The inspection report lands in your inbox, and it is forty pages long. There are red boxes, orange boxes, photos of things you did not know houses had, and a summary that reads like a list of everything wrong with your future life.
Take a breath. Almost every report looks like this, including reports on homes in good shape.
The job now is not to react to the length of the report. It is to sort what matters from what does not and turn that into a request a reasonable seller can say yes to.
Read the report the right way first
Inspectors are paid to find things, and a thorough one will note a missing cover plate with the same formatting as a failing water heater. That is not a flaw in the report. It is just how they work.
So I read it in three passes with my buyers. The first pass is the summary, to get the shape of it. The second pass is anything flagged as a safety concern or a system near the end of its life. The third pass is everything else, which is mostly maintenance.
If you want a refresher on what an inspection does and does not include, I covered it in what a home inspection covers in Indiana. Knowing the limits of the report helps you read it calmly.
Sort everything into three piles
This is the single most useful thing you can do with a report, and it takes about twenty minutes with a highlighter.
Pile one: safety and major systems. Electrical hazards, gas leaks, active water intrusion, structural movement, a roof that is failing rather than aging, a furnace with a cracked heat exchanger, a sewer line problem. These are the items worth asking about.
Pile two: things you could not have known. Problems that were hidden, undisclosed, or not visible during a showing. If you could not have priced it into your offer, it is fair to bring it up now.
Pile three: maintenance and cosmetics. Caulking, a loose handrail, a dripping faucet, a missing downspout extension, a sticky window. Real items, and you should fix them, but they come with owning any house.
Most of the report lands in pile three. Your request should come almost entirely from piles one and two.
What I usually advise buyers to let go
I will be straight with you. The fastest way to sour a good deal is a repair list with forty lines on it.
Sellers read a long list as a sign that the buyer either does not understand houses or is trying to renegotiate the price through the back door. Even reasonable items get lost in it, and the seller often responds by declining everything.
So I let go of anything cosmetic, anything that is normal wear for the age of the home, and anything that was visible when you wrote the offer. If the deck was obviously weathered at the showing, your offer already accounted for it, or it should have.
I also let go of age by itself. A water heater that is old but working is not a defect. It is a budgeting item, and it belongs on your first-year plan, not the seller's repair list. I wrote more about pricing in system ages in my piece on how home age and major systems affect price.
Get real numbers before you ask for anything
A request that says "repair roof" is a negotiation waiting to happen. A request that includes a written bid from a roofer is a conversation about facts.
During your inspection period, call the specialists. A roofer for the roof, an HVAC company for the furnace and air conditioner, a licensed electrician for the panel, a plumber or sewer contractor for the drain line. Most can get out within a few days if you explain you are in a contract window.
Those bids do two things. They tell you whether the problem is a few hundred dollars or several thousand, which changes whether it is worth asking at all. And they give the seller something concrete to react to, which is how agreements actually get made.
Repairs or a credit: how I think about it
There are three common ways to resolve an item. The seller repairs it, the seller gives a credit toward your closing costs, or the price comes down.
For larger work, I often lean toward a credit or a price adjustment. When the seller repairs something, they are motivated to get it done for the lowest reasonable cost before they move out. That is human nature, not bad faith. When you control the repair, you choose the contractor and the quality, and you get the warranty in your name.
For smaller items, or anything your lender or insurer requires fixed before closing, seller repairs can make more sense. Some loan programs have property condition standards, and a credit does not fix a condition the appraiser flags.
Credits also have limits. Your loan program may cap how much the seller can contribute toward your costs, and a credit generally cannot exceed what you actually owe at closing. Confirm the numbers with your lender before you send the request. I explained how those contributions work in seller concessions explained.
How to word the request
Specific beats general every time. Name the item, cite the page of the report, attach the bid, and say what you are asking for.
Ask for licensed contractors on anything electrical, gas, structural, or roofing, and ask for receipts. That is a reasonable expectation, and it protects both sides.
Keep the tone factual. The seller's agent will share your request with people who are about to leave a home they may have loved. A short, organized request with real numbers tends to get a short, organized answer. A long, emotional one tends to get a long, emotional answer.
Know your deadlines and your options
Your inspection rights and response deadlines come from your purchase agreement, not from the listing or a conversation. In Indiana, the forms most agents use set out windows for the inspection, for your response, and for the seller's reply, and what happens if a deadline passes depends on that language.
Read your contract carefully, and if anything is unclear, ask your agent to walk you through it or consult a real estate attorney. I covered the moving parts in contingencies in an Indiana purchase agreement. Missing a deadline can quietly cost you options you thought you had.
If the seller declines or counters, you generally have choices: accept their response, negotiate further, or, if your contract allows, end the agreement. The right answer depends on how big the issue is and how much you want this particular house.
When the report changes the whole picture
Sometimes the inspection turns up something that does not fit in a repair request at all. A foundation that is moving. A sewer line that needs full replacement. Widespread moisture in the basement.
In those cases, the question is not what to ask for. It is whether this is still the right house at this price. A specialist evaluation, like a structural engineer or a sewer scope, is worth the cost before you decide. Sometimes the answer is a meaningful price adjustment. Sometimes the answer is to walk away and keep looking, and that is a perfectly good outcome.
On a home sold as-is, the math is different, since the seller has told you up front they are not planning repairs. I walked through that approach in what as-is really means in Indiana.
Follow through at the final walkthrough
Whatever you agree to, verify it. Ask for receipts and warranty paperwork a few days before closing, and look at the work during your final walkthrough. I keep a short list of what to check in the final walkthrough checklist.
Why local judgment matters here
You can find listings anywhere. What you cannot Google is what a reasonable request looks like for this seller, on this street, in this season, or which local contractors will actually return a call inside your inspection window. That is where the negotiation is won or lost.
It is a big part of how we handle the inspection step in Buy and Move Smart. We sort the report together, get the bids, and write a request that protects you without blowing up a house you want.
If you have an inspection coming up, or a report sitting in your inbox right now, grab a time on my calendar and we will go through it together. No pressure either way. Let's get you home.