When you’re ready to sell, and start thinking about everything wrong with your house, you might consider repairs. Because you want to get the most out of your house, your desire to sell your home for a higher price may motivate you to make those repairs on your own to save money. At the same time, you also need to remember, that when you are selling, the “seller’s disclosure form” awaits, and you will need to advise the potential new owners of all that is wrong or face possible legal and financial consequences down the road. So if you’d like to avoid costly mistakes and potentially life-threatening situations, it may be worth avoiding these repairs when selling your house and instead hire a professional to get the job done right.
Additionally, should something go wrong, your insurance company might not cover the damage should you make the repairs yourself or hire a local handyperson. Therefore, before any work proceeds, reviewing your policy and considering the value of hiring a professional and having a paper trail for your insurance adjuster is essential.
Read on to discover four major repairs to avoid when selling your house.
Electrical
If you are in an older home where not all of the switches work right or the lights flicker, this might be a minor inconvenience for you but could indicate major issues for a potential buyer. And when they ask you on the seller’s disclosure what type of wiring, marking any of the options, like knob and tube, can scare a potential buyer because rewiring a house can be costly.
While changing a light switch to deal with the flicker might be perfectly safe, when done correctly, significant electrical issues are top on our list of repairs to avoid doing on your own when selling your house for a good reason; it’s one of the most dangerous and could cost someone their life. In addition, the slightest error in the installment could potentially cause a fire. So, should you have old and faulty wiring, PLEASE, hire a professional to remedy the situation. When we make repairs and renovate a home, we always hire a licensed electrician to deal with all those wires.
Plumbing
Drippy faucets and running toilets can cost a homeowner $1000 in wasted water over time. Having these in our house when potential buyers walk through just causes dollar signs to be added to the potential repairs list. So you might want to get those fixed. But unless you “know-how” to change out that faucet or repair that leak, hire a professional.
Besides the common issues with drain clogs, you should avoid plumbing repairs when selling your house. Not only is there a severe threat of damage to your home from a newly formed fountain spewing out of your kitchen pipes or upstairs plumbing soaking through the ceiling, but you’ll also end up paying the plumber to repair the damage to the plumbing. Plus you’ll need to hire a few other contractors to make repairs from all the water damage.
Foundation
We have over the years seen many instances in foundations where handy homeowners have made an attempt to address foundation issues and totally made the problem worse. Cracks in basement walls filled with that expanding spray foam that did nothing to stop water leaking in and make the crack and the problem worse. Homeowners that have spent $1000s in the wrong repairs, and covering up the problem, only for us to have to take out all that work and do it over correctly.
Without exception, you should hire a professional to make any foundation repairs when selling your house because the foundation upon which the home sits is integral to the structural stability of the building. A mistake in making a foundation repair could take months or years to finally reveal itself, usually when it’s much too late to make a simple fix. While it may appear to be just a tiny crack to you, the eyes of an expert are always required, along with specialized equipment and processes to protect your home from extreme damage.
Roof
While it may appear to be a simple matter of hammering in a few shingles, you shouldn’t attempt roofing repairs when selling your house. Regrettably, it is easy to make simple mistakes working on a roof that can cause heavy structural damage or cause leaks. Often homeowners will attempt to buy leak-stopping miracles at a local hardware store and delay proper repairs, which only adds to the final expense of getting the job done right. Unfortunately, without the appropriate equipment and no knowledge of proper safety protocol, many homeowners have fallen and been seriously injured in accidents while undertaking roof repairs.
Selling directly to us can help you avoid repairs altogether when selling your house in the Kansas City Metro!
The Tuckers save you time; why wait out the repair process before you sell? At kcmoHomeBuyer, we guarantee our closing date, which can be in a matter of a few days or weeks.
[company] saves you money, there is no need to worry about the repairs, we buy houses as-is and pay cash. [company] will make you an offer you’ll agree is fair, detailing what you would profit if you have the repairs made so that you can compare which best suits your circumstances
