Home Inspections: What to Know, What to Ask, When to Be Concerned

As if buying a home wasn’t stressful enough! With the loan, choosing a home, lining up the dates, getting everything scheduled; it’s now time to have your potential new home inspected from top to bottom. A thorough and detailed home inspection is a crucial step in your home buying process. The main goal is to ensure your future home is safe. BUT how will you actually know?

Let’s dive into the inspection process; how to hire an inspector, what to ask during the inspection and when you should be worried after you get the report.

HIRING AN INSPECTOR

When deciding on which inspection company to hire there are a few things to consider. There are a lot of great inspection companies out there and many do an accurate and thorough job. Here are a few points you want to ask about before you hire a company.

• Does the company do sewer inspections, radon testing, lead based paint, etc? Are they a full service company that can offer you a well rounded inspection?
• What credentials are the individual inspections required to have to be hired?
• Once inspection is completed how long for the report? Are there videos included?
• Do they have a guarantee policy on their work?
• Are there any areas/items that the inspector will not inspect while at the home? Why?
• How do you categorize the issues you find? (ie: high, medium, low or red, yellow, green)

QUESTIONS TO ASK DURING AN INSPECTION

As a home buyer there is no doubt you have questions about your new home, regardless of the number of times you have purchased in the past. Every home has it’s nuances and every house has some items that may need a second look (yes, even with a new build). However, in order to determine which items are of potential concern you need to ask the proper questions and/or gather the appropriate information.

• What kind of foundation does this house have? Tell me about the pro/cons of that type of foundation.
• What material is the roof made of? What are general maintenance of that type of roof?
• What type of material is used in the electrical system? Where is the main panel?
• Where is the whole house water shut off?
• What is the HVAC is in the home? Where is the filter?
• Where is the water heater and what is the normal maintenance needed?

Luckily, all inspectors will give you a very detailed report so if you forget to ask a certain questions it is likely in the report!

WHEN SHOULD I BE CONCERNED AFTER INSPECTION

While this is a great question and normally one of the major ones buyers ask… there is no one answer to this question. The reality is that unless you are buying a brand new home (and even that is not a 100% fool proof plan) there will always be items on the inspection report that will need repair, replacement or monitoring. The main two questions for buyers is… how much will these, potential, repairs/replacements cost and is that amount in your budget or ability to address?

While these additional costs for a more thorough evaluation of the potential concerns can seem steep but at the end of the day these additional expenses are a drop in the bucket compared to learning about hundreds of thousands of dollars of repairs after you purchase the home and move in.

FINAL FOOD FOR THOUGHT

At the end of the day the most important aspects of the inspection phase, for buyers, is the gather the most information as possible on the new property. Inspections do not have to be scary or anxiety arising. When you know how to choose an inspection company, what to expect and what questions to ask the process runs smooth, easy and a lot of information can be acquired.

When to terminate and leave the deal is such a personal decision there is no one good answer. The most important aspect is making the decision based on the facts and information obtained through the inspection(s).

Cheers,