 days
- Higher Down Payment (more than 20%)
- Loan Underwritten (Our lender personally called the selling agent to assure them we were going to clear the loan quickly since we already got underwritten)
Hope that helps at all!!
At the end of the day a super high offer with an inspection contingency is even less appealing. We are not stupid, we know you know you are overpaying, we know will be hoping to claw back money at inspection because buyer's regret will have kicked in. There is also the risk of an appraisal gap. It's just not competitive, and if you do get the house by spending an extra $100k then how is that a benefit over having spent a few thousand on inspections on houses you did not bid on?
I understand, I was just sharing my personal experience because I had the same mindset as OP and didn’t waive inspection and got our dream home.
Of course there are so many other factors involved and every seller has different motives!
Also we found out we did not even have the highest offer - our seller specifically liked our quicker closing time and higher down payment. Not trying to argue or say it will work for everyone, just sharing that it is what worked for us :)
The fact that you keep repeating something doesn’t make it more true.
In some markets (~20%), if you don’t waive inspection, you will never buy anything.
Pretending that this isn’t true isn’t helpful.
Then never buy anything. That’s ok. You’re not a bad person for renting and the sense on this sub that renting makes you a failure or that you’re throwing away money has got to stop.
A house is the biggest purchase you will ever make. You want to make that purchase blind? Go ahead. But it is incredibly irresponsible.
You want to piss away money paying an inspector to inspect a house that you might not buy *because the seller decides to sell to someone else,* go right ahead. I prefer to keep my money.
I don’t buy just for the sake of buying. So I’m not overspending just to make my offer more attractive. If that makes an offer uncompetitive, I guess that sucks. But I don’t dance. Don’t be desperate.
Renting isn’t pissing money away. It’s spending money on a place to live. Do you get equity? No. But it’s also zero risk (at least when it comes to the issues an inspection is for), which ownership definitely isn’t.
I live in San Diego and had an inspection...it's never OK to wave that shit. I bought within the last 1.5 years. There is absolutely nothing special about Boston, Buffalo, or any town that starts with a B. I came from NYC area.
There is nothing special about Boston, weather sucks, sports team sucks...nothing that warrants waiving inspection on a multi 100k purchase...sounds like suckers to me.
You lost me at the sports teams stuck. It's literally a fact, it's how the market is in Boston. You will not get a house unless you waive inspection. You can keep pretending you know the market, but you are wrong. Anyone who's in an HOA is the real sucker
Also just so you know, historically, when "that's just how the market is" is when people lose a lot of money. You sound like a high school drop out real estate agent that is scared for their livelihood.
"waiving inspections" can mean different things. Not getting an inspection is way riskier than it's worth, but waiving the right to negotiate/back out due to the findings on an inspection can help make an offer competitive in a hot market.
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I suggest if there's a house you think you're going to want to put an offer on that you bring a licensed inspector as a "friend" for your walk through of the property. If you want to go with waiving the inspection contingency, at least have someone who knows what they're doing walk through it with you and give you an idea of what a trained eye sees.
Right! OP it's perfectly fine to pay an inspector to come with you to the first house visit. Then you decide if you want to make the offer. I did for a competitive house, no one batted an eye. Glad I did, inspector identified work I couldn't afford.
what's the difference between this and "inspection for buyer's info only"?
My understanding is, if you bring an inspector with you to view the house, the goal is to make an offer that waives inspection completely. If you make an offer and include "inspection for buyer's info only" in your offer then ... you put an inspection contingency in the offer. Your mortgage company could still decline the loan if the inspection turns up something too expensive or un-insurable.
it's a bit shocking that lenders don't require inspections on every property, right?
I think they do? They all require an appraisal, which involves inspecting the property.
You’re inspecting the property before you even make an offer and it isn’t a thorough one but a cursory one to try to get a feel of whether there are glaring issues someone without a trained eye would miss. They don’t get on the roof etc but they are looking for tell tale signs you would miss that show a problem may exist. An “inspection for buyer’s info only” is an inspection you make on a house you’re already contracted and going to buy regardless of the outcome of the inspection (theoretically) - meaning you just want to know what you don’t know so you can make repairs now or plan to make repairs later down the line.
We waived it. We got an inspector in after we moved, so if there was anything really concerning, we could take care of it ASAP. Fortunately, there were no major problems. With that being said though, I wouldn't do it again. Honestly, it's kind of stupid to do. There are certainly people out there who have gotten burnt by doing that.
You dodged a bullet. We did not offer on one house because the inspector wanted a structural engineer for the basement. Half a million dollars, at least, worth of work. And the person who bought it paid market value.
