WHAT IS DEFERRED MAINTENANCE?

For many of us, the quality of life in our home isn’t really impacted all that much by rips in window screens or cracks appearing in our wood decks because they haven’t been oiled in a couple of years. We’re still able to open the windows, and we’re still outside enjoying the barbecue grill during the summer. Faded and chipped paint, dated bathrooms and kitchen, worn rugs, aged tile or wood flooring aren’t bothering us at all in our everyday lives. Life goes on, and in general it’s pretty good.

Then we come to the point where we’re ready to sell our home. We do our research and rely on websites that gives us a false sense of the value of our home, we're happy, we list with a real estate agent, and we wait for that purchase contract. We feel really lucky because a buyer comes along and we are able to negotiate a purchase price only 5% below our asking, within our margin of error. Everything is rosy, and we’re shopping for our new home while the sale deal is moving along.

The home inspector issues their report to the buyers, and suddenly this long document full of buyer demands hits the table. We thought this was a done deal, but it is far from it. The report turned up a dozen or more pages of things like:

• Rips in window screens

• Flower beds contacting stucco at ground level causing risk of moisture penetration

• The inspector recommends total replacement of the wood deck due to cracking and dryness from lack of regular oiling

• Gouges in walls where our doors have hit sheetrock because we have no doorstops

• Paint in multiple rooms is marred

• There’s more, but you’re getting the picture

Now reality sets in, our homes value isn't what we thought it was. We had planned on a $75,000 cash takeaway from the closing table. Now we’re looking at considerably less. The buyer is asking for a credit on the selling price so they can correct the problems. Or, they’re requiring that we correct them before closing. Either way, this wasn’t in our game plan.

The lesson here is that you can defer maintenance on your home, but when you decide to sell it can make a significant impact on your return.