Home Inspections

luvflyin

luvflyin

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Luvflyin
Got and accepted an offer. Agent says Home Inspector is coming today and will be there for 7 hours. 7 hours:yikes:. I thought, is he going to reassemble the house when he's done:rofl:. So whadda alls ya all now about Home Inspections. Especially experiences with. I've never been through it before as seller. At least not any I was told about. I've done my own as buyer.
 
If your location really is Santa Barbara CA then all bets are off ... sorry but Californistan's rules tend to be different(onerous) and a long google search would be your friend and maybe a consult with your property attorney post haste. Here in Nc its really simple, I've never done anything except provide access to the property, and frankly that's the realtors job so I haven't personally done it ever. They have all been easy and maybe 1.5 to 2 hours total time. the only 2 hour one I recall was the last one a few years ago and it involved extra stuff like well water testing and septic testing etc it's the only reason it went 2 hours.
 
We just bought our third house and while 7 hours seems excessive, our have generally ran 3-4 hours or so. From what I’ve seen, it’s a top to bottom inspection. Ladder onto the roof to check condition and soffits, access attic to check R-rating of insulation and check for roof leaks and venting, wiring and drainage for heat pumps, output temps of HVAC, faucet temps, window sealing, proper operation of all appliances, crawl spaces below main floor, foundation of the house, condition of the driveways, and everything in between. There’s prep of the final report that includes pics of all issues and has also sometimes included videos, current age of all appliances, roof, etc and expected lifespan, and of course severity of the individual issues and recommended corrective actions. In my experience, they have been well-worth the $1000-or so we paid (as the buyer).
 
R.L.Mauzy said:
If your location really is Santa Barbara CA then all bets are off ... sorry but Californistan's rules tend to be different(onerous) and a long google search would be your friend and maybe a consult with your property attorney post haste. Here in Nc its really simple, I've never done anything except provide access to the property, and frankly that's the realtors job so I haven't personally done it ever. They have all been easy and maybe 1.5 to 2 hours total time. the only 2 hour one I recall was the last one a few years ago and it involved extra stuff like well water testing and septic testing etc it's the only reason it went 2 hours.
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It's in Portland, OR
 
Banjo33 said:
We just bought our third house and while 7 hours seems excessive, our have generally ran 3-4 hours or so. From what I’ve seen, it’s a top to bottom inspection. Ladder onto the roof to check condition and soffits, access attic to check R-rating of insulation and check for roof leaks and venting, wiring and drainage for heat pumps, output temps of HVAC, faucet temps, window sealing, proper operation of all appliances, crawl spaces below main floor, foundation of the house, condition of the driveways, and everything in between. There’s prep of the final report that includes pics of all issues and has also sometimes included videos, current age of all appliances, roof, etc and expected lifespan, and of course severity of the individual issues and recommended corrective actions. In my experience, they have been well-worth the $1000-or so we paid (as the buyer).
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Did you get the price lowered based on what the Inspector found?
 
luvflyin said:
Did you get the price lowered based on what the Inspector found?
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If you are allowing the inspection than likely you have accepted an offer.

What does the offer contract say in the section around the home inspection?
 
luvflyin said:
Words to the effect of 'contingent on home inspection'
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Only hazarding a guess as I do not know your offer but I would suspect far more words in there which actually determine what options the buyer and seller have based on the results of the inspection.

In any event, good luck and I hope it all works out great for you.
 
All of ours, both as a buyer and a seller, have been in the 2-3 range. All of our contracts have also always been "contingent on home inspection". Have never had a deal go south due to the inspection results as in every instance there were no showstoppers and all findings were rectified prior to closing so no modifications to the agreed price was necessary.
 
Mongoose Aviator said:
Only hazarding a guess as I do not know your offer but I would suspect far more words in there which actually determine what options the buyer and seller have based on the results of the inspection.

In any event, good luck and I hope it all works out great for you.
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How big is the house and anything unusual about it?
Yes, I agree 7 hours is a lot....but if it's big...and if it has a pool..., and some other things like if they have also bought some "extra" special energy audit stuff or whatever that would be above an beyond a traditional inspection...then well yeah, still seems like a lot to me, but maybe....

I went through a course about 20 years ago to become a certified home inspector. I had gotten laid off and was about ready to throw my engineering degree in the trash and work for myself doing something different. Anyway, it was a substantial class...something like 60 hours in six days. I never worked a job though so I have zero experience. I have also been on both ends of the deal with an inspected purchase, both as buyer and as seller. I don't bother with it any more.

