A Pre-listing Inspection, isn’t the home inspection done after the offer is made? Many buyers do order a home inspection, but now they have the cards when it comes to negotiations. If a seller orders a pre-listing inspection, they have the benefit of transparency. Whether the seller is looking for items they can fix before listing their home or items to list on the disclosure, like the age of major systems or the remaining life in the roof, a pre-listing can be beneficial.
Tune in to this week’s KFGO Morning Crew podcast with Lars Knobloch of Nordic Inspections. Lars explains how a Pre-Listing Inspection can benefit a seller, especially if they plan to list this winter.
Schedule a professional home inspection with Nordic Inspections. Book on our website or call us today at 701.566.1446 ext. 0
Should You Get A Pre-Listing Home Inspection?
Nov 10, 2026
(0:00) Good morning, it’s 6.38. The Morning Crew, Doug, (0:04) Robbie, and our friend Lars Knobloch from Nordisk Inspections. Good morning, Lars. (0:08) Good morning.I know there are people that have been like buying a home and waiving the home (0:15) inspection. I know there’s people that might think, okay, you know what, I might, once we get (0:20) past Christmas in January, I think I’m going to sell the house. How, how can you help people out (0:26) in those situations, Lars? I think, yeah, you, first off, I want to say there’s, there are (0:33) stats now that 84% of any buyer have a, have a home inspection.84%? 84%. So most inspections, (0:41) most houses being sold will be inspected. And for any of those out there that, you know, (0:48) bought a house this year or last year without having an inspection, there still might be (0:54) things lurking around in your house that you are not aware of yet.And some of that might show (1:01) itself when there’s a significant temperature difference, for example. Sure. So it’s, yeah, (1:09) it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to, to hire us to come out and do a homeowner’s inspection (1:16) of your house.And we have been doing some of those to people that didn’t want to have it (1:22) done when they bought it because they felt like their offer was a greater offer without the (1:27) inspection contingency. We were just talking about this last night, actually, Lars, is that (1:32) maybe somebody bought a house in July in the middle of the drought and it didn’t rain for six (1:37) weeks and everything is dry. Now the rain came back and you’ve got ground starting to shift.(1:41) So there’s things that may have changed in the three months since you bought your house. (1:44) Absolutely. Things are changing constantly.And we have had like extreme weather in terms of, (1:49) you know, drought and now with all the rain. So that is definitely something to consider. (1:57) Also for anyone, as you mentioned, anyone that is, you know, maybe have their house listed for sale (2:02) or, or considering to just put their house on the market over the winter, the pending sales for (2:11) October were down with almost 17% from last October.I saw stats now locally that October (2:23) had 25%, so 25% less homes in our region. So having a pre-listing inspection would be something (2:33) that will make your house stand out. I think we do inspections in the winter too, and we see (2:40) buyers are really, they’re a lot more anxious about buying a house in the winter because we (2:45) can’t really comment much about their roof, their grounds, a lot of the stuff on the outside.(2:51) There’s a lot of things we can’t do. We can’t operate the AC, right? There’s many things we (2:56) can’t do in the winter that we can’t even provide information to the buyers about. So like if you (3:00) are being proactive right now as someone having a house listed for sale or thinking about putting (3:08) it on the market over the next four or five months, then having us come out and do a pre-listing (3:14) inspection for you will help you identify, you know, the good things with your house and the (3:18) things that you need to address.The condition of the roof and you know, the grounds are in the (3:23) grating and everything around on the house that can’t be seen later will make a buyer feel better. (3:28) And you know, it’s going towards a market now where buyers are, they’re more worried. (3:40) About 20% of buyers waive the inspection contingency.So that means 80% is negotiating (3:47) with the seller about something. So that’s a real number. So like how can you as a seller, (3:58) you know, take advantage of that? I think it’s to have the knowledge of the condition of the house (4:02) before the buyer does.So you can address it your own way or maybe even disclose it. (4:09) Or get it fixed so that you can get the most bang for your buck. (4:13) Absolutely.And the thing is that what would cause catching the buyers over and over again is that (4:20) they get surprised about something or something. And they think you’re hiding it then. (4:24) Yes.They think you’re hiding it. And why didn’t you disclose it? But maybe you didn’t remember. (4:29) Maybe you’re selling your house is stressful and a lot of things going on.Maybe you forgot (4:33) to put this on your property disclosure statement. So like the buyers don’t want to be surprised. (4:41) And yet they are getting surprised at every single inspection.So like how about, you know, (4:47) giving them all about all the information up front and they won’t have that big reaction to (4:53) something. They will be more okay with it. And that’s how it is in life too.You know, you always (4:57) set expectations with people. They’re more okay with the outcome. Right.Lars Knobloch, Nordic (5:03) Inspections, joining the KF General Morning Crew. What I’m hearing is whoever decides to get the (5:08) home inspection, whether it’s the buyer or the seller, probably has an advantage by doing that. (5:13) I always said that.Whoever has inspection in their hand is the one that has the advantage (5:18) because they can control the outcome. They can be proactive and fix things or disclose things (5:25) and prevent that big reaction happening when someone is surprised. And I can see where a (5:30) homeowner might be dreading it.Like if they are going to sell their house, because then they’re (5:34) going to be like, oh, great. Now I got way more than I ever thought I was going to have to do. (5:38) But, you know, it’s going to be better for