You hired a great inspector, walked the house alongside them for three hours, and now you're staring at a 42-page report with red flags on what feels like every page. Welcome to the most stressful 72 hours of a home purchase — and the most important.
Here in Charleston, the inspection phase isn't just a formality. Our humidity, our older housing stock, our crawl spaces, and our coastal moisture mean inspection reports here tend to run longer than reports in drier climates. That's normal. The question isn't whether the report has findings — it will. The question is what to do about them.
Here's the playbook I walk my buyers through every time.
Step 1: Understand the Due Diligence Window
In South Carolina, your purchase contract includes a due diligence period — a specific window of time, negotiated in your offer, during which you can inspect the property, request repairs, and even walk away if you choose. In the Charleston area, this is typically 10 to 14 days, though it can be shorter or longer depending on what was negotiated.
Every deadline inside that window matters. Inspections, second-opinion evaluations (HVAC specialist, roofer, structural engineer if needed), and your repair request all have to be wrapped up before the clock runs out. Miss the window and you lose your leverage — and potentially your earnest money if you back out.
Step 2: Sort the Report Into Three Buckets
A good inspection report will list dozens of items. Most are minor. A few are not. The trick is sorting them before you ever talk to the seller.
The three buckets I use:
Safety and structural issues. Anything that affects the safety, livability, or structural integrity of the home. Active roof leaks, electrical hazards, major plumbing problems, foundation movement, significant moisture in the crawl space, termite activity, broken or missing smoke and CO alarms. These are non-negotiable asks.
Material defects. Items that aren't dangerous but represent meaningful expense or condition issues. A water heater near the end of its life, an HVAC system with recurring issues, water staining that suggests an unresolved leak, missing flashing, broken seals on multiple windows. These are reasonable to negotiate.
Cosmetic and maintenance items. Scuffed paint, a loose cabinet hinge, a dripping faucet, a few worn caulk lines. These items belong on a homeowner to-do list, not a repair request. Asking for them weakens your position on the items that actually matter.
Step 3: Decide What You're Actually Asking For
In Charleston, buyers generally have four options once the report comes back:
Request repairs. The seller fixes specific items before closing, usually using licensed contractors. This works well for safety and code-related items.
Request a credit at closing. The seller credits you money at closing so you can handle the repairs yourself, on your timeline, with contractors you choose. Many of my buyers prefer this for cosmetic flooring, paint, or appliance issues because they'd rather pick their own finishes than inherit whatever the seller's contractor installs.
Request a price reduction. Less common, but useful when the issues are significant enough that the home no longer makes sense at the original price. If the issues are coastal-specific — moisture, elevation, or flood-related — it's also worth confirming what your insurance picture looks like before you renegotiate. Here's how to check your flood zone and insurance costs before closing.
Walk away. If the inspection uncovers something you weren't prepared to take on — major foundation work, extensive moisture damage, an un-permitted addition with structural issues — you have the right to terminate during due diligence and recover your earnest money.
Step 4: Submit a Repair Addendum, Not a Wish List
What the seller actually sees isn't your inspection report — it's a repair addendum, a formal document listing your requested fixes. Keep it focused. A tight, prioritized list of legitimate items gets better results than a 30-item list that includes every minor finding.
This is also where local experience matters. Sellers in Charleston have seen plenty of these addendums. A list packed with cosmetic asks signals an inexperienced buyer and often invites pushback on the legitimate items too. A focused, professional list signals that you mean business on what matters.
Step 5: Negotiate Like You're Still Buying the House (Because You Are)
The repair negotiation is part of the deal — not separate from it. If you've already negotiated a strong price, asking for $25,000 in repairs is going to push the seller toward walking. If you got the house under list and the inspection turned up legitimate issues, the seller usually expects to come to the table.
The best negotiators in this phase do three things: they prioritize ruthlessly, they support their asks with contractor quotes when possible, and they leave room for the seller to say yes. "Replace the HVAC or we walk" rarely lands as well as "the HVAC unit is past its expected lifespan — here's a quote — we'd like a $7,500 credit at closing to address it."
A Few Charleston-Specific Notes
A few things that come up here more than other markets:
Crawl space moisture. It's almost guaranteed to appear on a Charleston inspection report. The question is whether it's normal seasonal moisture or something requiring encapsulation. Get a specialist quote before you negotiate.
CL-100 reports. South Carolina requires a wood-infestation report (the CL-100) for financed purchases. If termites or moisture levels are flagged, that's a separate document with its own implications.
HVAC age and condition. Charleston systems work hard year-round. A unit over 12 years old is worth a closer look and often a credit conversation.
Historic homes downtown. Older homes downtown and on the peninsula often have items that look alarming on a report but are actually normal for a 100-plus-year-old home. Knowing the difference is where a local agent earns their keep.
The Bottom Line
The inspection report isn't a verdict — it's information. Used well, it gives you leverage to either improve the deal or walk away clear-eyed. Used poorly, it can blow up a transaction that should have closed cleanly.
If you're in the inspection window right now and trying to figure out what to ask for, I'd be glad to walk through your report with you and help you build a focused, defensible repair request. For a fuller picture of total costs heading into closing, here's a breakdown of what Charleston buyers pay at the closing table. The goal is to get you to the closing table on a home you're confident in — not to win every line item in the report.
Article written by Dustin Guthrie
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ActiveCoastal.com