Back then anyway, the big takeaway from the training was to check every system, but only check what is accessible and more or less stop once you find an issue.
Roof for example. As soon as you can write in the report "I found xyz, and I recommend an inspection by a licensed roofing contractor."...then stop, get off the roof, and move onto the next thing. Time is money. I think the better ones will continue looking at everything that they can easily see.... but once they get the "licensed contractor" on the report, the monkey is off their back.
Electrical..... they'll check every outlet in a room, but if a piece of furniture is in front of the outlet, they won't check that and just write it in the report.
etc...
 
luvflyin said:
Did you get the price lowered based on what the Inspector found?
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In our case we had a very friendly relationship with the seller so the few discrepancies that did pop up we talked about and came to a mutually agreeable solution that didn't change the cost of the house. IE : we paid to have the septic pumped whilst being inspected as it was suggested when they were there (they called us - good customer service) - they paid for sanitizing the well/water system and all new filters etc. None of that changed "the deal" so to speak. The only time "the deal" has changed in my experience was a seller trying to hide stuff from us they were supposed to disclose. That lowered the price significantly, otherwise the money has never changed.
 
Brad W said:
How big is the house and anything unusual about it?
Yes, I agree 7 hours is a lot....but if it's big...and if it has a pool..., and some other things like if they have also bought some "extra" special energy audit stuff or whatever that would be above an beyond a traditional inspection...then well yeah, still seems like a lot to me, but maybe....

I went through a course about 20 years ago to become a certified home inspector. I had gotten laid off and was about ready to throw my engineering degree in the trash and work for myself doing something different. Anyway, it was a substantial class...something like 60 hours in six days. I never worked a job though so I have zero experience. I have also been on both ends of the deal with an inspected purchase, both as buyer and as seller. I don't bother with it any more.

Back then anyway, the big takeaway from the training was to check every system, but only check what is accessible and more or less stop once you find an issue.
Roof for example. As soon as you can write in the report "I found xyz, and I recommend an inspection by a licensed roofing contractor."...then stop, get off the roof, and move onto the next thing. Time is money. I think the better ones will continue looking at everything that they can easily see.... but once they get the "licensed contractor" on the report, the monkey is off their back.
Electrical..... they'll check every outlet in a room, but if a piece of furniture is in front of the outlet, they won't check that and just write it in the report.
etc...
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Big, unusual and there are two. Two adjacent lots, one has just a house, two story with basement. The other has a Garage with Studio Apartment above. So yeah, I guess 7 hours isn't all that long after all.
 
Many home inspections don't actually do some stuff you might want, like testing or opening stuff. Think of it as a pre-buy without pulling a cylinder. Like, they might run the tub briefly and make sure the drain works, but not fill the tub and make sure the drain works for the entire tub at a reasonable speed.

Basically, anything they do find is likely a problem and should be investigated more thoroughly, but anything they don't find may still be a problem.

You mention Portland, where it rains sometimes. My home inspection mentioned a bit of trouble in the corner of the bathroom floor. The leak was obviously repaired years earlyer but it turned into basically demoing the bathroom to studs, replacing the bottom of several studs repairing and doubling some floor joists and the bottom plates in spots.
 
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Up there with one of the most useless waste of money I've ever encountered. My son just had one done, the guy sucked, it was really bad what he missed and things he said were in good shape. Joke. I've had not quite as bad experiences, but pretty close.
 
Home inspectors will say stuff is broken or needs repair if it’s passed it’s TBO in years. As we know the stuff usually lasts much longer than the TBO. So I would not discount for the buyer unless something is at its broken stage and even then you can split it 50/50. Good luck.
 
@luvflyin - Out of all the people from the open house weekend, were any cash offers made which also waived inspections?
 
@luvflyin - In which case it is what it is. Given that scenario, I (as the seller) would be prepared for the buyer to be asking for concessions based upon the inspections and I would be inclined to give reasonable concessions.
 
Inspections are for broken, damaged, or out of compliance. Everything else is smoke and mirrors trying to get you to offer improvements that you shouldn't need to make.

"HVAC 10 years old - should be replaced". Age of the HVAC (and roof) is usually something in the disclosures. If it is working, they don't have a foot to stand on, since you disclosed its age up front and they knew when they made the offer...
 
kyleb said:
Inspections are for broken, damaged, or out of compliance. Everything else is smoke and mirrors trying to get you to offer improvements that you shouldn't need to make.

