How to Negotiate Repairs After an Inspection

The three ways a repair request usually gets resolved

Most agents will tell you a credit is usually the cleanest option for buyers: you get to choose your own contractor and timeline instead of trusting the seller to pick a good one under time pressure before closing.

• Seller completes the repair before closing — you get it fixed by professionals of the seller's choosing, but you don't control who does the work or how well.
• Repair credit at closing — cash toward your closing costs equal to (roughly) the repair cost, and you hire and manage the work yourself on your own timeline.
• Price reduction — the purchase price drops and nothing gets "fixed" as part of the deal; simplest to negotiate, but you're fully on the hook for the repair afterward.

What is reasonable to ask for

A useful rule of thumb: ask hardest for anything that is a safety issue or a major system failure, ask reasonably for anything expensive that a buyer wouldn't expect to inherit, and let go of routine maintenance items — asking a seller to fix every minor scuff or aging-but-functional item tends to sour a negotiation that could otherwise go smoothly on the items that matter.

Our deal-breaker vs. routine guide walks through which category typical inspection findings fall into.

Keep the request itemized and factual

Reference the specific inspection finding, page number if possible, and (where you have one) a real quote or a documented cost range rather than a round number pulled from nowhere. A request that reads as researched is taken more seriously than one that reads as a negotiating tactic.

Know when to stop negotiating

If a seller won't budge on something serious — not cosmetic, but genuinely serious — that's a different conversation than a stalled repair-credit negotiation. See our guide on red flags worth walking away from.