The common mistake I see with home inspection repairs

When I bought my first house in Columbus last spring, nearly every fix the inspector flagged was something the sellers offered to credit instead of fix. They wanted to give me $3,000 for a new roof patch, but I insisted they hire a contractor instead. Turns out that credit wouldn't have covered half the real cost once I got three bids. Has anyone else learned the hard way that taking credits over actual repairs can backfire?

3 comments

3 Comments

hunt.hayden6d ago

Casey268 nailed it with that "oldest trick in the book" line... I read somewhere that something like 60% of those credits end up being way less than the actual repair cost. The seller's contractor gives them a buddy price but then you're stuck paying full retail once they're out of the picture. I heard a story from a guy at work whose seller gave him $1,200 for foundation work and it turned into $5,000 after they dug into it. Now he's still paying off that surprise bill three years later. That's the kind of lesson you only need to learn once if you're smart about it.

casey2687d ago

Oh man, that's the oldest trick in the book (sellers hoping you'll just take the cash and figure it out later). I'd rather take the actual fix 100% of the time, because their "generous" credit never seems to match real world prices.

rowanr887d ago

I mean I used to totally be on the other side of this, I'd think "hey free money, I can figure it out later" and take the credit every time. But after getting burned twice where the credit was like half of what the actual repair cost, yeah no. One time a seller gave me $500 for a "small roof patch" and it ended up being a $2,800 job because the damage went way further than they let on. So now I'm with you, just have them fix it or give a real number from a real contractor. It's not worth the headache of finding out later their idea of "generous" is way different from reality.