What Do Home Inspectors Look For?
Today we’re talking about the
home inspection checklist. If you’re
buying a property and you’ve never had a
home inspection done before, what exactly
is it and what is it for? Let’s talk
about that right now.
You should always hire a professional
home inspector to do an inspection of
the property that you are purchasing. In
some states they do this prior to
writing an offer, so they do their home
inspection first, make sure they’re happy
with what they’re getting, and then they
write an offer on the property. Here in
Georgia we typically do the home
inspection after we’re already in
contract.
So you’ve made an offer on a
house, found the right one, negotiated
back and forth, you’re now in contract,
you then hire a home inspector who’s
going to go to the property and look at
everything. They look at the plumbing, the
electrical, the appliances, if there’s a
crawlspace they’ll crawl down in there.
They can either visually inspect the
roof or even get up on the roof
(depending on which home inspector you
choose.) They will look at everything and
put together this huge report. It can be 30,
40, 50 pages long, and send it to you with
lots of pictures telling you exactly
what it is that they found – the good, the
bad, and the ugly. The purpose of this is
so that you know exactly what you’re
getting and then you can decide, do I
still want this house or does it need
too much work and I’m not sure I’m ready
to take on this project yet? Or can you
go back to the seller and say, “I want you
to fix these things prior to closing.” Or
perhaps you say, “Why don’t you just
reduce the price at the house or you can
give me a credit and I’ll fix these
things after the closing?”
So what shouldbe on the checklist?
What sort of things
is the home inspector looking for? They
will look at if the appliances in the
kitchen, they’ll check out the dishwasher,
the stove,
check out the plumbing. If they see
cracks in the wall they’ll try to
determine if that’s just normal settling
or is that something to be concerned
about? They’ll see if there are leaks
under the sink,
if there are leaks in the roof, if
there’s condensation in the windows
between those two panes what’s causing
that? So now you know what goes on at the
home inspection but do you have your own
checklist? Not to worry, I’ve got one for
you! Just click the link and download the free
checklist.
