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What's important in a Home Inspection?

By
Home Inspector with Safe House Property Inspections

So you have found your ideal home to purchase. The home buying process can get a little stressful. You want a home inspection to help alleviate some of the stress, but at times it can add to the stress. There is so much information that you need to digest in a short period of time. There are reports and pictures to review not to mention what the home inspector is going to show and tell you during the inspection. You also have to consider the information in the seller’s disclosure. With all this different information you want to know where to turn.

It is time to rest easy. Home inspectors are professionals dedicated to providing you with the information you need about your prospective home. A good deal of your inspection will be in regards to needed maintenance and some minor imperfections. These are the kind of things that are good to know. It’s the issues that are really important that are your true concern. They generally fall into the following four categories:

     1. Major Defects: Something like a structural failure of the home

     2. Things that may lead to major defects: things like leaking flashings

     3. Things that may hurt you ability to occupy, finance or insure the home

     4. Safety hazards: such as exposed wiring

Issues in these categories need to be addressed. Most of the time a problem can be fixed without a lot of cost. Sellers generally are honest and are just unaware of some of the problem areas in their home. With that being said, sellers are not obligated to take care of every issue found during a home inspection. There are no perfect homes being sold anywhere. You just need to keep a little perspective about what needs to be taken care of prior to purchase. Home maintenance is an ongoing process and one of the things you will continually have to budget for after you purchase your home. I do not suggest ruining your deal over any minor issues that really don’t matter.

Not a real person
San Diego, CA

We are finding out more and more that third parties, usually mortgage companies, are determining that some very interesting things fit into category #3.

Feb 27, 2010 09:05 PM
Not a real person
San Diego, CA

Hey, Troy - I chose an older post to leave this comment so that you would get four points for it.

I've noticed that you don't get a lot of comments, and that indicates to me that you're not leaving a lot of comments in the blogs of others.

Probably 90% of the active people here return comment for comment, so if you comment there, they'll come by here and comment. What you really want to do is choose the Realtors in your area and comment in their blogs so that they'll come by here and see your knowledge and personality. Do that persistently and consistently and you'll start to get business from them.

If you don't know how to get to your Virginia Realtors, click on the ActiveRain logo and then scroll down and you'll see "ActiveRain Membership" although it's small so you'll probably see "By State" first. Simply click on Virginia and then the various counties and cities and go to work.

I just scheduled my 100th inspection from the ActiveRain community or due to a person out there finding an ActiveRain blog post of mine and calling me. That's since July 22, 2008.

Be persistent and consistent in reaching out to your Virginia Realtors here at ActiveRain just by reading and commenting and you'll improve your business. Of course, don't be afraid to ask them to meet with your over lunch or something, or even to simply ask for their business. Close the sale!

Apr 10, 2010 08:53 PM