Home Buyers & Sellers Inspections

BUYERS:                                                                                           Sellers click Here

A home buyers inspection should always be performed before you purchase a new or old home. One common misconception is that a new house does not need a thorough inspection. This could not be further from the truth. We've inspected brand new homes that had no insulation in the attic, others with inadequate electricity at some outlets and still others with several of the same issues found on many older homes. Some builders do not always use the best building practices and the methods used on some componants may not hold up over time or could contribute to negative conditions in the future. Sometimes only small improvements are needed to correct a condition that could lead to major expenses down the road if not corrected.

City or county building inspectors who have many homes to look at during a single day cannot possibly spend the time at each site they would like to or that would be required to thoroughly inspect each component of a newly constructed home the same way an experienced Home Inspector who spends most of the day at the site can do.

The building codes are the "minimum standards" that a house is to be built to so by definition, a house that is "just" built to code is "the worst house you are legally allowed to build". Everybody would like to think that their new home is built to a higher standard than this but unfortunately that is not always the case.

We can help identify those areas that are sub-standard or issues that fell though the cracks and were overlooked.

Older homes are a specialty of ours and while newer homes are typically built to a common set of standards, this is not always true of older homes. Many older homes were built before there were required standards to follow or before permits and inspections were required. Repairs and improvements over the years were often performed by people who may not have had the skills needed to do an adequate job. Having a good working knowledge of the way these older homes were constructed or remodeled and the changes in buiding practices and materials that have occurred since then is essential to performing a thorough inspection on an older home.

We have the skills and knowledge needed to thoroughly inspect and understand older homes and the construction methods used over the years.

Log homes are very different from typical wood framed homes and require additional knowledge of the different types of log home construction, different maintenance requirements and the different inspection methods that must be used to adequately inspect for conditions that can be very expensive to repair if not discovered and corrected in time.

We've inspected many types of log homes and have that knowledge needed to inspect for those conditions.

SELLERS:

Having your home inspected before you list it for sale can help prevent those last minute surprises that could delay the closing and sometimes even bring up issues that cannot be resolved, causing the purchase to collapse.

By having a thorough home inspection prior to listing, not only are you made aware of the existing issues before potential buyers have an inspection performed, you can improve the conditions you want and set the sale price accordingly based on the remaining issues that may need to be improved, which could effectively remove many of the issues from the bargaining table and prevent delays caused by further negotiating, aquiring estimates, performing repairs, etc.

This type of inspection can also show potential buyers that you care enough to discover the conditions that need improvement and resolve some of them ahead of time while disclosing the others so they will feel confident you are not hiding issues and are being up front with them.

A less costly option you may want to consider is our Low Cost Timed Inspection.