Do You Need A Home Inspection?

DO YOU NEED A HOME INSPECTION

Do I really need a home inspection? I mean what do I want to spend 450 bucks or 350 bucks on a home inspection, right? It’s pretty obvious what the house needs or doesn’t need, right? You could probably think that way. When you put an offer in a house, you certainly want to have somebody take a look at it. Now a home inspector, remember this, a home inspector is paid to find things wrong with the house.

So a home inspection on a two-bedroom condo where all he’s really going to look at are the plugs and the GFIs and things like that, that could be a little unnecessary. But it’s always good to get a second pair of eyes, to see if there’s water stains. Make sure the dishwasher washer is running the right way. Make sure that the light switches are functioning, make sure the outlets are functioning.

Make sure the breakers don’t pop when they turn on the dishwasher, things like that. In a single family, it’s really about the basement, right? You can see the siding, you can see the roof, you can see what may be an obvious repair. A home inspector nine times out of ten are going to point out those regular things. The roof is beyond it’s serviceable life, the siding’s cracking. The boiler needs service, the hot water tank needs service. Looks like it’s a little rust, a little corroded.

They may look at the electric to make sure that it looks like it’s tied in together. But just remember all this, at the end of the day, a home inspector is exactly that, a home inspector, right? They aren’t licensed electricians, they aren’t typically general contractors. They don’t typically know every piece of code for every different city. So they’re merely just to suggest what could go wrong with the house, right? You’re paying a lot of money, they’re not going to walk through and say gee, the house is perfect, thanks for your 450, see you later, right?

They’re definitely going to point some things out. So when they point some things out, you need to understand or think about and decide what you think is really important, what you think is a potential hazard and what you really think you need to have done or request to have ask for or fix in order for you to move into the house comfortably. Now some agents use the home inspection as a renegotiating tool. Hey, just go ahead and offer more, and we’ll beat them up on the home inspection.

Some agents say hey, in order to get the house, waive the home inspection because you can see what’s here anyway. So you have definitely two different sides of the pendulum. Have the home inspection, use it as a renegotiating tool. Have the home inspection and legitimately asked to have things fixed that the seller probably knows are wrong anyway, right? Or you can just wave it all together if you don’t think it’s necessary, which is really not what I would recommend.

I would always recommend having a home inspection in some fashion, even if they’re just pointing out some of the features of the house that the agent doesn’t point out. It’s still always good to have, definitely worth it. And I certainly would recommend every time conducting a home inspection, and then just really having a deep dive as to what’s really important or really is just what the home inspector thinks is important.

Because the only thing about the house that you would need repaired is what you think is important. Obviously a person lives in the house now, so it’s obviously not going to fall down tomorrow, regardless of whether the support beams are double tapped or double screwed or whatever he may come up with, all right. You have to understand the house obviously has somebody in it, and that’s obviously living in it and the house isn’t going to fall down.

So you have to make sure that you pick out what’s truly important, and then kind of negotiate from there. And that’s really what a home buyer agent is going to do for you. So I hope you enjoyed Russell realty minute on home inspections, @WorkwithEvan on twitter, EvanwiththeRussellteam.com for any emails, questions, concerns. Hope you guys have a great day.