If you are buying real estate in Portland and you are not an experienced contractor, odds are you’re going to have a professional inspection on the property you are purchasing. If you are a seller, it is almost guaranteed that even though the sale is “as-is,” you are going to see a repair request during the inspection period from the inspections that the buyer conducted. The request is usually made up of actual repairs, credits towards closing costs or reducing the sale price. The seller is under no obligation to make any concession but the buyer is within their right to walk away from the transaction (and get their earnest money back) during the inspection period. If the buyer does nothing during the inspection period, the period ends and the buyer loses that contingency in the sales agreement.

This is an antidotal list of what we see the most often on inspection reports. Sellers might be advised to check through these prior to listing a property so that they don’t get a laundry list of repairs. They are generally easy things to take care of:

Soil touching siding/wood stacked against siding
Furnace needs cleaning/servicing
Rain gutters clogged/not sloping towards downspouts
Hot water heater not seismically strapped to anything
Wood debris in crawl spaces (usually left by builder)
Moss on roof. This can lead to moisture penetration even though the roof is not leaking. Attics and moisture can equal mold.

This list is by no way exhaustive on the topic but are the things that we see called out frequently on inspection reports.