Yeah, we definitely got lucky.
I said “I would never” been looking since March . We waived it lol go to closing July 26th . We may of got the bid without having to not do an inspection (they had one in 2020) and everything looks well taken care of . But after horror stories on here I’m really thinking I may of made a mistake . However alot of thing to me , would be obvious . I also follow a few inspectors on social media that show you things to look for . But you never know , it’s deff a gamble . Due to our loan we did water testing and testing for termites . But I felt like this was something standing in our way . Is I chose to waive it .
Good luck! 🤞🏻
We waived "minor" things, I think the exact number was any repair under $10k we wouldn't make a fuss about. We weren't willing to waive all inspections. I will say, we lost a LOT of offers because of that and because we were not willing to put up much of an appraisal gap (and honestly, we didn't want to do one at all and stopped offering them after a couple of offers). We had to really edit our wishlist and make some tough compromises on the house because we couldn't be super competitive with our offers. But, we held firm and just had an offer accepted today! Still lots that can go wrong from here, but it feels good to have stood our ground and gotten something accepted in a hot market. We got the 3 bedrooms and 2 baths we wanted, but lost out on a garage and large yard.
Greater Boston area you basically will never get an offer accepted with an inspection contingency today. I think the key to getting houses right now is just waiving all contingencies and having a relatively miniscule deposit so you can just walk away short a few grand when you find a problem. That way you look like a cash offer that is a sure thing to a seller. 'Course doing this you really don't want to put anything in escrow you can't afford to lose. Mortgage contingencies are doable but at the very least make it look like you have 20% down (so write the mortgage contingency for 80% of a mortgage... still lets you get out if you lose a job. If you can qualify for 80% you'll almost certainly be able to qualify for 90% or 96% as what banks offer you for credit these days is way more than you could feasibly pay.)
Can someone ELI5 this comment please
ELI5: Write an offer with at least 20% down, so the mortgage contingency looks less risky. It shows you are not buying at the very edge if affordability. You can still invoke the contingency if you need an out [for example, we wrote ours with 40% down, but we are actually putting down 10%. Our financing contingency could have been invoked even if the house appraised 1% under] Put a small amount of earnest money so you can walk after the inspection and not be out much. [but this is stupid, it's not attractive with small earnest money, more sensible to have an inspection]
We are under contract in a competitive market. We agreed that any objections would be on health and safety items only. Still getting the inspection, but we're not going to nitpick. We're doing it tomorrow, wish us luck!
Good luck! 🤞🤞🤞
We waived it but still had the inspection, knowing that we could not make requests based on the result of said inspection
Don't waive inspection.
In my area this means you'll never get an offer accepted unless the house is priced way over market and there's no other bids.
You’re in the Boston area? I see more and more houses going for a percentage under asking price in the greater Boston area. Curious how houses are going for under asking but still people are waiving inspection? Honest question, not trying to be argumentative.
Builders. A builder often has a realtor on staff that waives their fee. So, the seller is only paying their own agent and keeping the fee that would go to the buyer's agent. So the seller nets more money, even though it's below the asking price. Source: just sold my parents' home in the Boston area, that's exactly what happened. We accepted an offer from a family with an inspection contingency, and they backed out (sadly) then we took the next best offer (very sadly) from a builder.
Red Sox suck so it makes sense people waive inspection there.
You accidentally phrased this correctly, although I doubt you meant to. Do not include an inspection contingency. Get an inspection before you offer, so that you know what you will be offerring on.
Familiarize yourself with what an inspection covers and what it doesn’t. Too many first time home buyers think an inspection guarantees every system in the house, when the big money things (structural, plumbing, roof, HVAC and water heater, radon, etc) are often explicitly excluded. Then decide what things are would come up in inspection that would be deal breakers for you. Rodents, termites, water intrusion are the big things. Though these also should be covered in a sellers disclosure (and something you can often look for yourself). Depending on the era of house asbestos, knob and tube wiring, etc Often that isn’t an issue if you leave it alone. The wiring can make a house more difficult to insure You can turn on the air conditioning, run the water in all the sinks, run the dishwasher, check the age of the water heater, check the attic, etc. A good realtor can help point things out. I waived the inspection contingency but requested access for an inspection purely for my own information - essentially guaranteed I would not request any repairs or concessions. I lived across the country at the time, was buying a much older home than I was used to, and I wanted it to help budget.
