Overview
Fourteen instruments is the whole set this site covers, and the number is deliberate. It is not every phrase an agent might use in an email after an inspection; it is the list of mechanisms that exist as named objects — a line on a settlement statement, a clause in a promulgated contract form, a signed addendum, a holdback agreement the lender has to approve. If a remedy cannot be pointed at in a document, it is not on this list, because an instrument you cannot name is one nobody has to honor.
What the table is sorted on
Each row carries two things besides the name. The first is how often the instrument is actually granted, stated as one of three verdicts rather than as a percentage nobody can source. Commonly agreed means sellers and lenders allow it routinely and asking costs you very little. Negotiable means the answer depends on the market you are buying in, the loan you are using, and what else is already on the table. Rarely granted means it is possible and it seldom works, and the page's job is to tell you what asking costs before you spend the goodwill.
The second is what the instrument costs you to use, which is this site's own organizing idea and the thing a reader genuinely weighs. Some instruments are free except for the goodwill they spend. Some consume days from a window that is already running. Some take cash out of your pocket before you know whether the purchase will complete at all. And two of them put the sale itself in play. Ordered that way, the list reads as a sequence: exhaust the cheap instruments before you reach for an expensive one.
Two categories, answered by two different people
Seven of the fourteen move money and seven move the deal, and the split matters because the two halves are decided by different parties. A request that costs the seller cash is answered by the seller, and then answered again by an underwriter who may cut it — the ceiling on what a seller is allowed to contribute belongs to the loan program, not to the person who agreed to pay. A request that changes the contract is answered by the seller alone, but only until a date that was fixed before the inspector ever arrived. Money requests fail at underwriting. Contract requests fail at the calendar.
That is also why the instruments are not interchangeable, however similar two of them sound. A credit and a price reduction of the same size leave a buyer in measurably different cash positions. A concession and a credit are the same money to an agent and two different things to a lender writing the cap. Repairs done by the seller before closing and funds held after closing to pay for the same repair are not two routes to one outcome; they allocate the risk of a bad job to opposite parties.
What is not on the list, and why
Several terms a buyer will meet are covered inside a profile rather than given one. The appraisal contingency and the financing contingency are contract rights that have nothing to do with the inspection report, and they are described where they interact with it. A re-inspection is not an instrument at all — it is a step you take to find out whether an instrument worked. Using a home warranty as a bargaining chip is a variation on seller-paid costs rather than a mechanism of its own. Each of those is a section inside the page it belongs to, which is where a reader who searched for it will actually find it in context.
How to read a profile
Every one of the fourteen pages opens with the verdict and the cost, then answers the same four questions in the same order: what the instrument is, who has to agree before it binds anyone, what it is capped or bounded by, and which document records it. The pages are written for somebody holding a report and watching a date, so the practical constraint comes before the background rather than after it.
They are also written to be read alongside the guides. The profiles describe the instruments; the guides describe the situations — what the report's language is actually doing, how sellers tend to respond to a list of twenty items, what happens when the repair comes back done badly, and what remains possible once the deed has recorded. A reader who only needs to know what a holdback is should stay in the profiles. A reader trying to decide which of three instruments to ask through will get further in the guides.
What this page is not
Nothing here is a recommendation about your transaction. This site performs no inspections, negotiates nothing and represents nobody; it has not seen your report, your contract or your closing timeline, and no page on it can tell you whether a particular finding justifies a particular ask. What it can do is make sure that when you choose an instrument, you know who caps it, when it expires, and how often the answer is yes.
| Instrument | How often it is granted | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
| The seller credit | Commonly agreed | Costs nothing but goodwill |
| The seller concession | Commonly agreed | Costs nothing but goodwill |
| The escrow holdback | Negotiable | Spends time you may not have |
| Seller-paid closing costs | Commonly agreed | Costs nothing but goodwill |
| The price reduction | Negotiable | Costs nothing but goodwill |
| The lender credit | Negotiable | Costs nothing but goodwill |
| Repairs completed by the seller | Negotiable | Spends time you may not have |
| The inspection contingency | Commonly agreed | Costs nothing but goodwill |
| The option period | Commonly agreed | Costs you money up front |
| Earnest money | Commonly agreed | Costs you money up front |
| The repair amendment | Commonly agreed | Costs nothing but goodwill |
| Terminating the contract | Negotiable | Risks the deal itself |
| Backing out after the inspection | Negotiable | Risks the deal itself |
| Finding a problem after closing | Rarely granted | Risks the deal itself |