Sellers

By following through on maintaining your house using the results of your home inspection, your house will be more saleable when the time comes for you to leave. Preventative maintenance will help reduce things such as water damage. For instance a simple eavestrough/downspout fix may prevent serious basement water damage that might reduce the value of your house in the long term.

Items that need to be fixed or upgraded will be flagged by a future buyer and their home inspector. If you have your place in good order already, your house will have a good chance of going on the market at a more profitable listing price.

7 Tips to Sellers for Getting a More Favourable Result on a Home Inspection

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• Make sure all lights are working. It may be just light bulbs that need replacing. A bunch of lights not working doesn’t look good for the Electrical section of the report.
• Have the eavestroughs cleaned out. Troughs full of debris makes it look like the place hasn’t been looked after, and will be written up and possibly shown in inspection photos
• Make sure smoke and CO alarms are installed on every floor.
• Find the receipt of the last roof replacement and make a copy available to the inspector, so the date can be recorded in the inspection. The roof may be still under warranty.
• Install a fresh furnace filter and clean or replace any other filters (electronic air filters, range hood filters, etc.). This may help air flow also.
• Ensure the furnace has been seasonally serviced (and TAGGED as such), within the last year. Same thing for air conditioner or heat pump, especially if you are selling in the spring or summer. Get the A/C cleaned, serviced, tagged and the insulation on the lines checked/replaced.
• If the water heater is gas and owned, have it checked and tagged at the same time as the gas furnace, by a qualified plumbing and heating contractor.

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