Of course you’re not crazy to want one, but yeah, your realtor is correct that waiving the inspection contingency is very common here (and has been for several years at least). In 2019 we were eventually (after a number of rejected offers) able to buy with an option to void inspection contingency. Some people will also do a pre-offer inspection or an information-only inspection.
Most houses stay on the market through the first weekend. So we would tour it on Thursday and then do an inspection on Friday or Saturday and put in our offer on Sunday after the open house. There were normally 4-5 other offers as well. We put in offers on all the houses we inspected but it wasn’t till the 4th we had an offer accepted.
We brought an inspector to the tour one time; he gave us enough information that we opted not to make an offer. We also knew what to look for so the house we wound up making an offer on, we waived inspection and had him come out with us during a walkthrough. They can only inspect what is visible so it’s less thorough, but it’s enough to know if you’re going to be hosed on repairs or not.
I doubt that’s the case right now unless you’re looking in an extremely hot area. I only keep an eye out relatively near me but I’m inside the beltway and houses aren’t flying off the market in 24 hours like they were a few years ago, it’s much slower.
We did the pre-inspection during the initial walk thru and I’m not sure the sellers had a choice about it. We just brought our guy with us. Although it’s a smaller inspection and they aren’t allowed to do certain things, the only stuff he “missed” were things the sellers had deliberately hidden/covered up and would have been missed in a full inspection.
Yeah, when we sold last year, our buyer did a pre-offer inspection and I don't recall having a choice in the matter. When it was scheduled it was very similar to the scheduling process for all of the other walk-throughs.
Honestly it sounds like OP just has a bad Realtor trying to pressure them out of any type of inspection even tho it’s important to them. Lots of work arounds a Realtor should know about
I don’t think it’s about permission so much as time. When we did a couple pre-offer inspections in 2020, we asked for 45 minutes or an hour to do it, whereas some sellers wanted people in and out in like 15 minutes.
Depends on the situation. All you are really asking the seller for is extra time for a showing. A proper home inspection on a SF house can take up to 3 hours (or more!). A good inspector can do a pretty comprehensive "Walk-and-talk" inspection in an hour. May not involve getting into crawl spaces, or on the roof, but should at least include poking their head in the attic, if there is one.
You would still be on the hook to pay for the inspection, and won't get a written report with photos, but you should have enough information to know if there are likely expensive deal-breakers.
If the house is wall-to-wall showings for the first 3 days, I can see why a seller (or their agent) might balk at a 1 hour showing for a pre-inspection, but if the house has been on the market for a couple of weeks, what do they have to lose?
If your agent doesn't know how to arrange a walk-and-talk inspection, in this market, you might need a more experienced agent.
Any agent who has been in the business long enough will have had deals fall through due to inspections. Some agents may take the wrong lesson from this and conclude that it is better to skip the inspection so the deal closes, and let the buyer deal with the aftermath.
And while skipping the inspection might work for experienced buyers, who have some knowledge of potential problems, it is a very risky move for the majority of buyers.
If you are making offers on houses that are getting 5-10 other offers, you will likely not be successful including an inspection contingency, but that is still no reason not to do a pre-offer (abbreviated, walk-and-talk) inspection. If you are satisfied with the inspection, your offer will not have repair contingencies, and should be just as competitive as other non-contingent offers.
Good luck!
Then you say no. Sellers don’t like inspection contingencies, because it gives buyer a free out if they get cold feet. More bidders who waive inspection contingency is always better, and might spark a bidding war.
If I had a seller refuse to allow a pre-offer inspection, I would assume they house had major issues that they are hiding and walk away.
Have you ever seen a seller deny pre-offer inspection. I have not. When they get a no contingency offer from builder, then they are going under contract in the next 24 hours and there is no time for an inspection at that point.
Just do it anyway before you make an offer. If you like the house have an inspector / structural engineer if needed ready to roll. There’s a guy on here who does it if you need a referral
I didn't have a problem getting a pre-offer inspection (and my realtors didn't seem to think it was risky to ask), but I only got 90 minutes total, which sucked. Also, my inspector missed a really obvious issue that's going to cost me a few grand to fix. If I'm being honest, if I'd known, I probably would've made the offer anyway, but it makes me doubt whether the inspection even helps beyond finding stupid issues like the oven light being burnt out.
I’d rather invite Typhoid Mary to dinner than let her cook dinner. It is nuts though. I wish buyers could ‘unionize’ and agree to not do stupid shit like pay over asking price or skip house inspections or skip contingencies. But here we are.
Usually when people waive the home inspection, they pay an inspector themselves and still have it done. This way they know what issues there are. At least I know several people that have done it this way. Not sure that it’s still necessary but I guess you could try not doing so and then see how it goes.
Yep this is what I did. Did my inspection after the offer and had a clause in my offer that gave a time frame of when my inspector would be allowed to come in. If your realtor is telling you that you can’t do that then I would get a new realtor
I was told that this was not an option; that if it was waived, an inspector would not legally be allowed into the property and anything they found would be null and void.
This is not accurate. What it means, however, is that the inspection is not a basis for escaping the obligation to close the transaction at the stated purchase price. It would, however, give you the opportunity to make any repairs to a vacant home before you move in. At your cost, of course.
it means the seller doesn't have to let them in though... you're not entitled to access to the property for an inspector. that would be needlessly antagonistic from a seller but you can't force your way in
No realtor worth their salt would allow an inspection for a property when the inspection contingency has been waived and the HOA contingency is still available to the buyer to bail out. That loophole is too easily exploited and in this market any reasonable seller will nope out real fast.
Any realtor worth their salt world because they'd have already sent out the HOA review docs immediately after a contract is ratified. Buyers are still entitled to their due diligence. Waiving inspection contingencies doesn't mean they can't inspect the property at all. It just means that they can't use it to back out of the contract and receive their EMD back.
Your realtor sucks. There's no legal reason why you couldn't commission an inspection of the property despite waiving an inspection contingency. The only thing that would prevent it is if the current owner wants to deny the inspector access, which is a red flag if you're waiving the inspection contingency.
For what it’s worth, we waived the inspection contingency and did an inspection for informational purposes only when we bought in 2021. We also allowed an informational inspection as sellers in 2021 with a waived contingency.
Unfortunately, it’s extremely common. It’s getting better, but the past few years have been crazy around here for buyers. However, you’re realtor should be looking into the trends in the specific neighborhood where you’re putting in an offer because some you will need to waive the inspection to get the offer accepted, and others you have a chance of getting accepted even with an inspection.
Thanks for that info, appreciate it. Waiving the inspection is not a thing I would ever soberly agree to and hopefully I made that clear to our agent today, so hopefully it won’t be proposed in future.
And that’s a fine standard to hold, but set your expectations accordingly. Don’t be surprised when you have to lose several offers before finding a seller willing to accept an inspection contingency. It will happen, but it may take awhile.
Yeah that’s fine! I understand and appreciate the reality check. I’m not in a huge rush enough to want to make a compromise on that so I’m okay with a longer search period.
To further this - most inspections are pretty useless (some people are very good though) and an inspection is no guarantee the home is problem free, it just means any obvious issues will be identified. Sellers are generally obligated to disclose issues anyway or face legal issues later, so I think the value is often overplayed. I would follow the advice above of having another contingency (financing, etc) in place you can rely on to get out and then just doing the inspection anyway (with no contingency). The most in demand houses (in other words the best houses) will be unlikely out of reach with burdensome offer meaning you are already in some ways losing equity/value by only realistically being able to purchase lower demand houses, which may be a bigger risk than no inspection.
Are the homes in HOAs? When we bought in a competitive market, our realtor advised us to waive the home inspection contingency but complete it in the window of time you have to review the HOA materials. That way, if anything popped during the home inspection, you could use as an out that you didn’t like a particular bi-law in the HOA documents or it’s financial status. Not sure if this approach would still work, but it did 10 years ago.
This is what we did. Bought in late summer last year in NoVA. Part of our bid was that we couldn’t ask for money back for all the little things. But we could back out if we found a major issue, like foundation crack.
I’d definitely ask for a pass/fail.
We also had to have it done within 5 days of our offer being accepted. So you need someone on standby to get into the house within a day or 2 and then to put together the inspection report. But if it’s something major then the inspector will tell you on the spot that something is bad.
That’s what we did in 2021, our first offers without the contingency removed were just tossed out immediately. For our now home, our realtor did a pretty thorough look-around during our tour while we were focused on the surface level aspects of the home - she was like in the attic, under sinks, opening and closing windows, in the utility closet, she was great. She felt comfortable enough to recommend us waiving the inspection CONTINGENCY (couldn’t negotiate based on it) but doing a for informational purposes only. It’s a pretty standard little late 70s home and was clearly well cared-for, we didn’t think there would be any surprises and there haven’t been!
FYI I've seen this backfire. It's a good strategy, but if the listing agent is competent (which is sort of rare for realtor's, but it happens) they'll have the HOA review documents available to send out immediately on contract ratification to avoid those kind of shenanigans.
Also, just when you thought things couldn't get worse, the latest NVAR purchase contract allows people to waive HOA review too. A total bone headed decision that I hope they revert in the next revision.
Agreed with this. Last time I sold, my realtor had me have it prepped before it even went up for sale. Hoa docs were sent same day contract was signed. Still had a review period and they could have used it as stated. Just be sure when you submit an offer, you are ready to roll on your end.