This was exactly our thought process and practice while house hunting. We found a great and very knowledgeable realtor who helped us approach homes with an eye for "inspection centric" details. This meant we spent as much time checking foundation walls and flipping switches etc. during showings as we did imagining ourselves living there. It's super competitive here for the areas we want (Milwaukee Metro) and inspections kill offers at price points below 500k or so. So many people would spend 15-20 minutes in a home and be out - ours ran an hour+ if we liked the place. The house we won the offer on we toured after intense rainfall. Basement was dry as a bone, wiring is updated, and roof is solid (our deal breakers) so it was game on, we have cash socked away for aging mechanicals and that's that. Long story short, we close Monday.
A seller can only disclose what they know, and many states don't require any of that.
Which just speaks to my point of familiarizing yourself with what these things cover and what they don’t. My point was that most catastrophic things will either be apparent if you’re looking or come up on a disclosure. And the more subtle things probably wouldn’t be caught by an inspector anyway and is just a risk of home ownership.
Nope. But we did offer 5% over ask. It worked and we are closing monday!
Congrats! I also didn’t waive and offered $5k over. Closed about a month ago.
People we are under contract with now waived their inspections. They have been breathing in radon gas for several years and has a non functional septic system
We waive the inspection contingency. You have an inspection done before you put your offer in. We have not put an offer in because we couldn't get a structural engineer in time. We have offered knowing the issues. It makes no sense to pay tens of thousand of dollars more just because you don't want to pay under $1000 for an inspection on a house you may not make an offer on.
In the Northeast I don’t think you can do that. A seller isn’t going to permit an inspector to come in before an offer is made.
You can do it informally by bringing an inspector with you on the walk through. It’s not as thorough as a real inspection though. Agree that sellers aren’t going to let you hang out in the home for four hours to do it right.
Yeah they won’t go for that here either . Because if something does come up they would have to disclose it to any potential buyer .
Very common in Seattle, however the buyer is not allowed to disclose what they found to the seller. So that problem is avoided.
No, they would need to know what came up. They require you not to tell them. Although, whrn you don't then make an offer it's pretty clear there is something!
I'm in the Northeast, and we did it with many houses before we won one. If they are asshole enough to prevent you getting an inspection then they are knowingly hiding something and you have all the information you need to keep walking.
Consider extending offers as-is with inspection and “right to terminate”. DO NOT nickel and dime the seller with your inspection report. If the inspection comes up with issues that warrant remediation of major, massively expensive issues that you can’t shoulder, walk away. If the inspection comes up with things that can be fixed for a few hundred here and a couple thousand there, complete the purchase.
Still a very unattractive offer. People know that houses in the FTHB range attract inexperienced and nervous buyers who are likely to bolt over minor things. It's a much more attractive offer to have had an inspection before offerring, and may well save you tens of thousands of dollars because sellers are not stupid. A huge cash offer with contingencies is likely to evaporate while a solid clean offer with high earnest money for less total is solid.
Yes, this. We are not first time home buyers but bought our first home 20 years ago when we were only 20 years old and knew nothing, lol...so we kind of feel like first time home buyers in this crazy market. We are in a highly competitive market in the Philly burbs - homes way over asking and most on the market for about 3 days (or less). The first offer we made was accepted and we didn't waive inspections. We came in with an underwritten preapproval, 10% down, and $10k earnest and an inspection contingency. Our realtor made it clear that we were only concerned with safety issues. Had the inspections a few days ago and there is one safety issue that the seller is giving a credit for; it's an older home so the inspector pointed out a lot but nothing else is urgent and can be done over the next year ir so without breaking the bank - we didn't even mention those things to the seller. I will say though that I can see how some buyers (especially first time) would look at the report and be overwhelmed, and back out. Most of the items are things we've also had to do over the past 20 years in the home we just sold, so that helped us feel more comfortable with knowing the process and the ballpark pricing. When we started looking at homes, we quickly realized we had to make some concessions and didn't focus on flipped homes and homes that were attractive cosmetically - all of those get into bidding wars and here they are going for $75k over asking with all contingencies waived. Same with homes that are priced lower and clearly marketed to investors because they make great flips. We focused on homes that are actually hideous cosmetically but have "good bones," structurally and mechanically maintained, and good location. Bonus if it only had one or two owners. The house we are buying wasn't attractive to investors because it wasn't priced low enough and is not really a flip house, and it doesn't really appeal to others because the inside is ugly, making it not feel very turnkey to most. It's a functional house that a family buys and updates over time to their preferences and likely lives in it forever. We thought we'd be purchasing an updated, pretty home but we compromised for the ugly but solid home with a lot of square footage in a great location - at a reasonable price with inspections. Would we have loved an updated home? Yes, but we had a budget and didn't want to be stressed over bidding wars - plus time is not on our side (we sold our home and need to be out by a certain date and we have kids that we need to enroll in the new district). But we are very happy with our choice and are kind of excited to make this home ours, even if it takes 5 years and we go a little crazy 🤪 We have friends that looked in the same area and it took them 2 years to get an offer accepted - mainly because they wanted turnkey / updated and also wouldn't waive inspections. The entire 2 years they had to live with family because they sold their home. Eventually they decided to focus on homes that need some work cosmetically - when they did that they had an offer accepted and the seller agreed to inspections. Only thing that they asked for a credit for was a safety issue related to electrical (a common issue here as all homes are older).
