Claim Suppose $X$ is Hausdorff, then:
Every point $p\in X$ has a precompact neighborhood in $X$ $\Longleftrightarrow$ $X$ has a basis of precompact open subsets
Question: It's not clear to me why it's necessary for X to be Hausdorff; so, what is missing from the following proof that X being Hausdorff provides?
Proof:
"$\Longrightarrow$"
Suppose that every point $p \in X$ has a precompact neighborhood in $X$. We will construct a basis using precompact open subsets of $X$.
Denote the set of precompact neighborhoods for each point as $\mathbb{U} = \left\{ U_p \right\}_{p\in X}$. Denote the topology of $X$ as $\tau$. We claim that $\forall u \in \tau$ and $\forall U_p \in \mathbb{U}$, the intersection, $u_p = u \cap U_p$ is precompact. This follows from the fact that every closed subset of a compact subspace is compact. Thus, $\overline{u}_p \subset \overline{U}_p$ implies that $\overline{u}_p$ is compact.
Therefore, the following is a precompact basis: $\mathcal{B} = \left\{u_p: \exists u \in \tau, \exists U_p \in \mathbb{U}\,\, \mathrm{ s.t. }\,\, u_p = u \cap U_p \right\}$
"$\Longleftarrow$"
Suppose $X$ has a basis of precompact open subsets, which we'll denote $\mathcal{B}$. $X$ is open, so $X =\underset{u\in \mathcal{B}}\cup u$. Thus, $p \in X$ implies that $\exists u \in \mathcal{B}$ such that $p \in u$. So, every $p$ has a precompact neighborhood.
It's indeed true without Hausdorff: if $U_p$ is a precompact neighbourhood of $p$, then every neighbourhood $U$ of $p$ contains the precompact neighbourhood $U \cap U_p$ of $p$ (as indeed $\overline{U \cap U_p} \subseteq \overline{U_p}$ which is a closed subset of a compact space), so precompact neighbourhoods of $p$ form a local base at $p$. So all these local bases together for a base of precompact (open) sets.
The reverse simply holds as a base is a cover in particular.