In my experience these inspectors are going to find things to justify their fees. A lot depends on the building codes where you live. Pex will freeze but it expands and will not burst as bad as copper. Pex can be insulated very easily in the attic if you have room and foam insulation is cheap. You are correct the insulation is measured for the correct amount. A sprinkler head is an easy fix no plumber needed. If it was me I would tell the buyer the house is sold as is where there are no warranties expressed or implied. You could be a good guy and knock off a few dollars for him to deal with. As for me, I would tell him to pay the price agreed upon or I will sell it to someone else.

buddybee said:

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In my experience these inspectors are going to find things to justify their fees. A lot depends on the building codes where you live. Pex will freeze but it expands and will not burst as bad as copper. Pex can be insulated very easily in the attic if you have room and foam insulation is cheap. You are correct the insulation is measured for the correct amount. A sprinkler head is an easy fix no plumber needed. If it was me I would tell the buyer the house is sold as is where there are no warranties expressed or implied. You could be a good guy and knock off a few dollars for him to deal with. As for me, I would tell him to pay the price agreed upon or I will sell it to someone else.

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Yeah, you are free to do what feels comfortable doing or you can knock money off the sales price if you want to. Or you can do nothing at all and tell them to hit the bricks if they don't like that.

Personally, I'd replace the broken sprinkler head and verify it works and doesn't leak. I'd also print some of the insulation rulers on your home printer and staple them up in the attic. No way I'd add gutters or insulated PEX in the attic.

buddybee said:

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In my experience these inspectors are going to find things to justify their fees. A lot depends on the building codes where you live. Pex will freeze but it expands and will not burst as bad as copper. Pex can be insulated very easily in the attic if you have room and foam insulation is cheap. You are correct the insulation is measured for the correct amount. A sprinkler head is an easy fix no plumber needed. If it was me I would tell the buyer the house is sold as is where there are no warranties expressed or implied. You could be a good guy and knock off a few dollars for him to deal with. As for me, I would tell him to pay the price agreed upon or I will sell it to someone else.

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You can stop after your first sentence. Completely agree with you. If you have a realtor get them to negotiate. Most of the time it's just a ploy to lower the price. Buying101

ForeverAg said:

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We just received the buyers inspection report for our place this week. Want to review a few things here to see if I am just completely off base. The home is around 8 years old and is in central Texas.

Items below were marked deficient, and the buyer requested all of these (plus more not written here) to be fixed.
"Rain Diverters or gutters over front porch, back porch and HVAC areas,
(Is this a requirement we are not aware of or a nice to have?)

For Attic area
No insulation certification data sheet
(Why would the inspector not just measure the insulation as oppose to marking this as deficient?)

No rulers or measuring device for insulation
(How is this a thing?)

Waterlines not insulated in attic
(Home is pex tubed, and passed the inspection when we bought the home. Are we really expected to go wrap all of the pex tubing to sell the home or is this strictly if new plumbing is added in the attic?)

In regards to the sprinkler system:

Found a broken sprinkler head which we agree should be fixed. But then marked the entire system deficient suggesting a licensed plumber come out and do a full pressure test.
(Is this a normal inspection request without any evidence at all of a leaking sprinkler system?)

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Always so much inspector hate..... Guess this type of hi is the reason. Inspector of 20 years here. Here's my take

I would offer a couple hundred bucks and be done with it. Or just say no, not doing those repairs. Or pick and choose and say what you will do and not do. Chances are the buyer will still want the house, easy to forget in an emotional transaction that the buyer wants to buy probably as much or more than you want to sell.

When I sold my last house in 2018,they came back with 5 or 6 little nit picky things. I responded that I would fix two of them myself - tub caulk and a fireplace sensor, but not the other things. Sidebar - I had the buyer and inspector on video where the buyer commented he was really concerned that since I was a home inspector I would know how to hide stuff. Geesh, just cannot win. Could it not just be that I know how to take care of my house!?!?

As to the items.

Gutters are optional. Period. Diverter over the ac are pretty standard, but not always. "what do optional mean, man?" (Little Ticket reference)

Insulation. Yes the installer was supposed to post an Informational sheet. Yes there should be markings. But that is install stuff, not TREC SoP stuff. Noting no insulation matters. His comments are stupid. I would ignore.

Plumbing insulation. If you were in Dallas, where I am, I would tell you it is required and none being present is a problem. Central Texas may be different as Texas covers a lot of zones. Never looked in an attic in central Texas. Know my buddy in the Valley has pvc with no insulation and said it was normal when I asked. If it is required in your area, it is a bigger deal I guess. Also check and see if he is saying it is all without insulation or he just saw a few random spots (since this guy appears to like to generalize on systems - typically a cya thing.)

Sprinkler. Replace the broken head, it's like 5 bucks. Ignore the entire system part. As above, that is dumb inspector cya bs.

Another option: determine the cost of these things and tell the buyer you'll have them done for that cost being added to the sale price.

eiggA2002 said:

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Gutters?? Why don't you add a pool too. The nerve of some of these buyers.

If you have a backup offer tell them you'll fix the sprinkler and that's it or you're moving to the backup. I'm assuming you probably don't and they are throwing everything they can hoping it'll stick.

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Most good realtors understand it's a negotiating technique. I would say 80% of the inspectors finds are just to justify their fees. Tell them the sprinkler head will be fixed. Also, don't sign an extension. My experience is that if they want the world, it will only get worse.

The PEX should be insulated, but as a buyer I am not going to have the seller do it. I would be looking for a reduction in price to offset the cost and then doing it right. It isn't worth doing, if not done right.

Drainage is going to come up on every inspection. Usually as some boilerplate disclosure. Your house could literally be built on the top of a hill with huge slope on every side. It will be on the report.

Lots of good advice on this thread.

My only two cents: if you have a serious buyer on the hook, try to work a deal out given this market. That may mean you fix the sprinkler and get a little laminated sheet ruler at put it in the attic. Just beware that this can come back to bite you in the ass if you didn't do it to "their specifications" or the sprinkler head breaks again, etc.

This is why you can also just pay the "headache" fee to make it go away and put it on them to fix AFTER closing unless it's serious like a hot water heater. But as others mentioned, buyers agents will use inspections to get another bite out of the Apple. I'm not gonna try to move you from price point A to C, but I'll try to move you from point A to B then to C. This is where your realtors negotiation chops come in with dealing with the other realtor. That's where Luke Dealwalker is gonna hammer the price points from the inspection hard for buyers, or if selling, gets other bids or reinspections.

But seriously, in this market - if you have a buyer that walks after inspections over smallish items and the cost related to that, you might find yourself in a matter where you have to re-list for sale (potentially tainting the markets perception) and having to reduce purchase price even more than original repairs cost. All it costs the buyers is $600 inspection fee and the option money.