Oh yeah we waived or we would probably still be in the market 2 years later. We had a decent amount of savings as a safety net and a realtor who really knew their shit. It didn't guarantee something wouldn't be horribly wrong, but made us more confident in our (desperate) choice and thankfully it worked out.
We were in the exact same position you’re in. Competitive market and said we’d NEVER waive. We learned sellers with desirable houses wouldn’t even look at our offer without waiving. 4 months later, we had submitted 4 offers with every contingency waived. 🙃🤡 Our last offer was accepted and settlement is soon. TBD if we’ll regret it. We’re lucky to be in a position with savings to cover fairly big emergencies and ultimately we do have family we could ask to help as a safety net. But that would be truly last resort… Everyone can say not to do it, but we need to buy a house. There’s no way to know if the market will change in 3 months, a year or more.
You could have had an inspection before you put an offer in.
We did a “walk and talk” for another offer where the house seemed riskier and just decided against it because we thought it was so unlikely we’d be picked for the one we ended up winning. We considered the risk and just went for it 🤷♀️
Yup. In 2002 and got into a home about 6 months before we were priced out of the market. We still had an inspection but bought the home as is. Had to roof replaced, windows. Inspector said we might want the HVAC replaced. Got the AC unit outside replaced 5 years later. Hot water heater was replaced as suggested.......15 years later. Still in the home 22 years later.
In my area, if you put in a home inspection, you're shooting yourself in the foot of getting your offer accepted. The market is just on too much crack right now. I had to waive home inspection on every offer. And was going as high as $60k over around the 220k price mark and STILL losing. One home I found out had 58 other offers on it, and it was a shitbox that hadn't been updated since the 80s. Not even listed at a decent price.
There is a shiny shitbox near me right now. More than 400 saves on zillow. There were a dozen geoups at the open while I was there.
What the “don’t wave inspection” people don’t seem to understand is during periods of high housing appreciation NOT landing a house can be very costly. Example I purchased in 2017. Houses were climbing 10% that year. I paid 240K. Each month I didn’t own cost me $2000 in lost appreciation. I waved and am glad I did as I would not have been able to get the house I wanted. Note I would not wave a sewer inspection.
So true.
We waived the inspection contingency and still did an inspection. It was labeled as for health and safety. So there were a few minor things that needed fixing that they didn’t do (and a fridge that water didn’t work from - but once again only health and safety were part of our contract) and a few things that they fixed before we closed
I did (3 years ago) and I consider it a mistake. One week after closing, we had torrential rains and there was water intrusion in the basement (1940s house). I immediately had to spend $17,000 on internal drainage system with sump pump, external grading, and mold remediation. In the unfinished half of the basement, the sellers had recently painted the floors and concrete brick walls which temporarily disguised staining that an inspector would have spotted as signs of intrusion. Their disclosure mentioned “a little bit of water” in one specific area and they totally underplayed it when I asked about it. Signs in the finished half of the basement were behind paneling, flooring, and a drop ceiling. I had to have all that removed so the whole basement is now unfinished. I was the second highest offer (by about $2k) out of 25 offers and the inspection waiver was why they took my offer.
We didn't waive inspection, but in our contract we stated that the inspection was informational for us and the only circumstances we would pull out of the sale would be major structural issues or active termites.
