How old is the roof?

Inspectors don't pass or fail parts of a house, they just report the condition and recommend any actions. If the roof is old, it might get a 'will need replacement soon' rating. But if there are no signs of leakage inside the house, or in the attic, hopefully that will be reported as well.

Really the only way to know how worn out it actually is, is to get a pro roofer to look at it and tell you.

Keep in mind that if your roof doesnt have at least 3 years left on it, it will limit your buyer pool. (FHA mortgages require at least 3 years of life left to obtain the mortgage)

I should qualify my post above. I suppose if a roof was so bad as to be unserviceable, an inspector would say something like 'must be replaced for house to be habitable.' That would be a 'fail.' It does not sound like this roof is THAT bad.

Thanks for the FHA info linda, that's the kind of thing that can make a yes/no question out of it.

I never seen anyone replace a roof so they can sell a home. In most cases if the roof is on it's last leg and that comes up in a report, the buyers will try to get some sort of a credit from the seller and they might get it if the seller is nice enough or desperate to sell... Most sellers don't wanna hear about it and they rather spend the money on the new place instead of start spending money on remodeling...

Nobody can't predict how long the roof will last if there is no leak's or damage to it... In some cases if something needs a minor repair needed like missing shingles, flashing repair, etc. they will get someone to fix it or like I said before, agree to give a fair amount of credit.

Good luck

loribella not certain if Houzz would consider your posts for the company that you are a co-founder spam or not but in looking at your previous activity you seem to mention it in almost every post.

Existing realtor can do comps at no charge, you don need a website to do it and pay for it.

Always insist on doing the repairs yourself as the buyer. The seller is rarely motivated to do the best job possible. Most seller's only want to do what is adequate.

In this case, it is the seller acknowledging that his roof is shot and needs replacement. The choice is to either replace the roof yourself or plan on a credit to the buyer for the replacement. Either way, you will be paying for a new roof.

I think replacing roof is good idea it can increase the value of your property.

I think replacement of roof is depends upon the condition. If you think it is worse then you must replace it.

If the roof is not leaking you don't have to do anything. Put the money into the new house or take a vacation.

@GN Builders, in my area of South Florida, if your roof is a shingle roof and over 20 years old, it is nearly impossible for the buyer to get homeowners insurance without a roof replacement. I say nearly because you can get it, but it is special lines type insurance and more than double the cost of our already very high homeowners insurance premiums. For an average 2000 sf home normal insurance is $2400/yr (could be much more) and special lines is well over $5k per year (could be much more). I used an average example. Insurance varies tremendously here. The difference in this premium knocks out a bunch of buyers if they are financing the home (hurts debt ratios). This makes the property very difficult to sell unless you sell to a cash buyer for an extreme discount.

The seller will do better, normally, by replacing the 20 year old roof before putting it on the market and having it languish or risk a sale that costs the seller more than the roof cost in a reduced price. It truly varies by area. A little further up the coast here and the insurance is significantly less. Edit: The roof condition/age/type is 40% of the windstorm premium so that is one of the reasons why the insurance companies are so adamant about not insuring a shingle roof over 20 years old. Believe me, it makes it extremely difficult to sell a home with an old roof here even if it isn't leaking.

Around here nobody replaces roofs prior to sale, even roofs that leak they will repair, most don't even do that they will give credit.

I can see insurance companies being strict when it comes to Florida homes or other areas prone to hurricanes or tornadoes , etc and the roof will usually the first thing that will go. We don't have none of that and home insurances are fairly reasonable here.

I totally understand. It used to be that way here too - about 30 years ago. Then hurricane Andrew came along and subsequent named storms.

We bought our house here in Omaha in August 2017 and the roof was in decent shape due to the fact that it was less than 10 years old in an area prone to severe weather with winds and (sometimes) large hail. The inspector guy went as far as to get on a ladder and look at the entire roof himself, his report mentions a few areas that had been repaired but done properly so we wouldn't need to replace the entire roof within the next several years (barring a catastrophic event - luckily there weren't any softball sized hailstones in our area since we bought the house!). Of course a month or so later there was a period of strong winds and we could have opted for repair not replace* like the previous homeowner, but we made the decision to get a new roof put on. At the time we knew that we had the money in our budget to do this without needing to dip into funds for various other expenses or savings, which definitely influenced our choice in the situation.

*Our insurance guy uses a drone after these types of weather events to check for any damage that might be present and after presenting a customer with their options, makes any adjustment to the insurance policy premium accordingly.