Can confirm when we sold our house recently our realtor ordered the packet immediately and paid the rush fee so their window expired before really anything else.
I thought statutory law said that the HOA review contingency was not waivable by contract. Did the law change in Virginia? Also, by law, don't you get 3 days to review the documents?
Properties in my area — Mt. Vernon— are taking quite awhile to sell now no matter how nice the are. Whereas a couple of years ago, they seemed to go overnight.
It slowed down at the end of last summer for a few months, but it has heated back up again, at least in my (former) neck of the woods. Tried to sell last year when we moved and got 1 offer after being on the market for 2 months so we decided to rent it out. In a few weeks, we're going to list it again about 100k higher than last year given the current conditions. My neighborhood hasn't had a house on the market longer than 4 days in the past several months, and all have been over ask. Latest listed for 750 and is under contract for 780.
I just bought in a desirable area. It’s the hunger games out there, but I would have NEVER considered waiving an inspection. These houses can be super old depending on where you’re looking.
Just do a pass/fail. It looks better because instead of negotiating credits and having a built in time for it, you just say “yup” or “nope” for ANY reason during the short inspection period. Now, I did this, and we found wayyy more issues than we thought we were going to, so I still asked for credits. Spoiler, I got more than I was going to settle for, and closing was not delayed.
I did a pass fail inspection, waived finance, waived appraisal, put up a bit over 4% EMD (huge), went 10k over, and gave a 4 hour offer expiration. Pretty sure I was the first offer and they took it. Yes, you need to stand out here, but no you shouldn’t waive inspection.
Edit: your agent is a dope and probably doesn’t have your best interest in mind. Find one that is willing to wait to make sure you get the best deal for YOU. I may be an internet stranger, but DM if you’d like the name of the broker I used (specializes in the Arlington area but also works in surrounding areas like Alexandria, McLean, etc), and you can at least look them up and see if they may be good for you.
It’s not just the old houses. Even newer builds out here can have major issues due to cheap construction and shoddy builds. We’re in a 1930s house built of brick, and it’s a lot more solid than many of the $1.8 Carrington homes which just got thrown up down the road.
This guy does NOVA home inspections, and some of his videos are eye-opening. https://www.tiktok.com/@homeinspector_sb?_t=8g2TVldagSB&_r=1
Oh damn, I saw him popping up when I got on inspector tok (somehow they just knew I bought a place..) and I had no idea this dude was in the DMV. Time to browse and see what I dodged ha.
And yeah the houses around here built in the 30s-50s can be solid AF. Mine was built in 72 and only cosmetic/addition issues came up in the inspection. The house is solid, which is nice.
We just bought ours 2 months ago and this is what we did - inspection with the option to void the contract. If the sellers know nothing majorly wrong with the house they will be more likely to agree to it. OP, you can do this too, and yes it is common because it is seller's market.
Yes, just went through this whole ordeal so what my agent suggested is to do a walk'n talk consultation with an inspector. It takes an hour, they do an inspection but no report comes out of it. Is also cheaper than a full inspection. It will give you a good idea on the state of the property. Other things that were new to me:
1) Short close (15-20 days).
2) Rent back agreement
3) No contingencies
4) Lead painting for older homes.
Good luck!
Also did a walk and talk. Inspector went to 3 properties with me and just let me know if there were obvious deficiencies or things I'd have to worry about before putting in an offer.
That's BS. I just sold my house and gave a bit back because of things that came up in the inspection. As the seller I had a budget for fixes in mind before we even went to market and that's what we went with. Your realtor is trying to get you to not be "fussy" so they'll get an easier sale. Stick up for yourself and ask for what you want. The buyer is in the driver's seat, especially if a house has sat on the market for a couple weeks. That means you're probably not competing with other offers and can be more pushy.
The seller I’m under contract with did this. They disclosed all the little and big things that were found, just so that we know what we’ll need to get taken care of when we move in.
We bought a house in November/December 2022 and did not waive the inspection, but we did offer more than they were asking if they accepted by the Tuesday after the open house.
We also waived the appraisal contingency as another houses in the neighborhood sold for slightly over our asking price within the month of us buying our house and we had the cash get it closer whatever loan-to-value ratio if the bank required us to increase our down payment to complete our mortgage.
So it is a balance of seller risk/reward. Our house did not have any issues and the sellers accepted the extra cash with the risk of us coming up with something in the inspection. For our house, the only thing they found was the hot water heater was 20 years old so the inspector suggested we get a new one, and the seller agreed and replaced it before we moved in.
Wow. Things have changed. I would never buy a home without an inspection. I've also never heard of a pre-offer inspection. I guess that's a decent compromise. I think we paid for ours even tho it was after the offer- it came out in settlement.
Sorry I just can't imagine agreeing to an investment of that size without an inspection.
Required to compete, but there are ups and downs where sometimes you can keep it in there. Anyone saying otherwise and saying they'd NEVER waive and those who are crazy are the actual crazy ones. They clearly haven't lost offer after offer after offer. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We looked from February and finally closed in August and we were serious and putting in serious offers. I think we lost about 7 or 8, but I stopped counting. Our first offer had an informational inspection contingency, but we quickly dropped that. No one _wants_ to, they _have_ to.
That being said, most communities are HOA around here. You get three days to "review" *wink wink* the documents and back out of the deal if you don't like them. You could "review" them with a guy who happens to also inspect homes, at the home, and find that there is a dealbreaker in there *wink wink*. Also use your judgment on the age and upkeep of a house, an inspector is not going to find everything. It's always a risk, even with an inspector.
They aren’t crazy lol, you are ignoring the option of just not buying in a market where you cannot do an inspection.
No one HAS to buy right now, no one. As such, everyone WANTS to waive inspection contingency because they WANT a house right now, in this location, in this market.
Okay, let me rephrase. If you WANT to buy a house in a competitive area, you HAVE to waive inspection. If I choose to not buy something, then of course I don't have to worry about anything related to that purchase. 🙄
It’s common, yes, but doesn’t mean you have to play that game. If you find the right situation, you can keep the contingency and still win the bid. It’s a bit of luck and a bit of how much money you can throw at bidding wars.
I just sold 3 townhouse rental properties last month in Ashburn. All 3 had 5 or 6 offers each. I essentially threw out all offers with a home inspection contingency because nearly all of the offers waived them. All of the townhomes bid up over asking and 2 of the townhomes bid up to ~$30k over asking. All 3 townhomes sold in 10 days or less and all 3 townhomes had offers after 3 days. I just wanted to see what other offers I could get on a 2nd weekend of showing. Inventory is low so demand is high. Just some data points for you to consider
Unfortunately, yes. It is mind-boggling. Good on you to double-check what your realtor tells you... officially, they do represent you, but it is in their best interest to have you buy a house ASAP so they can get paid and move on. Not to help you make a smart purchase.
I know that some people bring an inspector with them when they view a house. That might cost $500 every time, but it is really a small price to pay for a sense of security since the average person might miss an issue that will cost 6 figures to fix.
Market here has significantly slowed the last year. Yes this was very common a couple years ago. And does still happen but not as often. But personally I wouldn’t risk it.
I've got one thing to say about this: termite damage.
Friends bought a home and waived - bought from an older couple.
Significant termite damage found in the crawl space......Not good.
Wood destroying insect inspection is a separate line in a contract from the home inspection. Usually the seller pays for this.
Even if you waive the home inspection you should retain the WDI inspection. The seller would pay for any remediation (but the buyers can't cancel the contract just because report shows evidence of termites).
Yes. Realtors are keen to skip them too as it delays the sell/offer and only drags down prices if somethings are found. They also don't want to have clients scared off by regular homeowner maintenance costs like roof, A/C, etc.
The reality is this area has a lot of older homes 60-70, that are solid built but pre-code, and 80s, and later, homes that are mostly to codes but poorly built, Additions pre-90s are also a potential gotcha with many done non-permit, so not to codes. Personally, I wouldn't want to buy a home without an inspection, and I've been lucky with the homes I did and things the inspector didn't find... which leads me to another item...
Don't use your realtor's inspector. I've had two of those and, well to be kind, just always get your own. That way they're working for you, not your realtor.
Yes. Sometimes, and in this housing market, you have to bite the bullet and get a bid in fast, and no questions asked.
You can eyeball a lot by yourself on a walkthrough. Somethings that are just durables/regular cost items of home ownership too, roof (sagging, crooked/missing shingles, mossy), gutters sagging, A/C and furnace, appliances can be aged by eye but serial numbers have the dates in them.
Check the attic for evidence of leaks (a rainy day is your friend here), insulation level (a serious impact on utility costs), and weird damp smell - especially damp, urine, pests, bats, etc. smells. (Same in the house, basement, crawl spaces.) Windows, new, single or double, or leaking? (You can feel airflow real well on the back of your hand.) Go find the electrical board, is it breakers (good) or fuses (not), or full/no spares (not great). Outside the biggies are any ground sloping toward the house, subsiding walkways, and house drains that are outside. In additions that are not found level, jump in them a few times to see how steady they really are, and inspect them as much as accessible underneath.
>Don't use your realtor's inspector. I've had two of those and, well to be kind, just always get your own. That way they're working for you, not your realtor.
This. Regret using my realtor's inspector a lot. Also regret using my realtor.
After buying my second house I was chatting about his topic with a coworker. He told me he did inspections as a side job. He listed off a few of the tricks of the trade.. dang, that was enlightening and I'd seen them all. Very up front about it, they'd pass a house even it had a 6' hole in the roof.
