You've bought a house - congratulations!!!! Its an exciting time and hopefully you have been advised by your realtor to do a home inspection. The home inspection is one of the most crucial steps for buying a home.
Here are things to avoid during this inspection:
1. Forgoing an inspection in the first place. Also, don't forget the extra inspections that might be needed for your specific property, ie pools, septic systems, or wells.
2. Choosing the cheapest inspection option - there are a lot of inspectors who offer very low prices for home inspections. Do your research. Your agent should help point you to a competent professional and if they don't, I have been using the same guy for the past 14 years and would recommend him to anyone.
3. Not being present for the inspection. They can take 3 or more hours to complete, depending on the house but an inspector must report on everything that's found, no matter how minor so take a look at your new home with the inspector, hearing the inspector's comments directly and being able to ask questions is invaluable.
4. Being overly involved in the inspection - it's possible to be toopresent at an inspection. You don't want to chat to him too much and distract him and don't try to do the inspector's job either.
5. Expecting a perfect report-and overreacting if it's not - an inspection
is not a pass-fail test, and every home will have flaws - maybe up to 100 deficiencies sometimes, but many of these will be minor.
6. Not getting negotiated repairs reinspected - once the negotiated repairs
have been completed, it's wise to get a final signoff from your home inspector-even if there's an additional cost.
Before I go, remember that an inspection is the chance to find out about significant red flags with the property. Those faults are what you want to focus on when negotiating with the sellers, not nickel-and-diming them for every little thing the inspector reports.
- Justin
Here are things to avoid during this inspection:
1. Forgoing an inspection in the first place. Also, don't forget the extra inspections that might be needed for your specific property, ie pools, septic systems, or wells.
2. Choosing the cheapest inspection option - there are a lot of inspectors who offer very low prices for home inspections. Do your research. Your agent should help point you to a competent professional and if they don't, I have been using the same guy for the past 14 years and would recommend him to anyone.
3. Not being present for the inspection. They can take 3 or more hours to complete, depending on the house but an inspector must report on everything that's found, no matter how minor so take a look at your new home with the inspector, hearing the inspector's comments directly and being able to ask questions is invaluable.
4. Being overly involved in the inspection - it's possible to be toopresent at an inspection. You don't want to chat to him too much and distract him and don't try to do the inspector's job either.
5. Expecting a perfect report-and overreacting if it's not - an inspection
is not a pass-fail test, and every home will have flaws - maybe up to 100 deficiencies sometimes, but many of these will be minor.
6. Not getting negotiated repairs reinspected - once the negotiated repairs
have been completed, it's wise to get a final signoff from your home inspector-even if there's an additional cost.
Before I go, remember that an inspection is the chance to find out about significant red flags with the property. Those faults are what you want to focus on when negotiating with the sellers, not nickel-and-diming them for every little thing the inspector reports.
- Justin