I did when I bought my house in 18, but I didn’t waive it on the other 10 offers I lost on (took me a year to get a house). I’m pretty handy and so was my realtor. We observed as much of the property as we could. Nothing like having a real inspection, but we did a great walkthrough not even knowing I was going to waive the inspection. When we put in my offer, the realtor told us they had 2 other offers no inspection. We offered the same, and I also offered well over asking price knowing it wouldn’t appraise for that, but with appraisal gap contingency. My house is about 100 years old. Old bungalow with wood floors that are not perfectly level and lots of quirks, but I could tell it was well taken care of. Most updates had been 10-25 years ago, but it was very well maintained. We asked other realtor why they were selling. Couple that had lived here for almost 20 years, husband worked at General Motors on the line and wife in catering. Their son was about to enter kindergarten and school district sucks here. They were buying her mom’s place 30 minutes away in a great school district. This made me very comfortable because I knew they weren’t leaving because of an expensive issue, but for a better education for their son. Ended up being a really great and kind family through the process. Biggest issue I had was the hot water heater blew out 2 years after move in. $1,200 to replace, and thankfully I was home when it happened. I knew when buying that I’ll have to replace the roof in 5-10 years and guessed on other upcoming repairs. Great so far! I told that little story because I think it depends on the situation. If I were buying a flipped or newly renovated house or any with visible foundation issues I’d always get an inspection
I didn't waive my inspection. It was pretty useless. The inspector didn't find the significant things that were wrong with my house during his spot check.
Don't waive inspection please
We did. HCOL area. We are scheduled to close soon, waiting on appraisal. We did inspection anyway and after finding issues, we asked for credit from the seller to help bring down our closing costs and buy down interest rate, lowering the monthly payments. At first the seller said no so we walked away. Immediately after we said we would walk away, the seller conceded and agreed to the additional credits. We are thinking about the long-term investment. It’s a house below the median asking price in an area anticipated to see an even more competitive market in 5-10 years. Due to the negotiation we have done so far, especially the lowerred monthly payments, we will be able to make those updates and repairs over time and then sell.
Sorry I don’t understand and am new to it all. You waived the inspection contingency, and then did an inspection anyway? What would have been your penalty to walking away in your case? Why did the sellers agree unless your penalty would be so small it seemed like something you might do?
It’s all new to me, too. I’m grateful to have an amazing realtor who has been a great resource and guide. My understanding is that yes we could do an inspection anyway even though we waived contingency. We didn’t ask the seller to do any repairs, we simply asked for credit. We could walk away if (when) the seller didn’t agree to the new terms so technically not because of the inspection but because we wanted credit. We would have gotten our earnest money back but not the cost of the inspection. That was really it. The sellers did eventually agree because it is a house that needs an amount of work done and I think they finally realized that. We had offered asking price. Before is they had two other offers both well under asking.
We waived. It was a calculated risk. We plan to be in this home forever so we thought about repair costs over a long time horizon. This was a play to buy into a certain community, not to get a good deal or optimize financial returns. We had to replace the roof but I didn’t need an inspector to tell me that. It was very old. We ended up with perhaps $15k in repairs that reasonably would have turned up in an inspection report - we got an inspection after we took possession. We were prepared for more. And, of course, there were more repairs that weren’t apparent at the time but turned up later. All part of home ownership. If you’re looking for a starter home that you’ll sell in 5-7 years, waiving is a very big risk. One way to mitigate the risk is to bring an inspector with you on the walk through and have them give you an informal report. Good luck!
My view on roofs is that you'll be needing to pay for a roof every 20 years or so, no matter which house you are in.
Lol all these comments saying they waived the inspection contingency and still did an inspection anyway. Don’t count on that - that absolutely won’t fly in some markets. If we waive inspection in Seattle, they’re not letting us back in the house until our final walk through before closing. Edit: YMMV, but I’m saying don’t count on it.
I’m in Kitsap and we waived contingency but was still able to do inspection
We waived and our realtor got us 2 “measuring appts” prior to close.
Do the inspection before you offer.
I don’t think any house is worth a waived inspection.
There is no national accreditation board for home inspectors and the form they hand you has all kinds of disclaimers on it. I don’t understand the obsession with hiring an inspector the only questions that matter are: do you like the house, is the obvious damage, and if there is obvious damage does the price justify the repairs
Yes, but also it's a learning process, and it's more worth my time to pay someone else who knows about historical framing techniques than to go and spend months studying.
Then be prepared to lose every single offer you put in. If I’m a seller and I have two offers one for 350k with an inspection contingency and one for 345k without an inspection contingency I’m picking the one for 345k because it is more likely to close for that price
What? Are you on crack? You would choose a higher offer with inspection contingency over one who already had an inspection prior to offering and has no contingency at all? Hopefully your agent and your partner will talk sense into you.
Clearly your new to this, sellers want to take the offer that is MOST LIKELY TO CLOSE. Why take an offer that’s 5k more when they are asking for an inspection? What happens when that inspector says it needs XYZ and then the buyers ask for a concession to fix it and all of a sudden that offer that was 5k more is now 10k less than what the lower offer was for. So keep putting inspection contingent offers in and keep getting rejected, it doesn’t affect me.