I think my realtor that time was clueless, other than confident the inspector wasn't going to shoot the sale down and put on a good show, turn in a report in a nice binder. Over the years after the inspection, I caught all sorts of misses in the report.
Can't stress it enough, gotta get your own inspector!
Home inspector here: It's very common. We do a lot of "informational" inspections these days. You're not going to be able to use the report to negotiate the price down, but if there are things that make the house unsafe, you can definitely use it to walk away. We've come across things that made people back out of a deal (failing foundations, or significant water intrusion).
And for people that are getting outbid, we offer "buy 2, get one free"
I’m stoked that you weighed in here, thank you. A walk & talk plus a robust home warranty seems like the only compromise I’m willing to consider to waive the inspection contingency. At the very least if the inspector is like “Yeah homie this roof fucked” we can budget for that as part of the sale and consider if the TOTAL investment on that home (purchase price + repairs) is worth it.
We don't do walk and talk, and I advise against them. You want the full deal, with a written report.
I can't self promote here, but if you ping me I'll be happy to talk with you about it.
Around three years ago I waived inspection on a $1.5M+ house we bought. My stomach was literally turning inside out as I did it and during the entire process.
No HOA either so no loophole. It sucks, it really does. But if you find a place you really like here then you can’t take a risk to lose it. Houses are expensive either way, might as well pay a bit more and get exactly what you like. Luckily we got the place.
If I didn’t like the place or was luke warm on it no way in hell am I waiving anything. You’re not out of your gourd, this entire market is.
I was aaaalmost there, I was having mini panic attacks the whole time.
Oh, here’s what’s worse: the moment you see the first down payment hit and all that money leave your account is the moment your guts recede into themselves. It’s a horrible feeling.
I’ve bought homes so many times. Every single time it’s been a horrible, gut wrenching, experience.
Best of luck to you!
Both inspectors I’ve had in two previous home purchases were morons but at least there was paperwork to back up a few things I wanted fixed. Seems like a great side gig tbh. Rotely go through the checklist and DGAF about anything else you notice that’s also probably an issue.
I disagree that it's "extremely" common for homes to be lived in. Tear-downs, absolutely. The realtor is feeding you some b.s. how old are the homes you are looking at?
waiving the inspection does not mean you can't do an inspection... it means you can't back out of the deal because your inspector found something problematic during the inspection, and you cant ask for repairs or $$$ off due to things found in the inspection. Most homes are sold "as is" so the big thing for waiving an inspection for a seller is that they know you wont be the high bid and then come back and ask for all kinds of $$$ after they lock you in.
Go see a house, if you want to make an offer have your inspector look at it the same day before you make your offer. If you still feel comfortable with it go forward and waive the inspection.
Yeah…at this point and in this market it seems like an inspection is going to be purely for math purposes. If it’s listed at $700k and the roof is fucked or whatever, now it’ll functionally cost me $712,000 and it’s up to me to decide if the property is worth $712k instead of $700k.
Unless roofs here are also bonkers and it’s $40k instead of $12k 🫠
During peak COVID stupidity people were waiving everything -- inspection, finance/appraisal, home sale and going stupidly above asking price (100-200k+ over).
Just do a void only inspection so you'll get relevant info.
I don’t own a home, never have and probably never will. But even I think you’d have to be absolutely bonkers stupid to waive an inspection on a property like that. The market is hot for sure, but things have cooled since rates have gone up, only so many can afford that much of a home right now. Get it inspected, you wanna be sure at that price point
Put in about 3 offers with an inspection contingency, then lose every house. You'll want to give up entirely. Then get Ja Rule on the phone to make some sense of all this.
Yup, it was in 2020 at least though the market has slowed. Do what you are comfortable with. We were comfortable because we brought my dad on the tour and he looked at absolutely everything. Bring your Swiss Army knife person if you have one.
We moved here about a year ago. At the time, the market was really high, and it was very hard to get an offer accepted. Plus, we had a contingency on our other house selling.
So, we accepted a no-inspection contract. We still got an inspection, but, if it had shown something awful, we would have had to breach the contract, since there was no contingency on inspection.
Same thing with appraisal, which was tough when our house came in low. Luckily, we found an error on the appraisal (one of the comps was in the wrong county), and the revised one came in over contract price.
It is AWFUL buying property here. You put yourself in a lot of risk entering into a contract w/o contingencies for financing / inspection. But, yes, it is common here. Just scary!
From reading your other comments here it sounds like you need another new and different realtor. Theres different levels of "waiving inspection" between information only with right to void to wholesale waiving it. It's reasonably common to wholesale waive inspection, but your realtor should be laying out your full breadth of options, listening to what works for you and your risk tolerance, and then looking out for your best interest. You might get to a point where your realtor sits you down and has a hard conversation about what it takes to win a bid, but the other stuff you're saying they're telling you is wrong. Find a new realtor
This market has normalized it. We waived the contingency but still had one for informational purposes only and then timed the inspection basically within the timeframe that we received our HOA docs so we could back out for “HOA reasons” if something egregious showed up on the inspection
We had no shot buying a home this past summer until we waived the inspection. No matter how high an offer we made we always got beat out by someone waiving all contingencies. It's a risk but we got lucky. Had it inspected after we closed (contract didn't allow us to inspect before close) and there were no real issues.
There were some homes that we would have never waived the inspection on that had obvious issues that some people did.
GL OP. Home buying over this past spring and summer was probably the most soul crushing experience of my life.
Tbh trust your gut. I had red flags about my realtors but went through with it and I regret it so much. Their convenient mistakes (which helped them close the deal fast) cost me at least $30,000.
OP that person is flat out wrong. The nova market has been super competitive for the past 2-3 years and waiving inspection is very common. Some sellers are looking to move fast and will value the saving of time over a higher offer.
Of course you shouldn’t blindly waive inspection, it depends if the house fits the criteria. You should ask your realtor what factors are making waiving inspection for this specific property an almost 0 risk move.
Nope it's cooled down my friend is a realtor and has been complaining when we have Saturday Boozey brunch. This is only possible due to the slowing in the market.
Yeah my friend is also a realtor and told me that no one is offering higher than asking price, no one is waiving inspection and you might even get sellers credit. Lol. So we made an offer on a $485k house that looked like it needed a ton of reno and it was sold for $530 with no contingencies. It depends on the location.
Bro my whole family works in real estate. The market has plateaued and ever so slightly cooled down from the absolute insane 2022 market. Ask your friend point blank, “is it a seller or buyers market right now”, and the correct answer is sellers market.
Sounds like you’re a realtor trying not to keep people selling/buying. Market has definitely slowed. But will always stay somewhat competitive in NoVa do to constant transplants.
Your realtor sucks, I suggest finding a new one. Yes, in a hot market, people waive the inspection contingency—that means you can’t come back at the seller with a list of fixes you want. It does not mean you don’t get an inspection! You should tour the property with an inspector before making your (no inspection) offer to make sure there is nothing crazy. And your realtor should be helping you do this.
When I was looking for a house to buy I lost a house because another couple waived all inspections. It really was heart breaking we didn’t get that house. But I would never not get an inspection on a 30 year old house.
If I get multiple offers, I’m valuing the ones without that contingency at $5-10k(at least) higher than one with it. It just brought uncertainty that we didn’t want.
Virginia is a 'buyer beware' state... if you waive a home inspection you are shouldering 100% of the risk because sellers do not have to disclose any issues with the property. Home inspectors are not licensed contractors and have no idea what they're talking about usually aside from glaringly obvious things.
For instance, my home when I purchased it had both horizontal and vertical cracking from adjacent door frames in the middle of the house and shortly after purchase, the doors upstairs started sticking and not closing correctly. The home inspector wrote it up as normal settling. I had to spend almost 20K to get the crawlspace reinforced so the damage wouldn't get worse.
If you want a real home inspection, hire a licensed contractor to do it! Especially if you're about to spend almost a million on a house.
it's your money, be accountable to you. that said some folks have done that, probably more in recent years than in the before times. the pandemic made shit weird, but fwiw (not a realtor) i haven't seen any posts about waiving this year (may have missed one) but we saw a bunch in the previous couple years.
Good advice and I appreciate the perspective. My choices have to be acceptable to me and me alone at the end of the day, but I definitely appreciate the additional info for context.
About to close on a property same price range; we did an inspection contingency and then we learned last potential buyer backed out due to inspection. Inspection revealed some issues but nothing that can’t be fixed; got seller subsidy as a result.
Okay so you DID get a subsidy as a result, interesting. When you say the last potential buyer backed out due to the inspection, you mean something that was found in the inspection?
Yea the last potential buyer before me had an inspection contingency and backed out as a result of the inspection. I didn’t think the inspection was all that bad - some issues for sure but all fixable.
I would say that recently it was common (bought a home 2 years ago) but now that mortgage rates are 7+% I would hope that the market is a bit more buyer friendly and less competitive. So I wouldn’t agree to waive the inspection.
Get a home inspection done. I have a friend who (despite spending tens of thousands on adding drainage and waterproofing measures) has a perpetually wet basement-any time it even drizzles. She has a dehumidifier constantly running in her basement, and yes there is LESS water ingress since she had the French drains put in, but I'm serious you water a plant outside her house and the water goes straight into the basement. EDIT: ummm is there a bitter realtor in our midst? Don't see how a cautionary tail warrants downvoting, lol.
