Sellers - Get the Bad News First

If you are putting your home up for sale, should you consider having your own building inspection? The answer is "Yes."
Once a buyer makes an offer and you accept it, you have a contract. One of the most common conditions of that contract is, "offer contingent upon satisfactory building inspection." The buyer is going to have a professional home inspector go through your house to make sure there are not any hidden problems.
The last thing that you want is to have your deal fall through because of an unknown problem uncovered by the buyer’s building inspector. This is especially true if it is a minor problem and could easily have been repaired ahead of time -- if only you had known about it.
When the buyer’s inspector finds a problem, it can throw a monkey wrench into the works. The buyer will ask you to fix the problems found by their inspector – or no deal. If you do not want to fix the problems, they will ask for a reduction in price or a cash credit at closing – or no deal. In some cases, they buyer may even cancel the purchase entirely, not giving you a chance to make any corrections.
If the buyer cancels the purchase, where does that leave you? It leaves you with a house that you will have to put back on the market – a house that has been stigmatized. Future potential buyers and their Realtors will always wonder, "What happened with that first deal?".