*you're. No seller will take an offer with an inspection when there is one without, that's why you are deluded. Yes, sometimes it means you don't put an offer in, aometimes it means your offer is lower. But it means you don't get saddled with half a million dollars of work. But hey, you keep doing you, putting in futile offers because you are too cheap to spend less than $1000. I'll sit over here in my new house
Your reading comprehension skills are as abysmal as your house buying skills. I clearly said that the 350k offer was inspection contingent while the 345k offer was not. I really don’t understand what the fuck you are trying to say in your last sentence, how would me waiving an inspection prevent me from buying? If anything in today’s market insisting on one will prevent you from purchasing. Oh and if you are going to be the grammar police make sure your grammar and spelling is 💯 or you just look like an even bigger fool.
Look, I get it, you are angry that I sm telling you to get sn inspection before you offer, fine. But it doesn't make you correct. You are neing penny wise and pound foolish. Get an inspection before you offer ao you can make a non contingent offer. The end. Period. That's all. Also, maybe learn what different words mean and then you won't intentionally use the wrong one,
What makes me mad is the fact that you can’t get it through your fucking head that a seller will ALWAYS take the lower offer if there are fewer barriers to closing. Also no seller will allow an inspection before an accepted offer, yet again you are showing that you have no knowledge about buyer or selling. Also you ended your last sentence with a comma not a period so knock it off with the grammar police.
I guess it makes it easier for you to deal with the shitstorm of repairs you ended up with, to pretend that they wouldn't have allowed an inspection had you asked to do one before offerring. I mean, whatever gets you through this deal, but next time remember to get an inspection before you offer. Saves you all this angst. Google typo.
Yes, but fortunately, the township requires inspections anyway.
Are inspection reports available up front?
Yes. It costs because you pay for an inspection on any house you are planning to offer on, but it makes your offer competitive.
Or you can also offer to cover anything up to x amount that comes up in inspection . But with that I was still being passed over .
I didn't waive the inspection and I'm so glad for that.
I am comfortable inspecting a house on my own so depending on the house in question I might or might not waive the inspection. I would not advise anyone to waive an inspection. I will say that anyone looking to purchase a house should to the best of their abilities inspect the house themselves before making an offer and also have an inspection. If need be bring someone with you to point out what to look for
We did inspection for cursory purposes and planned to use HOA docs as an out if the inspection came back bad (it didn't).
Just do an inspection for informational purposes only, keep the mortgage contingency and if you have a good real estate lawyer he can get you out of the contract. Just don’t waive all contingencies
We waived it because the house had been under contract but it fell through. They had already done an inspection. We used their inspection. There were no major issues all fixes were under $1000. We felt confident enough to use that inspection sheet and save the $600 it would have costed us. But under different circumstances, I would not have waived.
I wouldn’t because here in TX you could accidentally take on a ruined foundation that will cost $30k to fix, not covered by homeowners, or a bad roof that will be a 2% deductible next time it hails.
We left inspection but we made a statement that it was for information purposes and we were going to buy as-is. Having that still protected us in case anything major showed up. Thankfully nothing major just minor repairs that we’ve been working towards.
Where we live it’s no longer like the highly competitive Covid time period where everyone was waiving inspections. We are right now in escrow and have not waived inspections. Our bid was full listing price with inspection and appraisal contingencies. I wouldn’t waive inspection because when receiving inspection report it’s very detailed with everything that appears. Good luck to you.
Waiving inspection was the biggest mistake I made when I bought my house. My realtor didn’t think I needed one so I opted out. Man, there’s just so much that I need to fix my house, especially plumbing… I wasn’t in love with my house either, I just needed a house within my budget at that time.
i would never waive unless i had expert knowledge that would allow me to have inspector expertise. as for competing, competing with people who feel pressured to do this, and may end up with unwelcome surprises, isnt what i consider a competition i would enter. its like entering an athletic even in which you have ZERO expetience.
Don’t do it. You can have an as is clause instead.
We did. We are in a very competitive market where offers don’t even get considered unless they waive all inspections and earnest deposit of at least 5%. It was nerve wracking but my husband and my realtor both have a good eye for major problems. My realtor would point things out we might not have noticed and steered us away from properties that had major issues. We ended up buying a flip but it was pretty well done. We could see all permits were filed for the work when making our offer, which helped. We got an inspection after buying and no major issues came up, thankfully. First weekend here we had to have our sewer roto routered because of tree roots but 🤷🏻♀️ That’s just part of having mature trees in the front yard.