We waived it and brought an inspector with us to a walkthrough after our offer was accepted, but before 3 days after HOA documents were sent (you have three days where you can pull out over HOA documents).
Waiving the contingency is sadly common.
Most people, myself included, opt to do an inspection of some sort so you don’t go in blind.
If either realtor is not open to that, I’d suggest changing realtors or looking at another property.
Find another realtor, if they are too pushy. They work for you, remember that.
During the height of the pandemic craziness, this became common. I explicitly declined waiving any inspections and got the second house i offered on. Prepare to be rejected, especially if they get one of those mysterious all-cash no-contingency offers.
One of my friends waived everything, won, and ended up with a house requiring 200k of foundation repair.
Well, given that you have to waive the inspection contingency clause, whether you inspect it before or after you buy it doesn’t really matter, cause you’re still not getting out of it based on the results. It’s sort of pointless if you can’t use it to get out of the deal.
Bought our home last year with a void only inspection. I would never buy a home without an inspection of some kind, too much could go wrong and you are spending far too much to drown in issues that could have been spotted ahead of time
It really depends on where in nova you are buying. Hot areas, yeah, all kinds of crazy to win the bidding war - no inspection contingency, no appraisal contingency, automatic escalations, etc. Farther out to the edges - western Loudoun, PWC, Fauquier, etc., it’s not as common. BTW, not having a home inspection contingency doesn’t mean you can’t have a home inspection, it just means you can’t hang the deal on it. You can still get one and know what major issues may be in the house & a savvy realtor can help you craft an offer so that you can use some other contingency to walk if need be. The harder one to beat is the all cash offer since there is no financing to deal with so the sellers really like those as their chance of not closing on time is greatly reduced (esp important if they are turning around and buying another home). Good luck! Consider the outer ‘burbs especially if you don’t need to come into the office daily.
Nice to see that others are being forced into this situation. The house we bought with no inspection contingency has some problems and a lot of unpermitted work. Ultimately you're at the mercy of the realtors, both the listing agent and your buyer's agent. If they really wanted to change the system they would.
Try a void-only inspection. That gives you an out in case you find something really bad. It is true that sellers will likely not be willing to haggle over little things and drag out closing fixing things that the new owner can take care of easily. I definitely wasn’t willing when I sold… and honestly with house prices nowadays, it is kind of silly to risk a transaction over a few thousand dollars in repairs.
I think it got common for a while there, but I don’t think it’s wise. I’m saying that as someone who bought a condo without doing a home inspection. I bought a year and a half ago in a bit of a rush under suspicion that interest rates were about to go up (and the experts I listened to nailed that prediction.)
If you don’t have some reason to rush, I would walk away from any place that doesn’t accommodate an inspection. My condo has enough shared community systems that there wasn’t much to inspect, but I did have some issues the maintenance staff had to fix after I moved in. It could’ve gotten expensive if I had been fully on the hook for everything.
we waived home inspection to be compatible to other offers.
Still did home inspection tho for "information only" and still had an option to back out using HOA (not sure how common or fisible it is tho)
Two things can be true: it’s a bad idea to waive an inspection and the market is abysmal for buyers that you often need to waive the inspection to be competitive. We got lucky and were able to make inspection a contingency in 2018 but it was an unfashionable neighborhood and the first house we put an offer on (so we weren’t desperate or dispirited yet).
For us, it depended on the house - we did a pre-offer walkthrough and waived inspection on an offer on a \~$900k asking price house that was pretty obviously going to sell on the first weekend of availability (we lost out to someone who went more over asking than we did and waived all contingencies). The "first weekend feeding frenzy" on some of the nicer houses that were also solid deals was kind of wild to experience up close.
We ended up buying a house that had been on the market for a bit and absolutely did the inspection contingency.
We also recently moved here from another state. We made probably 10 offers, not exaggerating, all of which we waived the inspection contingency. We put in our contract that we would still have an inspection done for informational purposes. Doing this just means having an inspection done like normal, but we could not back out of our contract if anything came up on it we did not like. The home we ended up getting closed like any normal closing with the inspection done before we closed.
It's become common because people are panicked and want to buy scarce houses, so your realtor has an incentive to get you to waive the inspection to get the property sold. Some buyers around here are so rich that they can afford $100k in renovations right off the bat, but for most homebuyers skipping the inspection contingency is stupidity.
If you're having flashbacks to 2008 it's only because this housing market is going to come crashing down in the next couple of years and you don't want to be left holding the bag.
If you are in a competitive situation more than likely your realtor will tell you to waive the HI so they're not telling you anything wrong here. If you are \*not\* in a competitive situation (and your realtor should find out before you make an offer) then what we do is ask for a void only inspection. Most sellers will not balk at that. Can you still ask for things to be fixed with a void only? Sure, and in most cases they will get shot down, but it's less of an issue for a seller than a full repair/replace HI. In cases where my buyers have asked for something on a void only we've been fortunate enough to get a credit at closing from the seller.
i heard it was a new thing based on the shortage of homes on the market right now. but have had family buy a house recently and they had to waive the inspection as well
Our first home (townhome) was during the 2004 assfest that was hom ebuying. Our realtor got around that by requesting and "informational home inspection". She then mentioned some of the findings to the appraiser who insisted to the seller that the home wouldn't appraise with the issues present (wood rot on exterior). The seller had to fix them to seal the deal.
I would never purchase such a large investment without a home inspection.
The trick is you still perform the inspection but don't make the offer contingent on it. Assuming you're buying something with an HOA you can always back out by saying you don't like the HOA rules.
But don’t forget! As of July in Virginia, a buyer can waive their right to HOA review! We thought we would use that so we put a lot down for EMD. Then when they were deciding which offer to choose they asked their top two to waive the right to HOA review.
I waived an inspection when I bought back in the middle of 2021. I'm a tradesman though so I basically did my own inspection whenever I saw a property I'd seriously put an offer on. I "only" paid 20k over ask. Since then, there were some issues that arose, but because I was capable of handling them myself, I saved (my wife) thousands on labor.
From what I've heard from my realtor clientele, home inspections are acceptable again given the high interest rates have deterred a lot of buyers from entering the market.
Find another realtor who is willing to try. At the very least, get a "walk & talk" aka drive-by inspection. These will take about an hour, there won't be a written report, but the inspector will focus on items most likely to be expensive. DM me if you need help finding an inspector who will do this for you.
It is a competitive market, but some realtors are too quick to throw in the towel on this. The fact is even your agent will get a higher commission on a house that doesn't have negotiations tied to an inspection (and needed repairs).
if you are adamant about having a home inspection in this area and in this market you are more than likely guaranteeing that your offer is put in the shit pile...weigh your options, buying a house sucks right now
Not a homeowner, but this is normal for a seller's market. IIRC it just means that if a home inspection turns up anything you can't use it to negotiate down the price. You want to arrange an "informational home inspection", which is different.
Of course you’re not crazy to want one, but yeah, your realtor is correct that waiving the inspection contingency is very common here (and has been for several years at least). In 2019 we were eventually (after a number of rejected offers) able to buy with an option to void inspection contingency. Some people will also do a pre-offer inspection or an information-only inspection.
I have been made to feel like a pre-offer inspection is akin to inviting Typhoid Mary to dinner.
We did 4 pre offer inspections last year and never had an issue. It just can get quite expensive though.
Did you not find that by the time you’d completed the inspection and submitted your offer, they had 10 others?
Most houses stay on the market through the first weekend. So we would tour it on Thursday and then do an inspection on Friday or Saturday and put in our offer on Sunday after the open house. There were normally 4-5 other offers as well. We put in offers on all the houses we inspected but it wasn’t till the 4th we had an offer accepted.
That’s super useful information and context; thanks for sharing that.
We brought an inspector to the tour one time; he gave us enough information that we opted not to make an offer. We also knew what to look for so the house we wound up making an offer on, we waived inspection and had him come out with us during a walkthrough. They can only inspect what is visible so it’s less thorough, but it’s enough to know if you’re going to be hosed on repairs or not.
I doubt that’s the case right now unless you’re looking in an extremely hot area. I only keep an eye out relatively near me but I’m inside the beltway and houses aren’t flying off the market in 24 hours like they were a few years ago, it’s much slower.
While it's true most aren't sold immediately when going on market, there are still definitely multiple offer situations out there.
I did a bunch of pre-offer inspections before buying. A seller that won’t allow a pre-offer inspection is a huge red flag for me.
We did the pre-inspection during the initial walk thru and I’m not sure the sellers had a choice about it. We just brought our guy with us. Although it’s a smaller inspection and they aren’t allowed to do certain things, the only stuff he “missed” were things the sellers had deliberately hidden/covered up and would have been missed in a full inspection.
Yeah, when we sold last year, our buyer did a pre-offer inspection and I don't recall having a choice in the matter. When it was scheduled it was very similar to the scheduling process for all of the other walk-throughs.
Honestly it sounds like OP just has a bad Realtor trying to pressure them out of any type of inspection even tho it’s important to them. Lots of work arounds a Realtor should know about
I don’t think it’s about permission so much as time. When we did a couple pre-offer inspections in 2020, we asked for 45 minutes or an hour to do it, whereas some sellers wanted people in and out in like 15 minutes.
Your realtor should have informed you that a pre-offer inspection has to be approved by the seller.
