The inspection negotiation

More deals die here than anywhere else in the transaction. Not at offer, not at appraisal — in the two weeks after the inspector files a report.

Understanding what is actually happening makes it survivable.

What the report is

A general home inspection on a forty-year-old Connecticut house produces a long document. That is normal and it is not a verdict.

Inspectors are paid to find and record everything. A missing GFCI outlet, a window that sticks, grading that slopes toward the foundation, a water heater approaching the end of its life, a hairline crack in the basement slab. All of it goes in, often with photographs and often in cautionary language.

A thirty-page report on an older house means the inspector did their job. It does not mean the house is in trouble.

What the buyer is actually asking for

When the request comes back, it falls into one of three categories, and reading which one you are in determines your response.

A genuine concern. Active roof leak, failed heating system, structural movement, unsafe electrical, a septic issue. These are real, they will show up again with the next buyer, and they have to be dealt with.

A list. Thirty items transcribed from the report with no prioritisation, often assembled by a nervous first-time buyer. Usually the response is to address the three that matter and decline the rest, with a short explanation.

A second negotiation. A large credit request bearing little relationship to the findings. This is a buyer who has decided they overpaid, or who found something else, and is using the inspection as a lever.

The third one is the dangerous one, and the tell is the gap between the severity of the findings and the size of the ask.

Repairs versus credits

Given the choice, a credit is usually cleaner for everyone.

Doing the work yourself means scheduling contractors inside a two-week window, at a price you are not negotiating hard on because you are in a hurry, to a standard the buyer will inspect again at walkthrough. Then they are unhappy with the finish.

A credit ends the conversation. The buyer handles it after closing, to their own taste, and you move on.

Two exceptions. Lender-required repairs — some loan types will not fund with certain conditions outstanding — have to actually be done. And occasionally a genuinely small fix is cheaper than the credit the buyer wants for it.

What to hold firm on

Cosmetic items. Scuffed paint, a cracked tile, a worn carpet. These were visible when they offered.

Items disclosed before the offer. If you told them the roof is fifteen years old and they offered anyway, the roof's age is not a new discovery.

Normal wear on an older house. A 1965 house has 1965 house characteristics and the price already reflected that.

End-of-life systems that still work. A twelve-year-old water heater is a twelve-year-old water heater. It is not broken.

What to concede quickly

Anything genuinely unsafe. Anything structural. Anything actively leaking. Anything that will fail the next inspection too — because if this buyer walks, you are doing this again with the next one, and now you have a disclosure obligation about what the first inspector found.

That last point is the one sellers underweight. A problem you refuse to fix does not go away when the buyer does.

The strategic question

Before responding, work out how replaceable this buyer is.

If you had three offers and the house has been live eleven days, you have room. If you have been on the market ninety days and this is your first offer, you have less, and pretending otherwise costs more than the credit would have.

That is not capitulation. That is knowing your position before you negotiate, which is the whole job.

Where experience earns its keep

Having worked a great many transactions where condition was the central issue — including years of institutional disposition work where every property had a report and a deadline — the pattern recognition matters. Knowing which findings are genuinely expensive and which read worse than they are, knowing roughly what a repair costs before a contractor quotes it, and knowing the difference between a nervous buyer and one who is building an exit.

If you are heading into a listing on an older house and want to know what the report is likely to say before the buyer's inspector writes it, we will walk it with you first. It is a lot easier to handle a finding you were expecting.

Zack DeCaro is a licensed real estate broker in Connecticut and Massachusetts with Property Works New England in Rocky Hill.