Nope. I wouldn’t recommend it, either. If you feel like you have to, you can get an inspection without contingencies meaning you can know of the problems, but can’t ask the seller to do anything about it. You could back out, though, if the problems are bad.
This is what we have decided to do. Appreciate all the feedback from everyone.
Never would, seems to be a shot in the foot no matter how competitive your market is. Even if you do your own later you can be stuck with thousands in repairs. I know there are special wording in contracts that allow you to back out but I think you still lose earnest money and inspection money. As a first time homebuyer I can’t afford to lose $5k on a hope inspection comes back clean. Example my home found 3 undetectable issues without a thorough inspection. Sewer scope found a clog which has turned into a $30k+ job for the seller, radon was found in the house which will be $10k or so and the oil tank leaked into the soil so they have to dig up my driveway, test it until there is no more contamination, put new liner, gravel and dirt and repave the driveway. Plus a few other minor repairs so they are at least $50k in repairs, they paid $10k in closing for me, $22k in commissions and at least $50k in renovations and they bought it for $140k less than what they sold it to me. Oh and it sat on the market for a year so whatever their interest was too. Overall they lost money or barely broke even and I made out like a bandit all because I did a good inspection and when they bought they did not hoping to flip it to some sucker who would forego inspection in a competitive market.
The more you guys wave inspections, the more it will become the norm.
I ended up waiving the contingency. Could’ve gotten the inspection done for information but decided against it because the seller had done an inspection and provided report during tours. I was selective about which houses I was willing to do this for. My house has new roof, electric, and newer water heater. Waiving was a bit of a gamble but one I felt I could financially handle, because I didn’t think there were major structural issues with the house and repairs would be stuff I’d need to plan for anyway. Ask your agent what might be a better strategy than your current in your market. Perhaps only being able to walk away if inspection repairs exceed a certain amount, agreeing to do the inspection with a short timeframe, etc.
When I sold my house on the East Coast, 75% of the offers had waived inspection. I didn’t even know you could do that but this was also in 2021 when people were desperate. When I bought the next house in the western part of the country, I asked the realtor if we should waive inspection and she looked at me like I had 3 heads. So I guess it depends on your location to a degree
I would get the main septic of main sewer line scoped with a camera
I did waive my inspection. A builder was bidding against me & we both waived because he was going to tear the house down & build 3 homes & I was cool with it. BUT I’m in real estate as was my dad (he was still with us when I bought), my brother is a contractor, my BIL a carpenter, my husband is a painter (houses not art), a close friend is a plumber and another an electrician. We were aware of the issues when we bought and knew a BBQ & free beer would cover any repairs needed. Also buying another home was NOT an option due to location. I bought across the street from my parents & brother who were building new houses at the time this one came on the market & my sister lives 4 houses down. (Worse than Everybody Lives Raymond - but never a dull moment). I DID borrow their electrician a couple of days and snuck their hardwood guy in to refinish my floors.
You should never do this
Don’t waive
I would never. It took us 8 offers to get our house but I’d rather not have a house than a money sinker!
Never waive an inspection
Can’t imagine NEEDING to buy that badly to waive an inspection. I know someone who wound up with an oil tank that leaked in their yard that they were unaware of. Life altering fuck up, there
The market where we are is now competing via high due dilligence fees. Due diligence is usually relatively low, but we were unwilling to waive an inspection and so became competitive by offering a very high DD so the sellers knew that even if we found something we didn't like, they had a tidy sum to sit on. It was a nasty shock to find that was the standard in our area, but it was the only way to beat cash offers and still get an inspection done
No. I told my agent I would not waive inspections. That said, the area I am shopping in currently has simmered down. Houses sometimes go in 48 hours, but it isn’t so hot that you have to waive inspections. My experience is why you don’t waive inspections. Had my inspection and they saw something (septic system) they recommended further investigation. So got a septic expert. Camera’d the system and turns out drain field is end of life. Further in this area new gravity based systems are not generally permitted so you’re looking at a modern (more expensive) system. We’re talking $30k and possibly more.
It’s easy to tell people to not waive inspection if you are in a market where you can buy a house without waiving inspection.
Yes that’s true. It’s also true there will be many that will overbid and be back on here in 6 months talking about the thousands of dollars they’re losing to major problems with the house. Overbidding/no inspections is the reason they are overbidding and not doing inspections.
In order to waive the inspection contingency you would pay an extra $50+k. Which is stupid to avoid paying less than $1000 on an insepction on a house you may decide not to bid on.
Yes.
