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How Plumbing Can Make or Break a Listing

Written by Posted On Tuesday, 14 February 2017 18:13

Selling a house is hard enough as it is, but when that listing has a plumbing problem you can pretty much bet that it will be pretty much impossible to sell. The reasons for this are because plumbing problems are so expensive to fix, and if the seller is unwilling or unable to pay for the replacements or repairs of the plumbing system you'll have to at the very least give an extremely reasonable price on the home just to make it the least bit appealing.

So as professional plumbers we are here to help all of the real estate agents out who are having these types of problems, and also let them know that there are a bunch of ways in which they can not only make a plumbing problem solved, but also help make the plumbing in a listing an added feature to the home to actually help it sell the house.

For several reasons you can imagine that good, modern plumbing should be at least mentioned during a showing or open house, and that's especially the case if the listing is an older home because so many potential buyers see older homes as potential plumbing hazards, and rightfully so. Many times plumbing is just deemed as a standard utility of any home, because it is, but that doesn't mean that brand new plumbing systems shouldn't be featured as a part of what makes a house worth buying. 

On the other hand if you have a listing that actually does have a plumbing problem then you might be in a little bit of trouble like we mentioned earlier. What a realtor should do in this type of situation is be honest to the potential buyer about the plumbing problem and let them know when it's going to be fixed or how much it would cost them overall to fix it. If this information is unknown you can pretty much bet that the buyer won't be interested in the house unless it is a really special property, which might be the case. 

It's always hard to tell when a plumbing problem has gone over the edge, and for the most part we know that real estate agents aren't experts in plumbing and that it can be hard to distinguish when a home has a plumbing problem. A lot of times a listing will go under contract only to be put on hold when the inspector comes to check out the pipes and plumbing systems. Although it is unseen plumbing is one of the most important aspects of how a home functions, and in many ways you can say that the plumbing of a house is like the internal organs and body system of a home just like a human body. Even if a house is extremely beautiful on the outside (including the interior) that doesn't necessarily mean that the house is beautiful on the inside (plumbing).

So it's about time that the real estate community starts taking more action towards the plumbing of listings and make it one of their top priorities towards checking out and evaluating before any open houses or showings so that you the realtor aren't seen as liable for not knowing about any of these issues, because as we've seen so many times in the past a lot of sellers will try to get away with selling their homes with plumbing problems that might be unnoticeable until someone starts living in the house full-time.

Don't get fooled by these tricks, and be smart. Make sure you're checking out the plumbing by professionals very thoroughly on all of your listings, and you'll be very happy that you did so the day you find out one of your sellers are trying to get away from a house with plumbing problems unscathed. 

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Joseph Wirth

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