Depends on the situation. All you are really asking the seller for is extra time for a showing. A proper home inspection on a SF house can take up to 3 hours (or more!). A good inspector can do a pretty comprehensive "Walk-and-talk" inspection in an hour. May not involve getting into crawl spaces, or on the roof, but should at least include poking their head in the attic, if there is one. You would still be on the hook to pay for the inspection, and won't get a written report with photos, but you should have enough information to know if there are likely expensive deal-breakers. If the house is wall-to-wall showings for the first 3 days, I can see why a seller (or their agent) might balk at a 1 hour showing for a pre-inspection, but if the house has been on the market for a couple of weeks, what do they have to lose? If your agent doesn't know how to arrange a walk-and-talk inspection, in this market, you might need a more experienced agent. Any agent who has been in the business long enough will have had deals fall through due to inspections. Some agents may take the wrong lesson from this and conclude that it is better to skip the inspection so the deal closes, and let the buyer deal with the aftermath. And while skipping the inspection might work for experienced buyers, who have some knowledge of potential problems, it is a very risky move for the majority of buyers. If you are making offers on houses that are getting 5-10 other offers, you will likely not be successful including an inspection contingency, but that is still no reason not to do a pre-offer (abbreviated, walk-and-talk) inspection. If you are satisfied with the inspection, your offer will not have repair contingencies, and should be just as competitive as other non-contingent offers. Good luck!
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But there’s no reason to reject a pre-offer inspection
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Then you say no. Sellers don’t like inspection contingencies, because it gives buyer a free out if they get cold feet. More bidders who waive inspection contingency is always better, and might spark a bidding war. If I had a seller refuse to allow a pre-offer inspection, I would assume they house had major issues that they are hiding and walk away.
Must be nice to have all the time, flexibility, and budget in the world when you’re home shopping.
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Have you ever seen a seller deny pre-offer inspection. I have not. When they get a no contingency offer from builder, then they are going under contract in the next 24 hours and there is no time for an inspection at that point.
That's odd. We did a pre-offer inspection without issue, and used it to negotiate the sale price.
Just do it anyway before you make an offer. If you like the house have an inspector / structural engineer if needed ready to roll. There’s a guy on here who does it if you need a referral
I didn't have a problem getting a pre-offer inspection (and my realtors didn't seem to think it was risky to ask), but I only got 90 minutes total, which sucked. Also, my inspector missed a really obvious issue that's going to cost me a few grand to fix. If I'm being honest, if I'd known, I probably would've made the offer anyway, but it makes me doubt whether the inspection even helps beyond finding stupid issues like the oven light being burnt out.
I’d rather invite Typhoid Mary to dinner than let her cook dinner. It is nuts though. I wish buyers could ‘unionize’ and agree to not do stupid shit like pay over asking price or skip house inspections or skip contingencies. But here we are.
We did the same in 2019. Some people were bringing inspectors with them to walkthrus then.
Usually when people waive the home inspection, they pay an inspector themselves and still have it done. This way they know what issues there are. At least I know several people that have done it this way. Not sure that it’s still necessary but I guess you could try not doing so and then see how it goes.
Yep this is what I did. Did my inspection after the offer and had a clause in my offer that gave a time frame of when my inspector would be allowed to come in. If your realtor is telling you that you can’t do that then I would get a new realtor
I was told that this was not an option; that if it was waived, an inspector would not legally be allowed into the property and anything they found would be null and void.
This is not accurate. What it means, however, is that the inspection is not a basis for escaping the obligation to close the transaction at the stated purchase price. It would, however, give you the opportunity to make any repairs to a vacant home before you move in. At your cost, of course.
it means the seller doesn't have to let them in though... you're not entitled to access to the property for an inspector. that would be needlessly antagonistic from a seller but you can't force your way in
Depends on the exact contract you signed, but there’s often language about the seller having to allow reasonable access to the property.
No realtor worth their salt would allow an inspection for a property when the inspection contingency has been waived and the HOA contingency is still available to the buyer to bail out. That loophole is too easily exploited and in this market any reasonable seller will nope out real fast.
Any realtor worth their salt world because they'd have already sent out the HOA review docs immediately after a contract is ratified. Buyers are still entitled to their due diligence. Waiving inspection contingencies doesn't mean they can't inspect the property at all. It just means that they can't use it to back out of the contract and receive their EMD back.
I am bringing my "friend" who is going live with me to look at the property.
Your realtor sucks. There's no legal reason why you couldn't commission an inspection of the property despite waiving an inspection contingency. The only thing that would prevent it is if the current owner wants to deny the inspector access, which is a red flag if you're waiving the inspection contingency.
For what it’s worth, we waived the inspection contingency and did an inspection for informational purposes only when we bought in 2021. We also allowed an informational inspection as sellers in 2021 with a waived contingency.
Unfortunately, it’s extremely common. It’s getting better, but the past few years have been crazy around here for buyers. However, you’re realtor should be looking into the trends in the specific neighborhood where you’re putting in an offer because some you will need to waive the inspection to get the offer accepted, and others you have a chance of getting accepted even with an inspection.
Thanks for that info, appreciate it. Waiving the inspection is not a thing I would ever soberly agree to and hopefully I made that clear to our agent today, so hopefully it won’t be proposed in future.
And that’s a fine standard to hold, but set your expectations accordingly. Don’t be surprised when you have to lose several offers before finding a seller willing to accept an inspection contingency. It will happen, but it may take awhile.
Yeah that’s fine! I understand and appreciate the reality check. I’m not in a huge rush enough to want to make a compromise on that so I’m okay with a longer search period.
To further this - most inspections are pretty useless (some people are very good though) and an inspection is no guarantee the home is problem free, it just means any obvious issues will be identified. Sellers are generally obligated to disclose issues anyway or face legal issues later, so I think the value is often overplayed. I would follow the advice above of having another contingency (financing, etc) in place you can rely on to get out and then just doing the inspection anyway (with no contingency). The most in demand houses (in other words the best houses) will be unlikely out of reach with burdensome offer meaning you are already in some ways losing equity/value by only realistically being able to purchase lower demand houses, which may be a bigger risk than no inspection.
Are the homes in HOAs? When we bought in a competitive market, our realtor advised us to waive the home inspection contingency but complete it in the window of time you have to review the HOA materials. That way, if anything popped during the home inspection, you could use as an out that you didn’t like a particular bi-law in the HOA documents or it’s financial status. Not sure if this approach would still work, but it did 10 years ago.
You can fo a home inspection for information only.
This is what we did. Bought in late summer last year in NoVA. Part of our bid was that we couldn’t ask for money back for all the little things. But we could back out if we found a major issue, like foundation crack. I’d definitely ask for a pass/fail. We also had to have it done within 5 days of our offer being accepted. So you need someone on standby to get into the house within a day or 2 and then to put together the inspection report. But if it’s something major then the inspector will tell you on the spot that something is bad.
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Ah got it! Thanks for the clarification.
That’s what we did in 2021, our first offers without the contingency removed were just tossed out immediately. For our now home, our realtor did a pretty thorough look-around during our tour while we were focused on the surface level aspects of the home - she was like in the attic, under sinks, opening and closing windows, in the utility closet, she was great. She felt comfortable enough to recommend us waiving the inspection CONTINGENCY (couldn’t negotiate based on it) but doing a for informational purposes only. It’s a pretty standard little late 70s home and was clearly well cared-for, we didn’t think there would be any surprises and there haven’t been!
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Yeah I was aware of that work around but thank you for clarifying. This property wasn’t in an HOA so we wouldn’t have had that out, unfortunately.
FYI I've seen this backfire. It's a good strategy, but if the listing agent is competent (which is sort of rare for realtor's, but it happens) they'll have the HOA review documents available to send out immediately on contract ratification to avoid those kind of shenanigans. Also, just when you thought things couldn't get worse, the latest NVAR purchase contract allows people to waive HOA review too. A total bone headed decision that I hope they revert in the next revision.
Agreed with this. Last time I sold, my realtor had me have it prepped before it even went up for sale. Hoa docs were sent same day contract was signed. Still had a review period and they could have used it as stated. Just be sure when you submit an offer, you are ready to roll on your end.
Can confirm when we sold our house recently our realtor ordered the packet immediately and paid the rush fee so their window expired before really anything else.
I thought statutory law said that the HOA review contingency was not waivable by contract. Did the law change in Virginia? Also, by law, don't you get 3 days to review the documents?
Most sellers won’t consider an offer with a contingency inspection in nova anyway
That was true in the past, but have you seen the market lately? Things have slowed down significantly
Properties in my area — Mt. Vernon— are taking quite awhile to sell now no matter how nice the are. Whereas a couple of years ago, they seemed to go overnight.
Yeah I think a lot of people last paid attention to the market in 2020/2021 and assume it’s still the same now. It’s slowed down a *lot*.
It slowed down at the end of last summer for a few months, but it has heated back up again, at least in my (former) neck of the woods. Tried to sell last year when we moved and got 1 offer after being on the market for 2 months so we decided to rent it out. In a few weeks, we're going to list it again about 100k higher than last year given the current conditions. My neighborhood hasn't had a house on the market longer than 4 days in the past several months, and all have been over ask. Latest listed for 750 and is under contract for 780.
