Home inspections are the hot topic in this Central Mass Real Estate Market: June 2025. As part of the Affordable Homes Act, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts proposed making it illegal for a seller, who is marketing their property to the public, to accept an offer from a buyer who is waiving their home inspection. I think that’s a huge overreach–we are all adults here.
There are some properties where a home inspection would be a waste of money. My recent sale of a property in Westford comes to mind. It had no heating system, the roof was tarped, and we didn’t know anything about the septic system. Also, the dining room is pictured above. This property was being sold to a cash buyer and really those are the only buyers who showed up for it.
From the Massachusetts Association of Realtors website:
“What is the purpose of this new home inspection law?
These regulations were drafted to ensure that no seller of residential property conditions the acceptance of, or accepts an offer to purchase, where the prospective purchaser agrees or indicates in advance their willingness to waive a home inspection. In sum, the law and regulations secure the right of a buyer to conduct a home inspection if they wish and remove the ability to waive or negotiate away that right ahead of entering into a contract.”
Here’s a link to the Massachusetts Association of Realtors Home Inspection legislation page.
I wrote the following letter to legislators. We were happy with some of the edits they made to the initial draft of the proposed law, but it’s got a long way to go. I truly think it’s a day late and a dollar short – – because many buyers ARE having home inspections in the current real estate market. There was a time during Covid where buyers were waiving inspections left and right, but that’s not what the market is like now. Some buyers are still waiving inspections, but nowhere near the frequency that we saw in 2020 – 2023.
Hello–
I am a real estate broker and am commenting on the 760 CMR 74, which would make it illegal for a home seller in Massachusetts to accept an offer on a property for sale, if the offer includes a waived home inspection. If this law passes, as of July 2025, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will require that all homeowners looking to sell their homes must allow home buyers a ten day inspection period. Under this law, soon to be in effect, this inspection period cannot be waived. This seems like a reasonable law, helping to prevent people from getting a bad surprise in their new home, BUT in this case the downsides far outweigh the benefits, to say nothing of the fact the state is not addressing the most extremely serious issue facing both homeowners and homebuyers, crumbling foundations, which isn’t found by a home inspection.
The Law of Unintended Consequences: The issues I have with this proposed addition to the affordable home act are the problems created by that pesky law of unintended consequences:
Delays selling a house: Not all people selling their house are doing so because they want to. Elderly people, for instance, might need to move to assisted living, and this law takes away their right and ability to sell fast, potentially causing them to lose their place in line for a spot in the assisted living facility; or worse, not being able to move at all for months. How does this law cause this problem?
Ability to break a sales contract:The unintended consequence of forcing a ten day inspection period is that the house now can’t be sold for a minimum of an additional ten days (compared to how the market currently works), regardless of how mint the condition of the house is. But worse, during those ten days that buyer has time to find a different house (or change their mind for any reason), leaving the elderly person high and dry, and having to start all over again selling their house. This home inspection period gives the buyer an additional ten days to bail out of any housing transaction, for basically any reason whatsoever, for instance a scratched floor or rotted wood in a small shed behind the main house. It’s tough to find a house, even a new one, with absolutely no problems that could turn up in a home inspection.
What about extremely as-is properties?: I had a sale last week, of a home in Westford. It was an estate and the trustees live out of state. They were personally funding the taxes and other bills related to this property. The house had freeze damage from 2 years ago and had no functioning heating or plumbing systems. The roof was tarped due to leaking and no one actually knew where the septic system was. The sellers were under a huge time crunch to get this property sold, and could not entertain any offers with home inspections because it wouldn’t have met anyone’s minimum standards for habitability. Investors came in and put their best offers forward, taking in to consideration the repairs they determined to be needed. If the seller were forced to allow a 10 day inspection period, any one of those investors may have been distracted by another property coming on the market, and really caused long term problems for the sellers. The sellers knew they would be accepting a lower offer than they would have gotten if the house was habitable, and they were ok with that. Every situation is unique.
Much Longer Transaction Times: Keeping in mind that people sell their homes for many different reasons, from divorce to needing a bigger house, to moving for a job, to downsizing; no matter why a house is selling, this law artificially extends the transaction time for selling a house by a minimum of ten days, to potentially months of delay, clogging up the whole housing market. The problem is that there are a whole lot of reasons why someone might change their mind on buying a house, not all even remotely related to a home inspection, but it’s a real good reason/excuse if needed. Perhaps a cheaper home comes on the market, or a house they like better, or for virtually any other reason. All that’s necessary to get out of a transaction is to back out for a home inspection reason, valid or not, during the home inspection period. You can even do it more than once. Be in a contract for 10 days, back out for whatever reason, get in another contract, back out again.
A Day Late and a Dollar Short: Yet another practical objection to this law is that since the time period when this idea was first suggested, the housing market has changed dramatically. The idea for this law, and probably the purpose for it, peaked during the “Covid Market”, when it was the Wild West in the housing market. Houses were selling as fast as prices were escalating, forcing people into rash decisions–houses were selling so fast that if you wanted to buy a house, buyers felt like they had to waive inspections or no one would accept their offer. It’s not remotely like that anymore. The market has settled down since then, becoming much more orderly and historically normal. Buyers have choices for homes, sellers are reviewing all the prices/terms of offers, many buyers are having inspections, and prices aren’t rocketing up like they had been. Essentially, this law is solving a problem that no longer exists because the Covid Market, and the buyer/seller behaviors during it, are largely a thing of the past.
Ability to Make Choices: My last objection is philosophical, and is simply that we’re all adults, and the state shouldn’t mandate whether we want a home inspection or not. We’re the ones buying the house. Right now people have a right to waive a home inspection or to have a home inspection, and that right is being taken away. One size doesn’t fit all, which is what this law is attempting to accomplish.
Respectfully,
Jen Shenk
Jennifer Shenk, Real Estate Broker