"HVAC 10 years old - should be replaced". Age of the HVAC (and roof) is usually something in the disclosures. If it is working, they don't have a foot to stand on, since you disclosed its age up front and they knew when they made the offer...
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We made full disclosures although I don't remember age of appliances being asked. Just if there are any known recalls etc on them.
 
A friend of mine sold a house last year, a four hour inspection window was requested by the buyer's agent. My friend parked down the street and observed that entire time period. Inspector was at the property for less than 5 minutes and issued a clean report.

So the friend's story aside...I'll move onto my story...

When I bought my last house, I did not use an inspector. Instead - I walked around for about 20 minutes and inspected things myself. That is more thorough than most any inspector will be. No regrets.
 
Last property I sold the buyers requested a home inspection. I told my realtor to advise the buyer they were welcome to get an inspection, but my price was firm. No matter what the inspection revealed, I had no intention of making any suggested repairs or price renegotiation. That set the stage for a take it or leave it based on the inspection, effectively eliminating any attempt by the buyer to get concessions.
 
FORANE said:
Last property I sold the buyers requested a home inspection. I told my realtor to advise the buyer they were welcome to get an inspection, but my price was firm. No matter what the inspection revealed, I had no intention of making any suggested repairs or price renegotiation. That set the stage for a take it or leave it based on the inspection, effectively eliminating any attempt by the buyer to get concessions.
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Were inspections made? Did they find stuff? Did any of them back out?
 
luvflyin said:
Were inspections made? Did they find stuff? Did any of them back out?
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Yes, inspections made.
Yes, recommendations made for relatively minor stuff. I think the biggest thing was a recommendation for additional support under elevated deck.
No, they elected to proceed with the purchase.
 
We've used inspectors for 3 of the 4 rental houses we've bought in the past few years. The last one I know what I was getting into, and what we were going to do with it, so didn't bother. In the other cases the inspectors were quite thorough. They find any code violations, broken stuff, etc. They also go places I'm not going, like attics and roofs. They've been well worth the money we have spent, in my opinion. In a couple of cases we got the sellers to either fix things or reduce the price a bit to cover us fixing them. There was another house where we decided not to buy the house after seeing the result of the inspection.

We also often have sewer line inspections done if it's an older house or if there are trees that could have roots affecting the sewer line. A hundred bucks or so to have a video bore scope done from the house to the street.
 
R.L.Mauzy said:
If your location really is Santa Barbara CA then all bets are off ... sorry but Californistan's rules tend to be different(onerous)
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Not so, there are no rules regarding home inspection in the Peoples Socialist Republic of Kalifornia with the exception of one I have noted below and a pest report (commonly known as a termite inspection) that needs to be done to satisfy the lender that the house is not infested or rotting away. There may also be something for FHA or VA loans, but us has been a while since i have seen one of these.

To my fortune, I am in a seller's market regardless of the market conditions. If a house is on the market for more than 15 days, it just doesn't happen.

As a seller, I have always had an inspector come through and give me a report of what needs to be fixed. If it is a structure, mechanical, safety, or pest issue, I get it done before listing - I don't want to be on the last minutes of an escrow and have this hold it up. I don't bother with some stuff and put that in the disclosure - like "failing fence with a rear neighbor, the fence is on their property, etc... If it is cosmetic, good luck.

I had one buyer tell me they wouldn't move forward until I fixed or reduced the price on some pretty unreasonable stuff the inspection turned up - window shades, sprinkler system, oil spots on the driveway, the list went on. I politely responded that the purpose of the pre-buy is for you, the buyer, to get a better picture of the house's overall condition (foundation, roof, electrical, and plumbing), and it is upon you to manage these repairs. If this is unsatisfactory, we can cancel the escrow and move on.

DaleB said:
We also often have sewer line inspections done if it's an older house or if trees could have roots affecting the sewer line. A hundred bucks or so to have a video bore scope done from the house to the street.
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This is now mandatory where I live because of the use of Orangeburg pipe (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangeburg_pipe.) There have been a lot of failures creating some major issues.

Five of us got together after one of my neighbor's lines failed and had this replaced with PVC... It didn't need to be done as the inspection was ok, but it was just a matter of time. We made a volume deal with the plumber and saved, and now have peace of mind.
 
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luvflyin said:
Were inspections made? Did they find stuff? Did any of them back out?
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Did your realtor list the property "as is where is?"