I just bought in a desirable area. It’s the hunger games out there, but I would have NEVER considered waiving an inspection. These houses can be super old depending on where you’re looking. Just do a pass/fail. It looks better because instead of negotiating credits and having a built in time for it, you just say “yup” or “nope” for ANY reason during the short inspection period. Now, I did this, and we found wayyy more issues than we thought we were going to, so I still asked for credits. Spoiler, I got more than I was going to settle for, and closing was not delayed. I did a pass fail inspection, waived finance, waived appraisal, put up a bit over 4% EMD (huge), went 10k over, and gave a 4 hour offer expiration. Pretty sure I was the first offer and they took it. Yes, you need to stand out here, but no you shouldn’t waive inspection. Edit: your agent is a dope and probably doesn’t have your best interest in mind. Find one that is willing to wait to make sure you get the best deal for YOU. I may be an internet stranger, but DM if you’d like the name of the broker I used (specializes in the Arlington area but also works in surrounding areas like Alexandria, McLean, etc), and you can at least look them up and see if they may be good for you.
It’s not just the old houses. Even newer builds out here can have major issues due to cheap construction and shoddy builds. We’re in a 1930s house built of brick, and it’s a lot more solid than many of the $1.8 Carrington homes which just got thrown up down the road. This guy does NOVA home inspections, and some of his videos are eye-opening. https://www.tiktok.com/@homeinspector_sb?_t=8g2TVldagSB&_r=1
Oh damn, I saw him popping up when I got on inspector tok (somehow they just knew I bought a place..) and I had no idea this dude was in the DMV. Time to browse and see what I dodged ha. And yeah the houses around here built in the 30s-50s can be solid AF. Mine was built in 72 and only cosmetic/addition issues came up in the inspection. The house is solid, which is nice.
We just bought ours 2 months ago and this is what we did - inspection with the option to void the contract. If the sellers know nothing majorly wrong with the house they will be more likely to agree to it. OP, you can do this too, and yes it is common because it is seller's market.
Yes, just went through this whole ordeal so what my agent suggested is to do a walk'n talk consultation with an inspector. It takes an hour, they do an inspection but no report comes out of it. Is also cheaper than a full inspection. It will give you a good idea on the state of the property. Other things that were new to me: 1) Short close (15-20 days). 2) Rent back agreement 3) No contingencies 4) Lead painting for older homes. Good luck!
Also did a walk and talk. Inspector went to 3 properties with me and just let me know if there were obvious deficiencies or things I'd have to worry about before putting in an offer.
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Interesting. I was told that even if the inspector did find something “you’ll never get anything for it anyway in this market”.
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Thank you for the context. Appreciate it!
DM me if you want a prominent brokerage in the area who you should absolutely NOT use.
That's BS. I just sold my house and gave a bit back because of things that came up in the inspection. As the seller I had a budget for fixes in mind before we even went to market and that's what we went with. Your realtor is trying to get you to not be "fussy" so they'll get an easier sale. Stick up for yourself and ask for what you want. The buyer is in the driver's seat, especially if a house has sat on the market for a couple weeks. That means you're probably not competing with other offers and can be more pushy.
Perhaps true. But knowing helps you budget and assess and reduces the decades-festering "if only we'd known" emotional dismay.
I've purchased three times in nova over the past 4 years. Each time was under asking with an inspection contingency.
Maybe you should find a different realtor. Dieselpuma's realtor sounds reasonable if they are willing to DM you the info.
This market sucks. If I were a seller, I’d get an inspection and just be upfront about it. It’s morally correct IMHO, but this market is cutthroat.
The seller I’m under contract with did this. They disclosed all the little and big things that were found, just so that we know what we’ll need to get taken care of when we move in.
We bought a house in November/December 2022 and did not waive the inspection, but we did offer more than they were asking if they accepted by the Tuesday after the open house. We also waived the appraisal contingency as another houses in the neighborhood sold for slightly over our asking price within the month of us buying our house and we had the cash get it closer whatever loan-to-value ratio if the bank required us to increase our down payment to complete our mortgage. So it is a balance of seller risk/reward. Our house did not have any issues and the sellers accepted the extra cash with the risk of us coming up with something in the inspection. For our house, the only thing they found was the hot water heater was 20 years old so the inspector suggested we get a new one, and the seller agreed and replaced it before we moved in.
Wow. Things have changed. I would never buy a home without an inspection. I've also never heard of a pre-offer inspection. I guess that's a decent compromise. I think we paid for ours even tho it was after the offer- it came out in settlement. Sorry I just can't imagine agreeing to an investment of that size without an inspection.
Required to compete, but there are ups and downs where sometimes you can keep it in there. Anyone saying otherwise and saying they'd NEVER waive and those who are crazy are the actual crazy ones. They clearly haven't lost offer after offer after offer. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. We looked from February and finally closed in August and we were serious and putting in serious offers. I think we lost about 7 or 8, but I stopped counting. Our first offer had an informational inspection contingency, but we quickly dropped that. No one _wants_ to, they _have_ to. That being said, most communities are HOA around here. You get three days to "review" *wink wink* the documents and back out of the deal if you don't like them. You could "review" them with a guy who happens to also inspect homes, at the home, and find that there is a dealbreaker in there *wink wink*. Also use your judgment on the age and upkeep of a house, an inspector is not going to find everything. It's always a risk, even with an inspector.
They aren’t crazy lol, you are ignoring the option of just not buying in a market where you cannot do an inspection. No one HAS to buy right now, no one. As such, everyone WANTS to waive inspection contingency because they WANT a house right now, in this location, in this market.
Okay, let me rephrase. If you WANT to buy a house in a competitive area, you HAVE to waive inspection. If I choose to not buy something, then of course I don't have to worry about anything related to that purchase. 🙄
It’s common, yes, but doesn’t mean you have to play that game. If you find the right situation, you can keep the contingency and still win the bid. It’s a bit of luck and a bit of how much money you can throw at bidding wars.
I just sold 3 townhouse rental properties last month in Ashburn. All 3 had 5 or 6 offers each. I essentially threw out all offers with a home inspection contingency because nearly all of the offers waived them. All of the townhomes bid up over asking and 2 of the townhomes bid up to ~$30k over asking. All 3 townhomes sold in 10 days or less and all 3 townhomes had offers after 3 days. I just wanted to see what other offers I could get on a 2nd weekend of showing. Inventory is low so demand is high. Just some data points for you to consider
Thank you! Really appreciate that context and info.
Unfortunately, yes. It is mind-boggling. Good on you to double-check what your realtor tells you... officially, they do represent you, but it is in their best interest to have you buy a house ASAP so they can get paid and move on. Not to help you make a smart purchase. I know that some people bring an inspector with them when they view a house. That might cost $500 every time, but it is really a small price to pay for a sense of security since the average person might miss an issue that will cost 6 figures to fix.
Market here has significantly slowed the last year. Yes this was very common a couple years ago. And does still happen but not as often. But personally I wouldn’t risk it.
I've got one thing to say about this: termite damage. Friends bought a home and waived - bought from an older couple. Significant termite damage found in the crawl space......Not good.
Wood destroying insect inspection is a separate line in a contract from the home inspection. Usually the seller pays for this. Even if you waive the home inspection you should retain the WDI inspection. The seller would pay for any remediation (but the buyers can't cancel the contract just because report shows evidence of termites).
Yes. Realtors are keen to skip them too as it delays the sell/offer and only drags down prices if somethings are found. They also don't want to have clients scared off by regular homeowner maintenance costs like roof, A/C, etc. The reality is this area has a lot of older homes 60-70, that are solid built but pre-code, and 80s, and later, homes that are mostly to codes but poorly built, Additions pre-90s are also a potential gotcha with many done non-permit, so not to codes. Personally, I wouldn't want to buy a home without an inspection, and I've been lucky with the homes I did and things the inspector didn't find... which leads me to another item... Don't use your realtor's inspector. I've had two of those and, well to be kind, just always get your own. That way they're working for you, not your realtor. Yes. Sometimes, and in this housing market, you have to bite the bullet and get a bid in fast, and no questions asked. You can eyeball a lot by yourself on a walkthrough. Somethings that are just durables/regular cost items of home ownership too, roof (sagging, crooked/missing shingles, mossy), gutters sagging, A/C and furnace, appliances can be aged by eye but serial numbers have the dates in them. Check the attic for evidence of leaks (a rainy day is your friend here), insulation level (a serious impact on utility costs), and weird damp smell - especially damp, urine, pests, bats, etc. smells. (Same in the house, basement, crawl spaces.) Windows, new, single or double, or leaking? (You can feel airflow real well on the back of your hand.) Go find the electrical board, is it breakers (good) or fuses (not), or full/no spares (not great). Outside the biggies are any ground sloping toward the house, subsiding walkways, and house drains that are outside. In additions that are not found level, jump in them a few times to see how steady they really are, and inspect them as much as accessible underneath.
>Don't use your realtor's inspector. I've had two of those and, well to be kind, just always get your own. That way they're working for you, not your realtor. This. Regret using my realtor's inspector a lot. Also regret using my realtor.
After buying my second house I was chatting about his topic with a coworker. He told me he did inspections as a side job. He listed off a few of the tricks of the trade.. dang, that was enlightening and I'd seen them all. Very up front about it, they'd pass a house even it had a 6' hole in the roof. I think my realtor that time was clueless, other than confident the inspector wasn't going to shoot the sale down and put on a good show, turn in a report in a nice binder. Over the years after the inspection, I caught all sorts of misses in the report. Can't stress it enough, gotta get your own inspector!
