When Home Shopping you may come across a home that states “Make an offer subject to inspection.” What does this mean?

When a home is on the market subject to inspection, it means that you will not be able to view the interior of the home until your offer is accepted. For example, this may be the case because the home is currently tenant occupied and they have requested that they don’t want a lot of people coming in to view the property. Another reason which we are seeing quite often right now because of COVID is that sellers don’t want prospective buyers constantly in and out of their home, so they request that only with an accepted offer will they allow people to come in.

Now you may be asking how do I put an offer on a home without seeing it? What if I don’t like it? What if I offered too high and I don’t think it’s worth that? These questions are common and valid. When you write your offer you create a contingency clause known as the “Inspection contingency” for X amount of days (Usually 10-17 days). This allows you to look at the property and schedule the necessary inspections to see if you want to continue the process.

If at any time before the X amount of days written out in the contingency that you do not like the property, you can back out of the deal… No repercussions.

If at any time within the X amount of days you believe you offered too high, you can renegotiate and submit in writing your final offer price. Seller will then choose to accept, counter, or decline. If declined, you can back out of the deal.

Even after X amount of days pass, the contingency is still in place until both parties sign off on the contingencies. This doesn’t mean you can hold it for a long period of time because after X amount of days, the seller can request you to sign off on it or the seller can back out and accept another offer.