Fix home drainage problems prior to marketing
The old saying that a stitch in time saves nine, never was more true than as it applies to the home groundwater drainage issues existing with your home when you are a seller.
There is basically, two ways to view the problem of known drainage issues.
One is to not do anything about it throughout the tenure of your ownership, feeling that the issue really isn’t going to change things alot. This attitude usually preceeds the marketing plan of the home. The mindset stays in effect throughout the pre-listing period.
The sellers issue the decree that the home is sold “as is” and the agents will just have to deal with it. The agents are spending their own money to market the home, and are not too likely to overprice it. They have a huge data base of information that they rely on to perform a comparative market analysis for pricing the home.
The home is listed, and upon the pest dryrot and structural inspection of the home prior to the buyer getting the loan, an issue is disclosed that the home needs an evaluation by a licensed, bonded and insured drainage contractor with respect to the home groundwater drainage. Usually there is evidence of groundwater, or actual groundwater in the basement or crawlspace.
The home has likely already been discounted by the comparative market analysis performed by the listing agent. The agent has probably suspected or discovered a degree of deferred mainainence with respect to the home drainage issues.
The home was discounted once, prior to setting the sale price. Upon the buyers inspection, another discounting mindset is applied to the home from the would be buyers perspective.
So the seller really gets it the hard way, and for alot more money than if they would have simply dealt with the issue prior to marketing the home. This is a very common scenario.
Whether the seller gives an additional discount to the buyer to conclude the home purchase and the buyer waives the condition set by the lender for the parties to come to a meeting of the minds with respect to the home drainage issues as a condition of the loan, or whether the seller at that time pays for the work to be done; the seller has the home discounted twice.
Only one discount in price was really required if they would have done the home drainage work prior to the marketing of the home. A sad reality for nice people to face after it is too late to change the fact that the home got dropped twice in value for the same condition, the sellers have probably already bought another home and need the deal, and the buyers know that it only means that to them the home is not worth the asking price.
It makes sense to the buyers. The sellers said on their home disclosure that there were no home drainage problems, right? So, the buyers conclude that the home was priced without any problems, right? Sellers unhappy. Too late to cry, the man with the money has gone by. An old English saying.