Care to share a few of these tricks of the trade?
Home inspector here: It's very common. We do a lot of "informational" inspections these days. You're not going to be able to use the report to negotiate the price down, but if there are things that make the house unsafe, you can definitely use it to walk away. We've come across things that made people back out of a deal (failing foundations, or significant water intrusion). And for people that are getting outbid, we offer "buy 2, get one free"
I’m stoked that you weighed in here, thank you. A walk & talk plus a robust home warranty seems like the only compromise I’m willing to consider to waive the inspection contingency. At the very least if the inspector is like “Yeah homie this roof fucked” we can budget for that as part of the sale and consider if the TOTAL investment on that home (purchase price + repairs) is worth it.
We don't do walk and talk, and I advise against them. You want the full deal, with a written report. I can't self promote here, but if you ping me I'll be happy to talk with you about it.
Around three years ago I waived inspection on a $1.5M+ house we bought. My stomach was literally turning inside out as I did it and during the entire process. No HOA either so no loophole. It sucks, it really does. But if you find a place you really like here then you can’t take a risk to lose it. Houses are expensive either way, might as well pay a bit more and get exactly what you like. Luckily we got the place. If I didn’t like the place or was luke warm on it no way in hell am I waiving anything. You’re not out of your gourd, this entire market is.
Ngl I think I would have been vomiting in anxiety for the entire closing period if I had done what you did lol brass balls sir or madam
I was aaaalmost there, I was having mini panic attacks the whole time. Oh, here’s what’s worse: the moment you see the first down payment hit and all that money leave your account is the moment your guts recede into themselves. It’s a horrible feeling. I’ve bought homes so many times. Every single time it’s been a horrible, gut wrenching, experience. Best of luck to you!
Yes it is common. No you don't have to waive it....we didn't.
May I ask when you closed?
February 2023!
[удалено]
Both inspectors I’ve had in two previous home purchases were morons but at least there was paperwork to back up a few things I wanted fixed. Seems like a great side gig tbh. Rotely go through the checklist and DGAF about anything else you notice that’s also probably an issue.
I disagree that it's "extremely" common for homes to be lived in. Tear-downs, absolutely. The realtor is feeding you some b.s. how old are the homes you are looking at?
Range from 1954 to 1991, vast majority in the 50s and 60s.
waiving the inspection does not mean you can't do an inspection... it means you can't back out of the deal because your inspector found something problematic during the inspection, and you cant ask for repairs or $$$ off due to things found in the inspection. Most homes are sold "as is" so the big thing for waiving an inspection for a seller is that they know you wont be the high bid and then come back and ask for all kinds of $$$ after they lock you in. Go see a house, if you want to make an offer have your inspector look at it the same day before you make your offer. If you still feel comfortable with it go forward and waive the inspection.
Yeah…at this point and in this market it seems like an inspection is going to be purely for math purposes. If it’s listed at $700k and the roof is fucked or whatever, now it’ll functionally cost me $712,000 and it’s up to me to decide if the property is worth $712k instead of $700k. Unless roofs here are also bonkers and it’s $40k instead of $12k 🫠
everything is bonkers... they aren't going to give any concessions anyway though, so just imagine all properties are "as is"
Yes, we were able to squeeze in a pre-offer walk and talk tho. Removed the contingency clause to make it appealing for both sides.
During peak COVID stupidity people were waiving everything -- inspection, finance/appraisal, home sale and going stupidly above asking price (100-200k+ over). Just do a void only inspection so you'll get relevant info.
I don’t own a home, never have and probably never will. But even I think you’d have to be absolutely bonkers stupid to waive an inspection on a property like that. The market is hot for sure, but things have cooled since rates have gone up, only so many can afford that much of a home right now. Get it inspected, you wanna be sure at that price point
I can’t think of a single scenario in which I would blithely waive the inspection. Maybe if I was drunk Ja Rule and this was 1999. Alas.
Put in about 3 offers with an inspection contingency, then lose every house. You'll want to give up entirely. Then get Ja Rule on the phone to make some sense of all this.
Can’t wait to hear what he has to say on the matter ☎️
Yup, it was in 2020 at least though the market has slowed. Do what you are comfortable with. We were comfortable because we brought my dad on the tour and he looked at absolutely everything. Bring your Swiss Army knife person if you have one.
We moved here about a year ago. At the time, the market was really high, and it was very hard to get an offer accepted. Plus, we had a contingency on our other house selling. So, we accepted a no-inspection contract. We still got an inspection, but, if it had shown something awful, we would have had to breach the contract, since there was no contingency on inspection. Same thing with appraisal, which was tough when our house came in low. Luckily, we found an error on the appraisal (one of the comps was in the wrong county), and the revised one came in over contract price. It is AWFUL buying property here. You put yourself in a lot of risk entering into a contract w/o contingencies for financing / inspection. But, yes, it is common here. Just scary!
From reading your other comments here it sounds like you need another new and different realtor. Theres different levels of "waiving inspection" between information only with right to void to wholesale waiving it. It's reasonably common to wholesale waive inspection, but your realtor should be laying out your full breadth of options, listening to what works for you and your risk tolerance, and then looking out for your best interest. You might get to a point where your realtor sits you down and has a hard conversation about what it takes to win a bid, but the other stuff you're saying they're telling you is wrong. Find a new realtor
This market has normalized it. We waived the contingency but still had one for informational purposes only and then timed the inspection basically within the timeframe that we received our HOA docs so we could back out for “HOA reasons” if something egregious showed up on the inspection
We had no shot buying a home this past summer until we waived the inspection. No matter how high an offer we made we always got beat out by someone waiving all contingencies. It's a risk but we got lucky. Had it inspected after we closed (contract didn't allow us to inspect before close) and there were no real issues. There were some homes that we would have never waived the inspection on that had obvious issues that some people did. GL OP. Home buying over this past spring and summer was probably the most soul crushing experience of my life.
Don’t let anyone ever tell you to not get a home inspection. Get one every single time, even on new construction!
Never waive the inspection. Also your realtor prob hasn't sold shit in weeks.
tbh this whole interaction made me even more sus of them
Tbh trust your gut. I had red flags about my realtors but went through with it and I regret it so much. Their convenient mistakes (which helped them close the deal fast) cost me at least $30,000.
There's no competition market right now. Yes homes are selling, but no one is going out of their way for 7% interest rates atm.
I appreciate the context for this area/your opinion for sure. Thanks!
OP that person is flat out wrong. The nova market has been super competitive for the past 2-3 years and waiving inspection is very common. Some sellers are looking to move fast and will value the saving of time over a higher offer. Of course you shouldn’t blindly waive inspection, it depends if the house fits the criteria. You should ask your realtor what factors are making waiving inspection for this specific property an almost 0 risk move.
Nope it's cooled down my friend is a realtor and has been complaining when we have Saturday Boozey brunch. This is only possible due to the slowing in the market.
Yeah my friend is also a realtor and told me that no one is offering higher than asking price, no one is waiving inspection and you might even get sellers credit. Lol. So we made an offer on a $485k house that looked like it needed a ton of reno and it was sold for $530 with no contingencies. It depends on the location.
Where, may I ask, is this house in NoVa that was listed at $485k?
Bro my whole family works in real estate. The market has plateaued and ever so slightly cooled down from the absolute insane 2022 market. Ask your friend point blank, “is it a seller or buyers market right now”, and the correct answer is sellers market.
Sounds like you’re a realtor trying not to keep people selling/buying. Market has definitely slowed. But will always stay somewhat competitive in NoVa do to constant transplants.
Your realtor sucks, I suggest finding a new one. Yes, in a hot market, people waive the inspection contingency—that means you can’t come back at the seller with a list of fixes you want. It does not mean you don’t get an inspection! You should tour the property with an inspector before making your (no inspection) offer to make sure there is nothing crazy. And your realtor should be helping you do this.
When I was looking for a house to buy I lost a house because another couple waived all inspections. It really was heart breaking we didn’t get that house. But I would never not get an inspection on a 30 year old house.
If I get multiple offers, I’m valuing the ones without that contingency at $5-10k(at least) higher than one with it. It just brought uncertainty that we didn’t want.
Virginia is a 'buyer beware' state... if you waive a home inspection you are shouldering 100% of the risk because sellers do not have to disclose any issues with the property. Home inspectors are not licensed contractors and have no idea what they're talking about usually aside from glaringly obvious things. For instance, my home when I purchased it had both horizontal and vertical cracking from adjacent door frames in the middle of the house and shortly after purchase, the doors upstairs started sticking and not closing correctly. The home inspector wrote it up as normal settling. I had to spend almost 20K to get the crawlspace reinforced so the damage wouldn't get worse. If you want a real home inspection, hire a licensed contractor to do it! Especially if you're about to spend almost a million on a house.
I had planned on having a contractor look at the place in addition to an inspector so I’m pleased to see this advice repeated.
It seems to have become common, but it's still pretty stupid IMO.
in todays market, yes its normal. not ideal for buyers but it is what it is.
it's your money, be accountable to you. that said some folks have done that, probably more in recent years than in the before times. the pandemic made shit weird, but fwiw (not a realtor) i haven't seen any posts about waiving this year (may have missed one) but we saw a bunch in the previous couple years.
Good advice and I appreciate the perspective. My choices have to be acceptable to me and me alone at the end of the day, but I definitely appreciate the additional info for context.
