Kensington is full of 1920s Spanish revivals with original tile roofs, arched doorways, and clay sewer pipes that have been feeding tree roots for about a hundred years. The roofs get photographed. The pipes don't. And the pipes are where your negotiation goes sideways.
Here's how it plays out. You list, you get a strong offer, you open escrow. A few days in, the buyer's inspector runs a camera down the sewer line and finds roots, a sag, maybe a crack near the street. Now you're looking at a $25,000 repair request for a fix that might actually cost half that. You're in escrow, you've already spent the money in your head, and the buyer knows it.
That's not a pricing problem. It's a leverage problem, and you created it by not looking first.
A sewer scope costs a few hundred dollars. Do it before you list. Get the tile roof checked too if it's original, and have someone look at the electrical panel if the house still has wiring from the 1950s. (This is Kensington. It usually does.) The point isn't to fix everything. The point is that your list price already accounts for what a buyer is going to find.
Here's the unpopular part. Most sellers would rather not know. California requires you to disclose what you know, so sellers treat skipping the inspection as a loophole. That's backwards. A disclosed issue with a plumber's quote attached is a line item. An undisclosed one found in escrow is a crisis. Buyers will pay for line items. They walk away from crises, or they stay and squeeze you.
Once you have the report, you can fix it before listing, or you can price it in and hand buyers the quote with your disclosures. I push sellers toward pricing it in. It settles the issue before anyone gets emotional, and it keeps the inspection-period conversation about loose handrails and outlet covers instead of a five-figure credit.
I've spent 20 years running real estate teams and coaching high-volume agents, and now I own a brokerage in San Diego and Chicago. The agents who hold their price through escrow aren't better negotiators in the moment. They just did their homework before the sign went up.
So before we talk list price, let me ask you something. When did anyone last put a camera down your pipes?