Should You Waive the Home Inspection?

Faced with bidding wars for limited housing stock, some home buyers choose to forgo home inspection contingencies in order to make their offers appear hassle-free. But trying to be an easy-breezy buyer may compromise your peace of mind.

Contingencies are basically conditions you place on your offer to buy a home. For example, a financing contingency says that if you aren't able to get a mortgage to buy a home, the seller can put the home back on the market.

A standard home inspection can increase your confidence about a property’s condition before signing on the dotted line. Getting a professional opinion also allows you to negotiate repairs with the seller or back away entirely from buying a property with major issues, assuming you have an inspection contingency in place.

An inspection contingency allows the buyer to back out if there's a major issue with the home or request that the seller make repairs before closing. Inspections can be a headache for sellers but may save buyers from major heartache. Here's what you should know before agreeing to waive an inspection.

Why are buyers willing to waive?

Though the market's cooled down a bit, there's still plenty of competition for homes for sale. An estimated 31 million Americans plan to buy a home this year, according to NerdWallet's 2024 Home Buyer Report. But as of March 2024, the supply of available existing homes in the U.S. was just 1.11 million units, according to data from the National Association of Realtors.

Pickings have been slimmer — inventory bottomed out in early 2022 — but the number of homes for sale in any given month may be substantially lower than the number of folks looking. With multiple buyers vying for listings, the pressure to craft a compelling offer can be intense. In March 2024, 22% of buyers waived the inspection contingency, according to the NAR Realtors Confidence Index.