More buyers waive the home inspection to get the deal done

With buyers facing increased competition for what few properties are on the market, some are choosing to waive the home inspection.

But while waiving the property inspection always used to be about making an offer more enticing and stand out in a bidding war, these days that’s not always the reason why buyers are offering it.

The problem now is that home inspectors are in such high demand in some parts of the country that some are already booked up for weeks ahead. With buyers having a contract in place that only gives them seven days to get an inspection completed, some are choosing to waive it in order to get the deal done, but professionals say that it could prove to be a costly mistake.

Realtor.com highlighted the problem of overbooked home inspectors in a recent article. It says the high demand has resulted from restrictions in place from March to May, when most states didn’t allow inspections due to stay-at-home restrictions put in place to control COVID-19. Home inspections have resumed in almost every state, but the pent-up demand and busy housing markets mean there’s a backlog that inspectors have been unable to get through.

Of course, there are some buyers who’re still choosing to waive the home inspection in order to try and make their offer more appealing to a seller, especially in the hottest housing markets. In June, around 20% of successful bids submitted by Redfin real estate agents in the U.S.’s largest markets waived the inspection contingency, for example.

Still, experts say that waiving a home inspection can turn out to be very expensive.

It is “a few hundred dollars for your peace of mind”, said Jean Rosalia, a residential and commercial real estate professional based in Virginia Beach, Virginia. “As opposed to maybe tens of thousands of dollars down the road for something that you could not detect on your own.”