Home inspection professionals are trained to spot problems and evaluate a home’s overall condition. Home inspectors will do their best to be ethical and thorough. However, they are also still human, and as a result, sometimes details escape their attention. 

If you’re making a significant investment in a home, there’s no reason you have to leave 100% of the inspection up to someone else. There are areas you can review for yourself (or hire an outside party to review).

Before you sign off on a house, don’t neglect to review these commonly overlooked areas:

Maintaining indoor air quality is an extremely important, but often overlooked, component of living happily in your home. It’s an invisible problem, but the costs can add up— from high energy bills to unpleasant health issues.

If you love your home and plan to live it in through your retirement years, you’ll want to be sure it’s safe for you as you face some of those little challenges aging presents. Assess your home and see if there are any changes you may need to make. Doing so will not only reduce the risk of injury, but it will also give your loved ones peace-of-mind, especially if you live alone.

Part of the financial power of homeownership resides in your home’s equity. Unlike rent, which goes into a landlord’s pocket, the equity you build in your home can be a useful financial tool when the time is right. Home equity is defined as, “a homeowner’s unencumbered interest in their real property—that is, the difference between the home’s fair market value and the outstanding balance of all liens on the property.” (Source: Wikipedia)

When inventory is tight and a market heats up, sellers often dream of finding themselves in a multiple offer situation. In a multiple offer situation, more than one potential buyer submits a written offer on the home. With multiple offers on a property, the listing agent can then try and “shop the top offer” in order to try and get the best deal possible for their client.

If you live in a hot market, how do you structure your listing in such a way that you get the best possible offers in a multiple offer situation?

The quality of schools is a contributing factor for anyone buying a home. More than half of all homebuyers with children under 18 years of age rate the quality of the local school district as a significant factor influencing their choice of a neighborhood. (Source: “Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers” from the National Association of Realtors). Even if you don’t have kids yourself, your next buyer might, and they might base their decision to buy on the school district which serves your home.

Why is staging your home to sell a critical step to take? Much like cleaning up a home’s curb appeal to appeal to buyers, staging can position your house to sell faster and for a higher price than it might otherwise. By staging, you will present your home in the best light. 

There are a couple of vital keys to remember when staging.  

It is hard to miss all of the Flip/House Make-Over shows on television. Some of the transformations are incredible, but

some of the changes seem ‘too good to be true.’ Okay, maybe they are ‘true,’ but are the make-overs good enough to last long-term?

Discovering an error on your credit history can be a rude surprise when you’re attempting to get pre-approved for a mortgage. Though most people don’t think about the details of their credit report until the need to secure a loan, it’s a good idea to check your report for inaccuracies periodically.  It is easy to do, each of the nationwide credit reporting companies, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, are required to provide you with a free copy of your credit report, at your request, once every 12 months.

When preparing your home for sale, it is important to remove 'issues' that can make a buyer think twice about your asking price.  Below is are some valuable repairs that can be done to your home that will help you sell your home faster and for more money.