Buying A Home
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Home Inspection: Anything You Wished You'd Done/Known Beforehand?
We're gearing up for our home inspection. We made sure to hire someone extremely thorough who comes highly recommended. We're purchasing a short sale home well under market value and we want to make sure the bank didn't accept our low-ball offer because they know something we don't about this place. Did anyone have a home inspection done and then later wish they had handled it differently? Any general tips for making sure you're hearing all the details without getting totally overwhelmed?
Re: Home Inspection: Anything You Wished You'd Done/Known Beforehand?
I agree. Walk around with him, ask questions about anything, ask for the approximate cost of repairs. Big investments are things like new A/C, furnaces, water heaters, etc that would need to be replaced anytime soon, new roofs, foundation issues, etc. The inspector should be able to tell you whether each thing issue he finds is a huge deal or not.
Ours told us, for instance, the windows in our house are old (which we can see also) and that he would definitely replace them over time, but maybe do one room at a time once a year until they're all replaced because it is an investment. It isn't something we have to look at right this instant. On the other hand, he told us he would get a sump pump/water main battery back-up put in immediately and that should be our #1 priority. I would have had no idea about that, so I'm glad he mentioned it.
H and I also decided prior to the inspection about how much of our money we'd be willing to put into repairs if the homeowners wouldn't cover all of it, and at what point we'd just walk away.
1. Takes photos.
2. BBB A or better rating.
3. ASHI certified.
4. For any work for repairs does not recommend his own people or his own friends.
One I thing I was really glad we did was pay the extra $50 fee to have a radon test done. Apparently the levels were really high (not out of the ordinary in my area) but it left the previous owners on the hook to install the $1,000 radon filtration system.
Also, one thing our home inspector didn't do, but I would recommend you do when you move into any house - check all the light fixtures, the recommended bulb wattage and what kind of bulb they have in there. There were 2 light fixtures that short circuited and stopped working several months after we moved in. Turns out the previous owners had two 100 watt bulbs in both light fixtures instead of two 60 watt bulbs (which is what they were designed for). After we took down the light fixtures, the drywall was all charred and cracked - the wires/electrical box were black and crumbled to the touch. Even the beams up in the attic had smoke stains. We had to rewire both lights & replace the fixtures. We were incredibly lucky that they didn't start a fire. Just FYI!