| Knowledge? Tomatoes are fruit.
Wisdom? You don’t put tomatoes in fruit salad.
I thought of tomato usage when a client recently submitted an Offer to Purchase. The home listing sheet read, “Acknowledge receipt of the Pre-Inspection (PI) in all Offers.” The agent also wanted the PI initialed as received. It gets worse.
A PI is ordered and paid for by the seller. This means the seller is the client, not you, which means you may have no standing to sue a bad inspector who prepared a poor PI.
Many homebuyers have some housing knowledge but lack housing wisdom. They don’t know not to accept the PI (tomatoes) as part of their Offer (fruit salad).
 You need your own inspection. Why? Accepting a PI at face value may cost you. I don’t think it’s a matter of dishonesty, I think it’s fiduciary. Where does loyalty lie? (No pun intended.) Here’s a recent example:
Listing Agent: “I see you have an inspection contingency in your Offer. Did you see the Pre-Inspection?”
Homebuyer Assoc.: “Do people not get their own inspection?”
Listing Agent: “Oh yes, all the time in this competitive market.”
You may think the Pre-Inspection request/requirement is innocent and helpful. Me? The agent was selling us/our client on accepting the PI. The agent was putting tomatoes in fruit salad. Technically it was a home inspection, it just wasn’t a home inspection done for our client. It was prepared for the seller.
If you aren’t working with Homebuyer Associates and find yourself in this situation, check with a real lawyer not just someone (me) who only took the law school admission test.
I’ll not claim we make a better fruit salad than other agents. I will claim we are different from other agents and make our fruit salad differently.
From the PI report, basement condition:
Type: Concrete block. Appears intact, appears functional.
Cracks: Common fractures. No structurally significant cracking evident.
Water: Any water stains and materials should be investigated for extent of water intrusion. Ask owner for history and cause of staining.
Listing agent: Please see email that follows from the Pre-Inspector. Based on visible conditions, the staining appears consistent with historic moisture rather than an active issue.
Did the buyer have a comment on what the inspector wrote? Interesting your inspector is calling out a drain tile test and PI made no mention.
Homebuyer Assoc: Why would a seller’s PI carry any more weight than our client’s inspection? What am I missing?
 Words matter. Note the PI uses the word “appears” twice in his basement comments. Appears may be fine when selling because the seller will be gone. The buyer remains.
The tomato is being sold as fruit to be used in a fruit salad. Buy the home and accept the PI? Many buyers and agents might accept the selling of the PI by the listing agent. That would be a mistake.
(Aside, what if the “buyer agent” was a member of the team selling the home?)
Homebuyer Associates doesn’t make fruit salad with tomatoes. Why?
1. When the PI is ordered by the seller, acknowledging it by the buyer could be used to argue the buyer was aware of undisclosed defects weakening the buyer’s ability to request repairs.
2. Our buyer’s inspection noted, The amount of water staining around the joint where the floor meets the foundation wall indicates that the drain tile system may not be working. A foundation engineer was brought in.
Words matter part 2. The PI said appears. Our client’s inspector used the word indicates. I place the value of the words at somewhere between $12,000 – $15,000.
3. Based on the engineer’s report, drain tile had to be installed at a cost of $15,000, a cost paid by the seller. In 2 other client purchases with seller PIs which we did not accept, sellers paid $12,000 and $14,000 respectively for drain tile installation. (A drain tile fix is a good fix for an older home and is based on linear feet, ergo the cost differences.)
I like basketball. Played it and coached it at the high school and college level. My wife used to say I started my business so I could afford to coach. I no longer coach. I also ran a basketball academy for a number of years with the tagline:
 If you want some famous coach with lots of kids, we’re not it. The goal was to teach fundamentals.
And so it is with Homebuyer Associates.
If you want some famous real estate firm with lots of agents, we’re not it. The goal is to educate buyers on the fundamentals of homebuying which means you won’t find tomatoes in your fruit salad if you work with us.
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Selling? We don’t list homes for sale so contact us for an objective, independent opinion on price and the process of selling in today’s market.
We’ll give you the inside scoop on the good and bad practices in real estate.
Having helped over 1,800 homebuyers you learn a lot about the selling side. The goal: Make educated and informed decisions.
Thanks for reading,
Michael D. Holloway
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