Buying a home always includes a steep learning curve. This is true whether you're buying your first home or your sixth investment property. Every time you enter into a new transaction, the details are different. No matter how careful or knowledgeable you try to be, mistakes can happen.
The role of your home inspector is to minimize the risk attached to potential mistakes. Most home-buying mistakes can be attributed directly to a lack of information about the house.
Choosing a home inspector is one of the more important decisions that you'll be making when you put together your real estate team. By the way, if you didn't already realize it, you are putting together a team of real estate professionals. The agent, the appraiser, the home inspector all work for you, protecting your interests. If they don't perform that way, fire them. You have that right - you're the boss.
The biggest mistakes that buyers or sellers make is not getting the best pros on their side. Let's look at the biggest mistakes that people make in my specialty, home inspectors - and how you're going to avoid them.
Mistake No. 1- Not hiring a Home Inspector
This is probably the biggest mistake that you can make. A good home inspection is likely to save you thousands of dollars. Every home has defects. That's just a fact of life. I have had one home in 5 years with no defects! One, literally, in thousands.
I don't care if your Uncle Eddie is a contractor and says he'll do an inspection for you. Eddie has his heart in the right place but, unless he's familiar with all the systems in the home - electrical, mechanical, structural - and willing to go into the attic, crawlspace and on the roof, he's not your guy. He may be expert at building a new home but how much experience does he have with 1910 architecture and building practices?
And, in many states, the inspector is required to be licensed. An inspection by an unlicensed inspector provides you with exactly zero protection.
Another mistake in this same category is not inspecting a new home. I did an inspection on a new home. The furnace exhaust was dumping carbon monoxide to the attic right above the master bedroom. THIS HOUSE WAS ALREADY OCCUPIED!
I had to come down from the attic and tell the owner he couldn't use his furnace because it could kill him. And this was a custom high-end home.
The job of the home inspector is to accurately identify the house components that need to be repaired or likely to need repair in the near future. In (fortunately) rare cases, we find things that are immediately life-threatening. Until I get into the house, I can't tell you what to expect and neither can anyone else. Not the agent. Not the seller. Not the builder.
That requires a professional involved daily in the business of inspecting houses. Don't' make the biggest mistake. Hire a professional home inspector.
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