Home Inspection

jessica490 · July 2015

So we are officially in a contract for the house we looked at! So excited. It's a 2 bedroom ranch, 1 car garage, 1.5 bathrooms, living room with fireplace, great kitchen with granite counter tops, 2 room finished basement, plus a large regular basement and a GREAT backyard! The house has been totally re-done over the last 10 years so there is nothing to do but move in and maybe change a paint color or 2! Since this is a for sale by owner house we talked to the owners at the second showing of the house. They said the street/ neighbors are great and the woman gave us a detailed map with the neighbors and kids on the street lol. The house in back of us owns an ice cream shop in town.

Anyway, we have our home inspection tonight. We are also getting radon and pest inspections done. Any tips or anyting wild and crazy to look for?

Thanks!

Xstatic3333 · July 2015

Exciting! Enjoy it! Our home inspection was so fascinating. The inspector explained everything and was a great teacher. My advice is to bring a notepad and ask lots of questions. It's such a great way to learn about the home!

hoffse · July 2015

Yep, ask lots of questions and be prepared to ask for concessions from the seller to cover a few things. What's great is when they will cover some of your closing costs to compensate you for any inspection issues you guys can't agree on - that's money immediately back in your pocket (vs. lowering the purchase price of the house, which only lowers your mortgage... barely), and for the sellers it makes no difference where those concessions are being applied. I would also encourage you not to be too scared. The inspector WILL find something you don't like... possibly many things. That doesn't necessarily mean the house is bad. It just means you might need to be prepared for something to break, die, or leak soon after moving in - and for bigger ticket items, that's where you look to the seller to compensate you a little bit. Our inspection report was over 50 pages and noted lots of little things. 2-prong outlets aren't something to fight with your sellers. A cracked shower pan might be, especially if it is located immediately over a finished basement. Pick your battles. Our sellers contributed $5K to our closing costs, and we simply rolled that money into our emergency fund. After 1 year of home ownership, only one of the 4 items they compensated us for has needed replacement (water heater).

hoffse · July 2015

One more thing to add - save your inspection report and consider using it as a long-term "to do" list if you buy the house. You may not want to fix everything that's on there, but it's good to be on notice about the kinds of things inspectors discover when they poke around. We've taken steps to fix some of the problems our inspector found. Other things haven't been fixed yet, but they will be eventually. Inspections can also be useful to learn about what sort of red flags to watch out for once you buy the house. For instance, a good inspector will look at things like the slope of a roof and the grading of the lot - ours warned us that we may want to regrade one part of our yard because as it was, water would be aiming toward the house, rather than away from the house. Sure enough, a few months in and we noticed a little water in the garage after a heavy rain. We added some dirt in that spot and problem solved.

Xstatic3333 · July 2015

With us, instead of asking for concessions the owner actually made some of the repairs for us before the closing. She was a very motivated seller, however, and the house had been empty and on the market for a while. Our realtor had great advice about what we should ask her to fix, and she didn't fight us at all. We had her vent the bathroom fan outside, add a radon removal system, and replace a leaky electrical box.

formerlyGDaisy09 · July 2015

Definitely be prepared to find some things you don't like. Our sellers were especially resistent to fixing anything that was found. our home was similar to what you're describing, 2BR 2BA ranch, recently updated, well cared for, move-in ready, minus a few unfortunate choices in paint color.

The only thing we really fought back on was that the inspector found significant corrosion/waterdamage in the electircal panel. the sellers hired an electrician to fix it, and located and sealed the source of the water. There were some other things that the sellers had put band-aids over that the inspector would not have had a way to notice...they used window caulk to seal the new shower they installed, and they didn't seal the grout on the new tile floor (fortunately it's dark gray grout).

If your inspector is willing to get on the roof and give the roofing material a thorough inspection that's a bonus. ours looked at ours and found little damage, we knew going in the roof would likely be our first major project, given the house was 23 years old with the original roof when we bought it, but he was able to give us a good idea of how many more winters we could probably get out of what was there.

smerka · July 2015

How old is the house? If it was built before 1978, I'd look out for lead paint. Before 1980, asbestos. If it was built in the 1950's or earlier, I can practically guarantee there is either asbestos and/or lead paint in there unles it has been gutted to the studs. Neither of those things should be a deal breaker, but something you should know about in cause it winds up in damaged condition. Also know you don't have to necessarily have something tested, you can just assume it until the material needs to be removed. In older houses 9x9" floor tiles and pipe insulation that looks like cardboard in cross section are almost always asbestos-containing.

jessica490 · July 2015

Thanks for the tips. I do wonder what things they could have hidden since the house is so perfect but I guess we will find out soon!
the wife had joked about how the busband is OCD so this house seems like my heaven, but we'll never know until we look further in there.
Home was built in 1961 so we will look into the lead paint/asbestos stuff as well...

short+sassy · July 2015

@jessica490, how did the inspection go?

jessica490 · July 2015

It went really well! No major problems at all! We will ask them to fix a few of the smaller but important things. We really learned a lot from the inspector, I didn't think it would be such a learning experience! It also makes me nervous about the things we have to worry about with a house as opposed to the condo money-wise (furnace/oil etc....). But I still can't wait to get into the house- Aug 20th or sooner!

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