Especially if you're purchasing a bank owned property!
I had an interesting conversation with my friendly home inspector today. I told him that I recently went into a bank owned property in Manassas Park, VA and saw some serious mold in the upstairs bedrooms. I thought maybe somehow a roof leak caused it, but the roof looked very good and also had a strong pitch. His answer was a closed up house with no power....and no heating. With the variation of temperature outside, cold, then warm, the house is retaining humidity thus causing mold to grow. He told me of a home inspection he did last week in a bank owned $600,000+ home in Fairfax county, Virginia. Power had to be turned on. As he was educating the buyer about the possibility of dampness occurring in the basement by a low area because of poor drainage on that side of the house, they went to that area in the basement. Sure enough there was mold as well as water in that area. There was a sump pump to take care of those things, but with no power it wasn't working. This house was also very humid so he was concerned the mold was the unhealthy type. He recommended a mold specialist to the buyer to take an air and actual mold sample and estimate remediation costs. The specialist told him that he obtained the highest reading he has ever seen of mold spores in the air. Remediation costs for just the basement level of this house came to $14,000. That house probably was not purchased.
I have seen some very nice bank owned houses in Gainesville, Bristow and Haymarket, VA. Even though a house looks good, it is still worth the few hundred dollars cost of a good home inspection so you can have a good assessment of any possible problems in a house. Budget for these inspections and they will be worth it for the knowledge you gain.
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