How to Sell Your Edmonton Home with a Bad Roof (Without Losing Money): Roof Replacement in Edmonton
The Common Problem Homeowners Face
Are you a homeowner in Edmonton, Alberta, and you’re looking to sell your house, but it’s got a roofing problem? You want to get that thing just patched up, and you don’t want to spend a whole lot of money on it, just want to get it listed and sold?
Well, today we’re going to be talking with Ryan from Alberta Skylights Elite Roofing out of Edmonton, Alberta. And today, he’s going to share with us a strategy that you can use in order to save yourself some grief and pass on a beautiful roof to the next customer.
Ryan, paint the scenario for me.
Sure. So, we get this one on a regular, okay, regular basis. Somebody will call us up, they’re having a problem with their roof, with their skylight, something’s happening with it. We go through to take a look and the whole roof is at the end of its life. They don’t want to replace the roof. They say, “No, I’m just going to sell the house next year anyways. The house is going on the market in 6 months. You know, just go up there and do whatever you can. Just stop the leak. That’s all I care about. I’m not spending the money on that one.”
And I always have to wonder where that logic comes from.
Why Patching a Bad Roof Can Cost You More
So, the way I see this problem is, simply put, what do you think is going to happen when you list your house? Who do you think is going to pay for that roof in reality?
If I was going to buy a house and I went there and the roof was shot, I’m asking for a concession. So either you as the homeowner or the seller, you’re either paying for that roof out of your pocket or you’re paying for it as a negotiation and a concession off the price, off the price of the home. It’s either coming out of your wallet or out of your equity. There is no way around that. Any half-decent inspector is going to see that problem.
Lots of times people say, “Oh, can you just go and patch it up? We’re good to go.” What do you think the inspector is going to see when he gets up there and sees a patched roof? I mean, you might as well put an AS-IS sign up right next to your for sale sign and watch your realtor cry.
As a prospective buyer, if I go through and I see that they’ve, you know, just kind of patched this and patched that, it makes me wonder what else they just patch together on this home. Like, it just gets to be a real problem.
The alternative is, you can choose to do that roof on your own terms.
A Smarter Roof Replacement Edmonton Strategy for Sellers
As a buyer, I’m going to look at this and I’m going to say, I want this really, really nice roof. Maybe as a seller, you don’t want to spend that kind of money. You can choose a decent roof that’s going to get that past an inspection. It’s still going to list nice. It’s going to be a feature on your sales report as opposed to, you know, a disclaimer. It just makes way more sense for you as a homeowner. Get that roof done properly. Take it off the table.
So, Ryan, what’s a strategy that a homeowner could use to allow the next buyer to select the kind of roof they want?
One thing we like to do, especially if your house is going to go on the market in the very near future, is we’ll come through and we’ll put together a proposal for replacing your roof, but we won’t actually do the roof. This allows you as the homeowner to only pay what the roof actually costs, not what the buyer is going to ask for. Further, it lets the new buyer choose the shingle on the roof.
So you list your house and you put in a new roof color to be selected by the homeowner or by buyer. That buyer comes through, they choose the color between the time that you sell the house or they take possession and you move out. We’ll do that roof. We can register that warranty to them. So they would be the first owner of that warranty. They have full coverage on that forever and a day. And as a homeowner, you are only paying for what that roof actually costs.
How Financing and Timing Make the Process Easier
Maybe cash flow is a concern and you don’t want to put any money out of pocket on this one. We have financing where we can defer those payments 3 to 6 months, no interest. Now, you’re not even cash out of pocket. You’re paying just what that roof cost, $0 just comes out of the equity when you’re done selling your house. You just pay that loan off. Problem solved.
The new homeowner gets to choose the color. Maybe they don’t like the color of shingle that you chose. Now, they get to pick that on their own. It just takes all of that negotiation right out of it. Instead of having a problem you’ve got to overcome, you’ve got a solution that provides real value to the new person.
Yeah, that’s huge. And you don’t hear a lot of roofers offering this type of a solution for people who want to sell their home, but they have a bad roof. They’re thinking they’re going to save a few bucks, but at the end of the day, you’re going to be buying that roof either way. So, why not make the best of both worlds? Get the roof purchased, have some bridge financing between, you know, the time that you sell it, close it, and get your funding, and then boom, you’re on to the next thing and you’re not necessarily out of pocket right now.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Whenever you’re taking a look at buying a new home, do you want to buy somebody else’s can of worms, right? Probably not. A lot of times we see people who say, “Oh, yeah, the roof was just done.” And as a roofer, it was not just done. And then the new homeowner gets caught up in there. I mean, nobody wants to have those problems.
This way here, you’re keeping as much of your equity as is possible. You’re maximizing your potential to sell that house because instead of it being a problem for the new homeowner to deal with, they’ve just got what they wanted. Problem solved. Nobody has to deal with us being on the roof for a day or two as we’re making all the noise and the mess up there because you’ve moved out. They haven’t moved in. The roof gets done in that little time in between them. I mean, weather permitting obviously, but it’s just the best of all scenarios.
Awesome. Well, thanks a lot, Ryan. I appreciate that. I think that if there’s any homeowners in the Edmonton area who are in that scenario, which we know there are, cuz what do we do in Canada? We just trade real estate between each other. So, you’ll probably run into this scenario at some point in your life.
So, Ryan, thanks so much for the helpful hints. And if you guys are looking for the best roofer in Edmonton, just look no further than Alberta Skylight Elite Roofing. And Ryan, thanks so much.