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Re: Do you provide estimated cost of repairs in your report?
As Joe B. said, and at least in the areas where I inspected, cost 'guesstimates' (do not have to be "estimates") are the norm, and if you try to do home inspections without providing cost guesstimates, you will soon find yourself with no business.
The norm (down here) is to provide the guesstimates as the norm (down here) is not to get the seller to fix anything, that just makes the entire deal more complicated and take longer to complete, and then you have to worry about re-inspections and if the work was done correctly or not - big snake pit to get into, so ... down here ... the norm is to give guesstimates and for the buyer and seller to negotiate on how many $$$$ the seller gives the buyer at closing.
The buyer, never getting it all anyway, really has little room to complain that something 'cost more' (and they never complain when something 'cost less') than guesstimated by the HI - they (the buyer) made the negotiations with the seller and settled for some agreeable (to the buyer and the seller) amount of $$$$$.
All of the above, though, is based on the HI providing "realistic" guesstimates and not trying to pump them up for the buyer nor trying to knock them down for the seller. I do suspect, though, that is an HI said it would only cost $500 to replace a roof and the buyer settled for $400, then found out that it actually cost $8,000 to replace the roof, that the HI would be sued, not because they 'guess wrong', but because of the flagrant fraud they committed giving a number they knew would not in any way cover for the work.
I've seen some HIs who intentionally err on the low side for the agent and the seller (to get more work from the agent) and some HIs who err on the high side to get more $$$ for the client, but the HIs who give the 'closest-to-realistic' guesstimates are held in higher respect.
There are times when the HI 'just does not know', because the work could be to much more than expected, or so little, or the work is so unusual ... in those cases, it is best for the HI to say '$$$$ unknown - get an estimate from ... ' or however they want to address it.
As Joe B. said, it does not take long to get a good feel for those guesstimates, and the more you do them the easier they are to spit out in your report - you do not need to look up and make "estimates", that threads on dangerous ground if you are not a licensed contractor to make those "estimates".
Giving guesstimates really works best for your buyer, they get a feel for the $$$ needed for the repairs, and they do not have to fight over what gets repaired by the seller, only 'give me this much money'.
Also, guesstimates goes right along with the real estate contract (which we are not part of) in that those contracts do not require the seller to "fix things" only to "spend $X" to fix things. Thus, the contract is about how many $$ the seller is obligated to give to the buyer, and the information you give your client is about $$ they need to make those repairs which the seller said where okie-dokie but were not, which helps the buyer get those $$ from the seller.
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