FORANE said:
Last property I sold the buyers requested a home inspection. I told my realtor to advise the buyer they were welcome to get an inspection, but my price was firm. No matter what the inspection revealed, I had no intention of making any suggested repairs or price renegotiation. That set the stage for a take it or leave it based on the inspection, effectively eliminating any attempt by the buyer to get concessions.
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Stuff like this can be put in the listing. It may scare a few off, but you don't want them taking your time anyway
 
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luvflyin said:
Did you get the price lowered based on what the Inspector found?
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So our initial offer was already less than asking and the seller was offering a large “credit” toward lower interest rates that we just converted into lowering the buying price. After the inspection, we just renegotiated to have some of the more difficult repairs to be made. Fortunately there weren’t many issues…replacing a missing gutter downspout, correcting some fasteners used on the roof, fixing some bare wires on the pool heater, and repairing some poor wood on the deck.
 
luvflyin said:
They don't require an Inspector to be Licensed in CA, but there are laws governing home inspections. https://www.creia.org/ca-real-estate-inspection-law
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This is true; however, there is no law saying a house has to be inspected by the buyer. This is an optional thing, but who would spend their life savings not doing this, there are requirements for the lender and insurance companies. But it is so commonplace now - why not right?

Where you can get caught in CA and now many other states are with the disclosure laws... noted above, I pay to have an inspection done and disclose everything that has not been sorted out. This way I know when the buyer inspector comes in with their punch list..

Lesson learned - Bought a house and in the closing I had the seller note that the basement did not leak as this was asked a few times with the same retort -nope! I had a suspicion it did, but at the time of inspection, the inspector told me it was as dry as a bone.. all good - right?

Had a really bad string of storms come through in the late spring and the basement flooded right up.. All the neighbors were asking me if the basement flooded as it turned out this was open and notorious knowledge in the neighborhood and one neighbor gave me a pump to get the water out.

It cost the previous owner $28K to fix the problem plus legal fees.....

Sold the house two years ago, and yes all of this was detailed in the disclosure.
 
Ventucky Red said:
This is true; however, there is no law saying a house has to be inspected by the buyer. This is an optional thing, but who would spend their life savings not doing this, there are requirements for the lender and insurance companies. But it is so commonplace now - why not right?

Where you can get caught in CA and now many other states are with the disclosure laws... noted above, I pay to have an inspection done and disclose everything that has not been sorted out. This way I know when the buyer inspector comes in with their punch list..

Lesson learned - Bought a house and in the closing I had the seller note that the basement did not leak as this was asked a few times with the same retort -nope! I had a suspicion it did, but at the time of inspection, the inspector told me it was as dry as a bone.. all good - right?

Had a really bad string of storms come through in the late spring and the basement flooded right up.. All the neighbors were asking me if the basement flooded as it turned out this was open and notorious knowledge in the neighborhood and one neighbor gave me a pump to get the water out.

It cost the previous owner $28K to fix the problem plus legal fees.....

Sold the house two years ago, and yes all of this was detailed in the disclosure.
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After you purchased the home you sued for repairs?
 
mandm said:
After you purchased the home you sued for repairs?
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Yes, I did and won. The previous owner went on the record saying there was never a problem with water in the basement and never mentioned it in the disclosure. When the big storm hit I had 3 inches of water on the floor. The neighbors all knew of this as it was an ongoing problem, and the sellers knew that the neighbors knew. Getting the affidavit from them was no problem.

Go look at Easton v. Strassburger
 
Smaller house in waterfront community where I bought a month ago; about 2.0 - 2.5 hours. He had to go hazmat to get into the crawl space. Very extensive report, with photos and some video (house is 120 years old). . .but this is North Carolina and the attitude here is more "buyer beware." Maybe there is more liability possible if an inspector misses something in Oregon?
 
mandm said:
After you purchased the home you sued for repairs?
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We did the same with our very first house. PO said (verbally and in writing) that the basement had never leaked. When we got the keys, my wife went over to our new (1927 vintage) house and found 2” of water in the basement. It leaked like a sieve, literally. We found where the PO had tried to fix it by burying home-made perforated PVC (marked with his employer’s company name) against the foundation. He hadn’t bothered to seal the brick walls, though, so it did nothing. When we looked at the house they had carefully concealed the evidence of water in the basement with paint, rugs, shelves full of pottery, and a kiln.

We sued, won, got a very modest settlement, the attorney got 40% and I ended up having to do all of the work to fix it myself. We disclosed all when we sold 3 years later, but that basement was dry. We’ve gotten really, really good at looking for evidence of water intrusion since then.
 
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