You need to be careful of inspectors that a real estate agent suggests. Remember that they’re working for them more than you. You’ll see them once, maybe a few times down the road, the real estate agent is the real customer. They’ll find enough nitpicky things wrong to make it seem like they did their job, but still give you the go-ahead. The goal for them is to sell the house, whether they say it or not.
If a home inspector misses something, there isn’t any recourse you can take. If they give you the a-okay and two weeks after buying you find something (mold/foundation/etc) and it’s going to cost you $50,000 to fix…you can only go after them for what they charged you for the inspection. ($300-$500).
Find a contractor and someone who actually knows about building homes.
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PS - Don’t buy a POS house with POS previous owners. You get what you pay for.
The lesson is, do your homework and add your own inspection onto what the home inspector does. If you’re a fairly handy person and do your own car work its not that hard. Bring a level, flashlight, and camera and give everything a detailed look on your own. Pay attention to things that are known to be bad about your area or the period your house was built in. Crappy wiring, sinking foundations, galvanized water lines… The interwebs have more than enough info on things you need to look for.
Guy I know had an “inspector” for his son’s home. Last I heard, they were over $60K in repairs. Contract states, no responsibility, as per his attorney.
I believe the only thing they are responsible for are things that they “document”. However, any decent inspector is going to contractually remove himself from any liability.
No sir, what they are offering is an “opinion”.
make no mistake…any contractor that comes in and tells you everything is in working condition isn’t going to give you a red cent when things go wrong either. there aren’t a whole lot of people out there willing to give you a guarantee on the work of others. if you are going to go to the effort and expense of getting a home inspection by a home inspector then you might as well take the next step and give the report to a home warranty company to cover your ass in case anything goes wrong.
i had an inspection done both times we bought a house and got the warranty afterwards. the first house it paid for a new water heater when the original failed about a month after we moved in and on the second house it replaced a couple of leaky manifolds for the radiant floor heating. the water heater was basically the cost of the warranty and the manifolds were probably 5x the price. money well spent.
if you are going to go the route of a contractor just make sure that you have the proper language in the sales agreement. if there is a contingency stated regarding inspections, be sure that it lists a “licensed contractor” and/or “licensed engineer” “licensed architect” as an acceptable individual to conduct the inspection. some agreements only have “licensed home inspector” with whatever national affiliation of their choosing, in which case technically the seller can not accept your contractor inspection if they want to be a dick about it.
I just had a home inspection done last Friday and used Steve Nola with Amerispec. He did a great job. Caught the fact that the roof although not really old, wasn’t done correctly and needed to be replaced. He found lots of little oods and ends that need attention at some point as well. He really checked every conceivable thing. That’s what you want.
had an amerispec guy do our most recent house…he was very thorough and put together a good report. they must have a decent franchise system.
I recently found out that the home inspector class is only two hours. The market is so flooded that you can find home inspectors to go through an entire house for $100.
hence why I recommend to get a contractor to go through it and not somebody who is only qualified to tell you if all the electrical outlets works.
i think the minimum course load is quite a bit bigger than that in most states and probably NYS as well. usually there is some path to the license by working under a licensed inspector. usually you also have to take a state or national certification exam. in any case there isn’t any state where you can sit in a 2 hour class and walk out the other end as a licensed home inspector, that just isn’t correct.
My information was incorrect, I’ll inform the person that told me. Just found out, its 100 hours. LOL.
your conclusion is probably still valid though. my brother bought a house in brooklyn last year and he forwarded me the inspection…it was a very poorly organized word document absolutely filled with boiler plate stuff that could apply to just about any property of a particular age. he made a big deal about reverse polarity outlets which is pretty much a non-issue these days. i told him he should get another inspection because that one was garbage, but he thought he knew better and they were excited to buy a house. fast forward a year later and he has discovered a ton of issues with the house. new gypsum board, paint, receptacles and faceplates can hide a lot of sins.
How much did Steve Nola with Amerispec charge.
I was thinking about having an inspection done on my rental property before listing it for rent again.
Kinda like Moody’s and the stock market rating services? Welcome to crony capitalism. Murica rulez!
$475 with a radon test. He was there about 4 hours and sent me a well organized PDF of his report.
I just got quoted $525 with radon by Steve. What size was your house?
Just a touch over 1200
Well fuck me, I guess I’m getting a hell of a deal then @ 2500
he set up the radon test in the house yesterday with about 2 hours notice, and will be conducting the inspection Wednesday. So far he has been very professional over the phone, so we’ll see how it goes.