Thinking about selling your home in the near future? If you are, and your roof needs repair or replacement, we recommend that you take care of those repairs before you put the house on the market.

Not only will it be one less thing for you to worry about, it can also put you in a stronger negotiating position—and sometimes, it can even save the sale.

The sale that fell through

Sellers, when they find out that they need a repair or replacement on their roof, often decide to wait until they get an offer before making the repair. That can, however, backfire.

A realtor for a buyer called us to come inspect the flat roof of a house that they wanted to buy. Unbeknownst to the realtor, their client—the buyer—also arranged to have another roofer come inspect the roof. Two roofing companies showed up on the day of inspection.

That’s typically not a problem. However, the buyer’s roofer didn’t have much experience with flat roofs. Our roof inspector, with more than two decades of experience with flat roofs, assessed that this roof needed about $1500 in repairs. The other roofer, however, thought that the entire roof needed to be replaced. The buyer got spooked, and backed out of the sale.

If the seller had taken care of the repair before putting the house on the market, it likely wouldn’t have been an issue at all.

Bargaining chip

Repairing your roof before it goes on the market can enhance your negotiation position. “New Roof” looks good to a buyer. “Needs Work” makes buyers wary. It also gives them ammunition to counter-offer for less.

One less stress

Imagine all the moving parts you have to deal with during the sale of a home. Walk-throughs, inspections, negotiating, packing, and then finally actually moving. All under a time constraint.

Do you really want to coordinate with a roofing crew and have them in—and on—your house while you’re trying to get everything else done?

Taking care of it before going to market will help preserve some of your sanity during the craziness of a move.