A friend of mine who buys and restores old houses deals with a similar issue. Buyers hire inspectors when they want to buy a house, who are supposed to alert th

A friend of mine who buys and restores old houses deals with a similar issue. Buyers hire inspectors when they want to buy a house, who are supposed to alert them to major liabilities that might be lurking. But those inspectors aren't well trained and also have a need to appear to be "useful" to the people who pay them, so if you're selling a house that doesn't have any obvious flaws, such as a broken furnace or crumbling foundation, then they will entertain themselves by pointing out trivial items that dont' really affect the house's suitability, but can often scare buyers away or cause headaches for the seller. (For example, cracks in the foundation of an 80 year old house that likely appeared within months of the house being built and haven't budged since.) To counter this, my friend purposely leaves 3-4 fixes that he intended to complete all along un-done for the inspector to notice and fixate on. Then the inspector gets to look useful, the buyer gets a good house, and everyone's happy.