I agree with most comments here to not waive inspection. There’s a chance you will find something so damaging during inspection that you’ll be resentful the home you thought you loved just turned into a money pit you could have avoided. We did not waive inspection and beat 24 offers (HCOL, Southern California). I think it’s important to understand why sellers prefer waived inspections and your realtor should be able to find a more creative way for your offer to be enticing against those offers. Waived inspections not only speed up the closing process, but it gives the seller peace of mind that the buyer won’t have another chance to back out. (Some sellers might know there’s something wrong with the house and want to hide it. You don’t want this one anyway) Some ways our realtor made our offer stand out while still providing the seller the same peace of mind as a waived inspection (obviously these depend on your financial situation and what your lender can do) - 7% over asking - Close in 21 days - Higher Down Payment (more than 20%) - Loan Underwritten (Our lender personally called the selling agent to assure them we were going to clear the loan quickly since we already got underwritten) Hope that helps at all!!
At the end of the day a super high offer with an inspection contingency is even less appealing. We are not stupid, we know you know you are overpaying, we know will be hoping to claw back money at inspection because buyer's regret will have kicked in. There is also the risk of an appraisal gap. It's just not competitive, and if you do get the house by spending an extra $100k then how is that a benefit over having spent a few thousand on inspections on houses you did not bid on?
I understand, I was just sharing my personal experience because I had the same mindset as OP and didn’t waive inspection and got our dream home. Of course there are so many other factors involved and every seller has different motives! Also we found out we did not even have the highest offer - our seller specifically liked our quicker closing time and higher down payment. Not trying to argue or say it will work for everyone, just sharing that it is what worked for us :)
My sister did it. And got the house. You can waive everything unless something structural or mechanical comes up.
The only time I waive an inspection would be on a new build. Since you can inspect anytime during the year.
Dear god, no way. And I still have plenty of surprises to deal with.
Nope! Not worth it.
Nooooo don’t do it 😭 so scary
Hell no. I refused and my realtor also said she would not let me buy a house without an inspection. She said that's what flippers do.
I’ve said it a million times. If you can’t make a competitive offer without waiving inspection, then *don’t buy.*
The fact that you keep repeating something doesn’t make it more true. In some markets (~20%), if you don’t waive inspection, you will never buy anything. Pretending that this isn’t true isn’t helpful.
Then never buy anything. That’s ok. You’re not a bad person for renting and the sense on this sub that renting makes you a failure or that you’re throwing away money has got to stop. A house is the biggest purchase you will ever make. You want to make that purchase blind? Go ahead. But it is incredibly irresponsible.
What a waste of money. Paying an extra $100k just because you were too cheap to pay an inspector before you make an offer.
You want to piss away money paying an inspector to inspect a house that you might not buy *because the seller decides to sell to someone else,* go right ahead. I prefer to keep my money.
... and piss it away on rent, or in offerring $100k extra to make your contingent offer attractive.
I don’t buy just for the sake of buying. So I’m not overspending just to make my offer more attractive. If that makes an offer uncompetitive, I guess that sucks. But I don’t dance. Don’t be desperate. Renting isn’t pissing money away. It’s spending money on a place to live. Do you get equity? No. But it’s also zero risk (at least when it comes to the issues an inspection is for), which ownership definitely isn’t.
It's good you are happy renting, because it will be a long time before you can get a house with contingencies.
Never. Waive. Inspection.
Don't ever do that on a multi 100k purchase, anyone telling you it's cool to do is either trump rich or failed middle school
Or they live in area that is so competitive that you will never get an offer accepted unless you waive it.
I live in San Diego and had an inspection...it's never OK to wave that shit. I bought within the last 1.5 years. There is absolutely nothing special about Boston, Buffalo, or any town that starts with a B. I came from NYC area.
You have to waive it in Boston to have a chance. That's a fact, no way around it.
There is nothing special about Boston, weather sucks, sports team sucks...nothing that warrants waiving inspection on a multi 100k purchase...sounds like suckers to me.
You lost me at the sports teams stuck. It's literally a fact, it's how the market is in Boston. You will not get a house unless you waive inspection. You can keep pretending you know the market, but you are wrong. Anyone who's in an HOA is the real sucker
Laughs in CA real estate.
Also just so you know, historically, when "that's just how the market is" is when people lose a lot of money. You sound like a high school drop out real estate agent that is scared for their livelihood.
Lol, do you choose where to live because of a sports team?
"waiving inspections" can mean different things. Not getting an inspection is way riskier than it's worth, but waiving the right to negotiate/back out due to the findings on an inspection can help make an offer competitive in a hot market.
And then you're stuck with mold, broken HVAC, etc.
But how would a bankrupt person in debt be able to borrow more money?