Hey guys, look who’s entering the wonderful world of mortgage payments! Though it beats the crappy world of making my landlord richer.
Anyways, I’m getting my house inspected for all the usual stuff next Friday. Since I made the appointment, I’ve been hearing lots of horror stories from friends who had their house fully inspected, only to find out after they moved in that the inspector missed some major/minor stuff.
So how did YOUR house inspection go? Any words of advice for a first time home owner?
Seems like you’re on the right track, hiring your own inspector. I made a huge mistake when buying my current home; the owner had the inspection done and it passed with flying colors. Turned out that a licensed relative did the inspection. Within days after moving in, neighbors told me that the previous owner disguised dry rot by painting over it weekly. I could have sued or at least recovered costs by dragging him to court because of his failure to disclose the problem. Unfortunately (actually, it was fortunate) I was assigned by my company to move to England for a year and I couldn’t pursue the claim.
Your own inspector will find more problems (if they exist) than one hired by the owner or the realtor.
I was quite impressed with the team of people that inspected my home prior to my purchase - I expected a jack of all trades to show up, but was astounded to see several cars pull up at the appointed time - a structural engineer, plumber, electrician, and heating and air guy. All for about the same price as other inspectors I had called! Got a detailed report, and also spoke with each person to find out what needed to be done right away and what could wait. I highly recommend the team approach if there’s a company in your area that offers it.
Also stumbling through new home ownership, 10 days to closing and counting!
The home inspection seemed worth every dime. I got a big binder with a page for each system in the house, tells me how old it is, the next maintance to be expected, how long I can expect it to last, etc. It’s also stuffed with valuable information about the costs and efficiencies of differing systems.
He found a few things, gave us the heads up, but nothing that would deter us from following through. He found a couple of things I wouldn’t have thought to even look at. Crawled into every cobwebby crawlspace even under the porch. Checked the cistern, checked every outlet (one was installed backward), and made a few suggestions about what should be addressed first, nothing major but a few things to save energy.
I definitely thought it was worth it.
Well, it depends on who does the inspection. DON’T ever get an inspector from your real estate agent/Realtor. They are often biased to get the house sold.
Why not do some of the inspection yourself? Get some books from your library/bookstore on it. Get an ice pick & go poke nicely around the bottom outside to check for rot. Use the handle to bang lightly to check the sound of the boards. Sure, you need a real inspection too for the loan; but you can do some yourself.
Also, if you know a construction guy you can pay them for an hour, like $50 & ask them to give you their opinion.
We bought a house in January. We went along on the inspection, and it was very interesting. The inspector did get into everything, everywhere. He missed a couple of little things, like a leak under the kitchen sink (but since it has since stopped leaking for no apparent reason, it probably wasn’t leaking at the time so I guess I can’t blame him.) We also ended up with a nice report, with suggestions on priorities for fixing.
We did go with a recommendation from our real estate agent. He’s an independent agent (a lawyer with a real estate license) whose realty business relies soley on word-of-mouth, and who was recommended to us by a friend. We really felt we could trust him to act in our best interest. I know not everyone is so lucky …
Don’t freak out (like I did) when the inspector finds more little problems than you expect. We were lucky that the previous owners were really meticulous about the condition of their house, but still there were little things – outlets with polarity reversed, an attic vent that’s covered up, bedroom doors that don’t close right. Every house is going to have some problems, and the little ones are easily fixed. We are actually enjoying doing those little fixes, because it’s ALL OURS!!
Good luck! You are going to love home ownership!
We had a great inspector for our house; he went through the whole place, gave us the standard binder, advised us about repairs and etc. We were really glad we did it. Later, my mother used the same guy for a house she was about to buy, and he found that the foundation was badly cracked; she, of course, did not buy the house. (The realtor was furious with the inspector, but that’s exactly what he’s paid to do.)
One thing that is common (if not mandatory) in CA: repair insurance. (Forget the term.) The old owners buy one year of this for the new owners when they sell the house; that way, anything that got missed can get fixed for just the cost of the copay. Avoids lawsuits and so forth. We found this reassuring, although, as it happens, we did not have any real problems during that first year.
My advice would be to go around the house with the inspector; you’ll get some idea of what he’s doing, and you’ll also be able to judge if he’s doing a thorough job. Oh, and it’s better if you can find one through word-of-mouth from your friends, rather than through your realtor - it’s true that real estate agents prefer inspectors who don’t find too many problems.
Oh, and if you have any questions about anything to do with the house, the inspector is someone you can ask. Go with a list of questions.
Have fun!
I’m in the middle of escrow right now, and had an inspection done last month. My agent (a cousin of my wife) suggested two inspectors she had previously worked with, and we picked one. The inspection itself was fairly uneventful – the house is already in excellent move-in condition, though the inspector did find a few areas that needed repair (most notably, the caps on the roof, which are starting to show signs of wear). Having eyeballed the house myself a few times already, I’m confident that there aren’t any hidden “surprises” in the works.
We bought our house in August of '99, and we had our own inspector (we went with someone recommended by our realtor).
He found a few things that the owners had to fix (like the doofus who’d installed the new dishwasher had wired it up backward so the yucky water was going back into the dishwasher (sigh)) and a few things we decided to just live with.
One thing he missed, though, and we were upset about it but there was nothing we could do because it wasn’t visible without cutting into the walls–the plumbing in the house is made of this stuff called Qest Pipe which was apparently the subject of a class-action suit a few years ago. Of course by the time we found out about it, the class action suit had expired. So we’re not sure what to do about it–can’t really blame the inspector (the plumbing was discovered when the wall was opened for another reason about a year later) and the owners claim they didn’t know what kind of plumbing the house had which is why they didn’t disclose it.
So far we’re just letting it go because there hasn’t been a problem with it. If there ever is, we might try to go after the owners because they should have known–as the house’s original owners they were probably notified about the suit. We’d have to prove it, though.
Ah, the joys of home ownership…