you in the long run.Yeah. And many have this mentality (5:44) too. Like, why should I be paying for the inspection? I’m not the one buying the house, (5:47) but there’s plenty of examples with sellers that we have done inspections for that we have (5:53) helped through the process.And we made the sale way easier because of some fears they had about (5:59) their house that actually wasn’t anything to be worried about. But it could also have been (6:03) something that their buyer could have been worried about. But we addressed that with them (6:08) and the seller could share their reports with them and take the sting out of that.Right. (6:13) So if they say, yeah, well, I don’t know about that roof, the seller can say, well, actually, (6:18) we had it, you know, inspected and here’s where the roof is at. Yeah.Inspector said there’s (6:23) probably at least 10 more years. Sure. Yeah.Sure. So the thing with this too now is that, (6:29) you know, the market is slow. It’s going to get even slower as we get into December, January, (6:34) February.And so you’re going to have all kinds of time to do this. I know Christmas is coming up (6:38) and all of that, but you will have time. Nobody’s going to rush you.You can get multiple bids if (6:44) there’s any major repairs and kind of get your house ready, make it stand out over all the other (6:50) houses that are listed because buyers are picky now and they will probably rather go with something (6:57) safer that they know the conditional rather than something that’s more of an unknown. And they (7:02) don’t even know if they can get the information because it’s going to be covered on the snow. (7:06) Well, and I think with interest rates, everybody are so nervous, nervous about that to begin with.(7:11) Now you buy a house and you know, your money’s tight to begin with. And now you’ve got to buy (7:15) a house that you’ve got to do all this fixing up on. That’s that’s going to make a buyer very (7:19) nervous.That is exactly it. And the rates have actually been coming down ever so slightly again. (7:24) So it’s actually on its way down again.So hopefully it will continue that way. (7:29) And you offer some cutting edge services. You have thermal imaging, your mold detection, (7:35) your radon detection.I mean, this is this is something that is top line. (7:39) I mean, we have been trying to take our inspections to the next level. We don’t (7:43) necessarily use all of these services at every single house.It’s an optional service that you (7:47) have to pay for. But we’ve been trying to take the home inspection to the next level for the (7:55) homeowners and for the homebuyers so that, you know, we can discover more stuff than maybe (8:01) wasn’t discovered in the past because we didn’t have the equipment and the tools for it. (8:06) But if someone wants to get ahead of the game from mold detection to thermal imaging to radon, (8:10) you can have a check this box, this box, this box.And I mean, that definitely (8:14) gives their property a gold star of approval, too. (8:17) Well, that’s the thing. I mean, if your house testing low for radon and there is some mold (8:21) testing going on and everything looks great, that is really assuring for someone that maybe has, (8:26) you know, fears about mold and maybe underlying health problems, stuff like that.(8:30) Do you find as a home inspector that more and more people selling are getting the home inspected (8:36) versus the buying? (8:37) We see more and more people like sellers having their inspection done. We’ve seen more. I don’t (8:43) think we ever have had more inspections done for existing homeowners as we have this year.(8:50) Sure. (8:51) And this is a combination between the fact that they didn’t, some didn’t have an inspection when (8:56) they bought it because that’s how the market was at the time. To get a house, you had to wait the (9:00) inspection.Otherwise, the seller maybe, you know, wasn’t as easy to deal with. (9:05) Well, which which makes sense, though, because if you if you passed or if you did not take the (9:11) home inspection when you bought your home, you get that done this fall. Lars Knobloch might say, (9:15) you know, you’ve got some drainage issues.You might be OK going into winter, but next spring (9:19) you might have some major issues that are going to cost you lots and lots of money. (9:23) It happens every spring. (9:25) Interesting.Interesting. (9:27) The process, if someone is listening and they’re thinking, OK, you know what? After Christmas, (9:31) we’re going to sell our home. We’re going to buy a home.If they want to get a home inspection done, (9:37) how how quickly does that happen between calling and setting up an appointment and (9:42) then getting all the paperwork through? (9:44) It depends on the market. But considering you’re asking about this winter specific, (9:49) probably within days because we’re not booking out, you know, a couple of weeks. (9:53) You want to get it done.(9:54) Yeah. We don’t book out in a couple of weeks, but we like as we maybe do in the summer because it (9:59) is slower. So we get things done quickly and we also have a lot of capacity.We have four, (10:06) five licensed home inspectors so that we we double up on our inspections with two inspectors. (10:11) And can we request just Lars? (10:15) It’s been a while since I’ve actually done an inspection myself. (10:18) Well, what the heck, Lars? (10:20) But I do swing by upon request.(10:23) So I’m rusty, like I’m rusty, like my guys, the inspectors in my company are (10:29) way more in it than I am. I yeah. Don’t trust me.(10:33) You’re just the pretty face. (10:34) I’m just all talk. (10:35) If someone does want to get scheduled, if they’ve got questions about some of the (10:39) services that you provide, Lars Knoblauch, how can they get on your project list? (10:43) You can go to our website, nordiccompaniesinc.com. There’s a really cool map there, (10:47) by the way, on the front page, you can see a map of every single house we have inspected (10:50) in our region and you can zoom in.You can actually click on every single house to see (10:54) the picture we took at the time. Anyway, there’s also a schedule your inspection (10:59) button at the top right corner and you can go up there and see our availability (11:02) and schedule your inspection there. (11:04) Sounds great.Thanks so much, Lars Knoblauch, Nordic Inspections.