Waiving Inspection to Purchase Property???

[Angel Glancy]

Ok, so I've been looking at Multi family and single family units in Western PA for my first investment deal. My partner and I got an FHA loan approval about a month ago so we've been working with a local real estate agent to view properties.

We made an offer a bit ($10,000, yikes, I know) over asking price for a duplex with a long term tenant on one side and an empty unit on the other. It still seemed like a deal and the plan was to house hack. The seller informed the agent they were likely going to accept BUT they wanted us to waive the inspection. Of course, we declined since that didn't seem like the best decision. This has been the issue with any property on the market in this area. Everyone is going over asking price and waiving inspections.

Does this make sense to anyone or am I imagining everything? It doesn't make sense to waive an inspection, in my humble opinion. I still want to make an offers but it seems to continue to be denied without waiving inspection. Has anyone else experienced this when trying to make an offer?

[Greg Scott]

This is a negotiation point.  You didn't, however, tell us what your earnest money was.

Here is really how this works.  Most contracts have an inspection contingency and you can walk away for ANYTHING on the inspection, real or perceived.  Waiving the inspection simply means you are willing to lose your earnest money to get the deal under contract.   So, if your earnest money was $1000, you are simply saying you would be willing to give that to the seller if the inspection reveals something really bad. 

Now, you can decided if you are willing to make that trade-off.

FWIW, I would ALWAYS still get the inspection done.