Dear Barry,

We bought our home one year ago. When we had our home inspection, we asked the inspector about a small water stain on the ceiling. He pointed some kind of sensor at it and said it was not an active leak. Recently, the ceiling stain became wet again, and that portion of the drywall fell down. It turned out that the water came from the old air conditioner in the attic. But according to the inspection report, the A/C was "new and in good working order." Do we have any recourse against the inspector? --Deanna

Dear Deanna,  more...

Sellers who anticipate losing money if they sell their home may wonder why they should spend a dime fixing the place up for sale. Isn't this throwing good money after bad? Even sellers with plenty of equity in their homes often figure the way to get the most out of the sale is to cut sale costs to a minimum.

This attitude is directly contrary to the notion that the way to make the most money on the sale of a home is by pricing the property appropriately for the market, and by making cost-effective improvements that will result in a higher sale price in a shorter time.  more...