“Too bad I’m going to have to be the one to kill this deal.”
You’ll never guess who said these deadly words. No, it wasn’t the seller. No, it wasn’t the buyer. No, it wasn’t the mortgage guy.
It was the home inspector.
Really! He came down from the rafters, hiked up his pants, gave an arbitrary price to fix what he saw and scared the daylights out of the buyers. This was the 2nd home he inspected for them and tried to scare them away from.
This time we weren’t going to let him do that. We dealt with the problem (and yes he was right…a sloppy rafter repair needed fixing) and went to settlement. Not a big deal.
So what’s my point? As anyone in any service business knows, you don’t speak to a client in the negative. And everything this inspector said (we didn’t and will never recommend him) was in the negative. But I was always taught that there are no problems – only solutions. That’s the way we work. That’s the way vendors should work. We’re here to do a job and to do it well. We’re not here to scare people away from what they want. We’re here to show them how to get what they want.
We make recommendations, we advise, we guide and we’re here for you. Let us help you get the best deal, not kill the deal. That’s what you deserve.
Potentially related: Philadelphia Home Buyers: Trust Me! Part 2
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Technorati: philadelphia home buying, home inspections, realtors, home buying process
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sarahwv said
My favorite inspector warns clients before he starts that he’s going to say things about this house they’re in love with that might sound scary. Most of the things he’ll mention are cheap to fix or even optional, it would just be “better” if they were done. He’ll break it all down at the end. After a deep breath and a nervous smile from the buyers, he starts, and everyone kind of laughs if we realize “that sounded scary!”
Carolyn Perlow said
We also have a couple home inspectors that we recommend. They explain everything to the buyer in a language they can understand. And they don’t scare the daylights out of them. Really – what’s the point of scaring someone.
Karen Highland said
I just had a VA appraiser kill a deal. He was on a mission to “protect the veteran” and kept them from getting their dream home. After 2 very good home inspectors (who are trained professionals) looked at the house, and found it to be sound, this appraiser (who is NOT a home inspector) saw things that didn’t exist. #@*&! He insisted we get an engineer to look at it, which will cost way too much for a seller who is already losing $40K.
Fortunately, for our seller, he has a friend who is an engineer and owes him a favor:) And what do you know…the engineer finds that there is absolutely no problem with this house.
I agree with you, we’re all trying to work together in a positive way to create win-win scenarios.