"The buyer wants these repairs. Let's just tell the seller to do them."

The inspection came back at 46 pages. The buyer's agent circled items in red on the PDF and sent it over as if that was a repair request. No formal addendum. No itemized list. Just a marked-up inspection report. It felt sloppy. It probably was.

But there was another problem underneath. The buyer was going to get a four-point inspection, but not until they knew it would come back clean. They did not want to pay for a second inspection.

Which meant I didn't know what would actually ding on that four-point report. I had a 46-page inspection with a dozen circled items, but no way to know which ones the four-point inspector would flag as required repairs. Which ones would kill the deal if they weren't fixed before that report came back?

So I called the home inspector. Out of all the circled items on this inspection, which ones are you actually going to require on the four-point? Which ones are dealbreakers?

That's how I sorted what actually had to be fixed versus what we could negotiate away. I wasn't guessing. I wasn't letting the seller negotiate blind and hope nothing else surfaced at closing.

I went through every circled item with the seller. Which ones were legitimate safety concerns? Which ones had the buyer already seen when they walked through — items that were readily apparent before an offer was made? Which ones would the four-point inspector actually require?

Nine items made the cut. Electrical issues. The chimney cap and flashing. Plumbing shutoffs and valves. The dishwasher drain loop. All of them — the ones the four-point inspector would flag, the ones that were functional or safety-related, the ones that kept the deal from collapsing later.

Then I drafted the actual addendum. Not a marked-up PDF. A proper legal document with specific repairs listed, scope defined, and no room for later claims about what was meant or what was assumed.

That addendum protects the seller because it's clear. It protects again at closing because there's no ambiguity about what was promised or what still needs to happen.

The parties signed. I gave the seller the contractor referrals to get the work done fast. Repairs were completed before closing. No delays. No surprises. No four-point inspector flagging something the seller should have fixed three weeks earlier.

That's what proper negotiation looks like. Not vague markups. Not guessing what might surface later. Getting the actual information, protecting the seller with legal clarity, and keeping the deal moving instead of creating closing problems.