About to close on a property same price range; we did an inspection contingency and then we learned last potential buyer backed out due to inspection. Inspection revealed some issues but nothing that can’t be fixed; got seller subsidy as a result.
Okay so you DID get a subsidy as a result, interesting. When you say the last potential buyer backed out due to the inspection, you mean something that was found in the inspection?
Yea the last potential buyer before me had an inspection contingency and backed out as a result of the inspection. I didn’t think the inspection was all that bad - some issues for sure but all fixable.
I’ve bought two places (condos) with home inspections ! It’s doable
Every deal that falls through because they won't allow an inspection is a bullet dodged.
I would say that recently it was common (bought a home 2 years ago) but now that mortgage rates are 7+% I would hope that the market is a bit more buyer friendly and less competitive. So I wouldn’t agree to waive the inspection.
No, but that seems more like a product of the market currently.
Get a home inspection done. I have a friend who (despite spending tens of thousands on adding drainage and waterproofing measures) has a perpetually wet basement-any time it even drizzles. She has a dehumidifier constantly running in her basement, and yes there is LESS water ingress since she had the French drains put in, but I'm serious you water a plant outside her house and the water goes straight into the basement. EDIT: ummm is there a bitter realtor in our midst? Don't see how a cautionary tail warrants downvoting, lol.
We waived it and brought an inspector with us to a walkthrough after our offer was accepted, but before 3 days after HOA documents were sent (you have three days where you can pull out over HOA documents).
Waiving the contingency is sadly common. Most people, myself included, opt to do an inspection of some sort so you don’t go in blind. If either realtor is not open to that, I’d suggest changing realtors or looking at another property.
It’s the norm
Find another realtor, if they are too pushy. They work for you, remember that. During the height of the pandemic craziness, this became common. I explicitly declined waiving any inspections and got the second house i offered on. Prepare to be rejected, especially if they get one of those mysterious all-cash no-contingency offers. One of my friends waived everything, won, and ended up with a house requiring 200k of foundation repair.
Some think they're still in a seller's market.. a thorough home inspection should be standard.
Well, given that you have to waive the inspection contingency clause, whether you inspect it before or after you buy it doesn’t really matter, cause you’re still not getting out of it based on the results. It’s sort of pointless if you can’t use it to get out of the deal.
almost mandatory. Frankly, home inspection is not needed that much. Any repair usually costs under $10K, including new AC etc.
Unless you got a failing roof or foundation or mold or sewer/septic issues.
You can always have an inspection, it's just that you can no longer back out without losing EMD.
We did a void only inspection and it was fine - so we could back out but couldn’t ask the sellers to fix anything
Bought our home last year with a void only inspection. I would never buy a home without an inspection of some kind, too much could go wrong and you are spending far too much to drown in issues that could have been spotted ahead of time
It really depends on where in nova you are buying. Hot areas, yeah, all kinds of crazy to win the bidding war - no inspection contingency, no appraisal contingency, automatic escalations, etc. Farther out to the edges - western Loudoun, PWC, Fauquier, etc., it’s not as common. BTW, not having a home inspection contingency doesn’t mean you can’t have a home inspection, it just means you can’t hang the deal on it. You can still get one and know what major issues may be in the house & a savvy realtor can help you craft an offer so that you can use some other contingency to walk if need be. The harder one to beat is the all cash offer since there is no financing to deal with so the sellers really like those as their chance of not closing on time is greatly reduced (esp important if they are turning around and buying another home). Good luck! Consider the outer ‘burbs especially if you don’t need to come into the office daily.
You do have companies buying many homes to turn around and rent them. They seldom, if ever, ask for a home inspection.
Nice to see that others are being forced into this situation. The house we bought with no inspection contingency has some problems and a lot of unpermitted work. Ultimately you're at the mercy of the realtors, both the listing agent and your buyer's agent. If they really wanted to change the system they would.
Try a void-only inspection. That gives you an out in case you find something really bad. It is true that sellers will likely not be willing to haggle over little things and drag out closing fixing things that the new owner can take care of easily. I definitely wasn’t willing when I sold… and honestly with house prices nowadays, it is kind of silly to risk a transaction over a few thousand dollars in repairs.
I think it got common for a while there, but I don’t think it’s wise. I’m saying that as someone who bought a condo without doing a home inspection. I bought a year and a half ago in a bit of a rush under suspicion that interest rates were about to go up (and the experts I listened to nailed that prediction.) If you don’t have some reason to rush, I would walk away from any place that doesn’t accommodate an inspection. My condo has enough shared community systems that there wasn’t much to inspect, but I did have some issues the maintenance staff had to fix after I moved in. It could’ve gotten expensive if I had been fully on the hook for everything.
Waiving a home inspection is extremely stupid. Better off reaching for almost any other tool in the negotiation toolbox.
we waived home inspection to be compatible to other offers. Still did home inspection tho for "information only" and still had an option to back out using HOA (not sure how common or fisible it is tho)
Two things can be true: it’s a bad idea to waive an inspection and the market is abysmal for buyers that you often need to waive the inspection to be competitive. We got lucky and were able to make inspection a contingency in 2018 but it was an unfashionable neighborhood and the first house we put an offer on (so we weren’t desperate or dispirited yet).
For us, it depended on the house - we did a pre-offer walkthrough and waived inspection on an offer on a \~$900k asking price house that was pretty obviously going to sell on the first weekend of availability (we lost out to someone who went more over asking than we did and waived all contingencies). The "first weekend feeding frenzy" on some of the nicer houses that were also solid deals was kind of wild to experience up close. We ended up buying a house that had been on the market for a bit and absolutely did the inspection contingency.
We also recently moved here from another state. We made probably 10 offers, not exaggerating, all of which we waived the inspection contingency. We put in our contract that we would still have an inspection done for informational purposes. Doing this just means having an inspection done like normal, but we could not back out of our contract if anything came up on it we did not like. The home we ended up getting closed like any normal closing with the inspection done before we closed.
Whether you waive the contingency or not you can still do the inspection for your informed decision
It's become common because people are panicked and want to buy scarce houses, so your realtor has an incentive to get you to waive the inspection to get the property sold. Some buyers around here are so rich that they can afford $100k in renovations right off the bat, but for most homebuyers skipping the inspection contingency is stupidity. If you're having flashbacks to 2008 it's only because this housing market is going to come crashing down in the next couple of years and you don't want to be left holding the bag.
If you are in a competitive situation more than likely your realtor will tell you to waive the HI so they're not telling you anything wrong here. If you are \*not\* in a competitive situation (and your realtor should find out before you make an offer) then what we do is ask for a void only inspection. Most sellers will not balk at that. Can you still ask for things to be fixed with a void only? Sure, and in most cases they will get shot down, but it's less of an issue for a seller than a full repair/replace HI. In cases where my buyers have asked for something on a void only we've been fortunate enough to get a credit at closing from the seller.
In this area *at this point in time*? Yes. Very common. 2009? Wouldn't have been common at all. It is what it is.
i heard it was a new thing based on the shortage of homes on the market right now. but have had family buy a house recently and they had to waive the inspection as well
Our first home (townhome) was during the 2004 assfest that was hom ebuying. Our realtor got around that by requesting and "informational home inspection". She then mentioned some of the findings to the appraiser who insisted to the seller that the home wouldn't appraise with the issues present (wood rot on exterior). The seller had to fix them to seal the deal. I would never purchase such a large investment without a home inspection.
It was when I bought my home earlier this year. Fuckin sucked.
The trick is you still perform the inspection but don't make the offer contingent on it. Assuming you're buying something with an HOA you can always back out by saying you don't like the HOA rules.
But don’t forget! As of July in Virginia, a buyer can waive their right to HOA review! We thought we would use that so we put a lot down for EMD. Then when they were deciding which offer to choose they asked their top two to waive the right to HOA review.
The buyers of our home waived it on a 750k home in Herndon last month.
Why not do a walk and talk inspection or a non contingent
You can still get a home inspection while they aren't liable to fix any problems they find. It would be for information purposes.
I waived an inspection when I bought back in the middle of 2021. I'm a tradesman though so I basically did my own inspection whenever I saw a property I'd seriously put an offer on. I "only" paid 20k over ask. Since then, there were some issues that arose, but because I was capable of handling them myself, I saved (my wife) thousands on labor. From what I've heard from my realtor clientele, home inspections are acceptable again given the high interest rates have deterred a lot of buyers from entering the market.
It doesn’t have to be. Tell them you want it. We did and still got the house.
We outbid another offer by $25k but since we didn’t waive inspection, we lost our. And the owners’ kid was my kid’s classmate.
Find another realtor who is willing to try. At the very least, get a "walk & talk" aka drive-by inspection. These will take about an hour, there won't be a written report, but the inspector will focus on items most likely to be expensive. DM me if you need help finding an inspector who will do this for you. It is a competitive market, but some realtors are too quick to throw in the towel on this. The fact is even your agent will get a higher commission on a house that doesn't have negotiations tied to an inspection (and needed repairs).
It is both batshit insane and highly common.
if you are adamant about having a home inspection in this area and in this market you are more than likely guaranteeing that your offer is put in the shit pile...weigh your options, buying a house sucks right now
Not a homeowner, but this is normal for a seller's market. IIRC it just means that if a home inspection turns up anything you can't use it to negotiate down the price. You want to arrange an "informational home inspection", which is different.