Ironic, huh? You tell your real estate agent that you want to sell as-is. You tell your agent that you are not interested in doing any repairs or alterations to the home you are selling. You want the buyer to take care of anything that is needed to be done, as you are ready to move on. You decline to order any pre-list inspections.
A buyer presents an offer, and your agent shares it with you. They have a loan and property condition contingency. It is the price you want, and the terms are good as long as they agree to it being an as-is sale. You accept.
After the contract is ratified, the buyer must do their due diligence. They inspect the property. The buyer’s agent recommends a property, chimney, roof, pool and pest inspection. The buyer agrees with their agent, and gets the inspections completed during the property condition contingency time period.
The buyer discovers over $10,000 in damages…
In their inspection they discover many things wrong with the property that they were not aware of when they wrote the offer for your home. They didn’t know about the leaks, the dry rot, the termites, the electrical issues, the crack in the foundation, the pool not working…
You again remind your agent that you are selling as-is, and you do not want to fix anything. Buyer has a contingency that allows them to back out of the contract for any reason. It has been two weeks, and we are two weeks till close of escrow. The buyer is not comfortable with the damage that they discovered after writing their offer. So the buyer asks the seller to fix the damages, or give him a credit so they can fix it after the close of escrow. In return, the buyer will remove their outstanding contingencies.
You can accept the buyers request (or negotiate a lower amount), or you can say no and risk the buyer walking… It’s halfway through the escrow, with two weeks till close. Can you risk putting it back on the market and getting the same offer? If you put it back on, it will look like an old stale listing, and you may not get an offer at the same price. If you accept, you close in two weeks.
Moral of the story. As a seller, order all of your inspections up front… AND require the buyer to review and sign all disclosures when they present the offer. That way, the buyer knows everything about the home, and you’re less likely to have the buyer negotiate repairs or ask for credits during the closing period. The biggest reason why sales go sour, is because buyers often discover something during the escrow period that they did not know about when they made an offer.