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My husband and I put an offer on a home and now it's time to have the home inspected. Our realtor recommended us to a home inspector. Is it wise to do this? Do you think they are working with eachother to make deals happen? We have no idea who is a "good" home inspector. Can someone give us some names of inspectors that are good to work with?
My husband and I put an offer on a home and now it's time to have the home inspected. Our realtor recommended us to a home inspector. Is it wise to do this? Do you think they are working with eachother to make deals happen? We have no idea who is a "good" home inspector. Can someone give us some names of inspectors that are good to work with?
I used the inspector my realtor suggested. Except for missing that the furnace was rusted out and wouldn't start, the AC wouldn't hold a freon charge, three burners on the stove didn't work, one entire electrical circuit (living/dining rooms) had a dead short, and the garage door openers weren't wired to code (which is why they barely worked), he did a great job. He did however provide me with half a page of ridiculous observations such as the 20 year old concrete step at my front door may not meet current codes, and 11 pages of disclaimers.
To be clear, he was just short of useless. Most of this was addressed prior to closing, fortunately, but I still ended up eating the cost of numerous small things which were not covered under the 1 year warranty. The next time around I'll be able to spot a lot of these things myself. Live and learn.
My realtor's initials are DA and she works for Remax. I don't recommend her or her inspector.
Any good Realtor would give you at least 3 recomendations and tell you to also look for your own. This way they are helping you incase you are new to the area but not leading you to just one inspector. Also later if there is a legal issue caused by a bad inspection they are not blamed since you picked the inspector not them.
What makes you think that a person moving into a new area would select an inspector better than someone who deals with them every day? We used the man recommended by our realtor. Her reputation rides on every person she recommends to her clients. She made many recommendations to us, from a carpet cleaner to a roofer, and all were very good.
My guess is EVERY inspector will miss things that are not evident until you live in the house....things that are behind walls, etc.
I ended up being unhappy with the inspector the realtor recommended. However I did not drive the 500 miles to Huntersville the day the inspection was performed. My wife was in love with the house and we did not see things that we should have noticed. The inspector should have noted several things that were obvious after we closed on the house. These would have decreased the price.
Go thru the house with friends and relatives and be very nit-picky and critical. They may notice things that you miss because you are in love with the house. Also take a 30 ft tape measure with you. Did not measure the external dimensions of the house until the recent tax reevaluation. It is 200 sqft less than the realtors sheet. But most important, be there for the inspection and bring along someone else.
We got burned from the realtor-recommended inspector we used when buying our current house. I doubt that it was a purposeful scam to push the sale through or whatever, I think he just wasn't very competent. Also, it was partially our fault since we were moving from out of state and couldn't be here for it. Ended up missing some major electrical/wiring issues that cost a few thousand to fix. Live & learn though.
We're in the process of buying a new house and I selected my own inspector using this website: American Society of Home Inspectors, ASHI . Basically I did a search for inspectors that have experience with the type of house we're buying (new construction), then looked at the websites to see what type of experience they had, what their fees were (don't want a the cheapest one), association memberships, etc. Then, I checked with our realtor to see what she had to say about him. An experienced realtor will probably have worked with many of the experienced home inspectors, so I think it's a good idea to get their input. Since so many people have reservations using realtor recommended inspectors, why not play it safe by selecting your own and then just asking their input? If I WERE to use their recommendation, this time around I would want to know WHY they recommended that particular inspector. Simply "oh it's who I always recommend" or "he's a friend, I trust him" are NOT good enough reasons.
We got burned from the realtor-recommended inspector we used when buying our current house. I doubt that it was a purposeful scam to push the sale through or whatever, I think he just wasn't very competent. Also, it was partially our fault since we were moving from out of state and couldn't be here for it. Ended up missing some major electrical/wiring issues that cost a few thousand to fix. Live & learn though.
We're in the process of buying a new house and I selected my own inspector using this website: American Society of Home Inspectors, ASHI . Basically I did a search for inspectors that have experience with the type of house we're buying (new construction), then looked at the websites to see what type of experience they had, what their fees were (don't want a the cheapest one), association memberships, etc. Then, I checked with our realtor to see what she had to say about him. An experienced realtor will probably have worked with many of the experienced home inspectors, so I think it's a good idea to get their input. Since so many people have reservations using realtor recommended inspectors, why not play it safe by selecting your own and then just asking their input? If I WERE to use their recommendation, this time around I would want to know WHY they recommended that particular inspector. Simply "oh it's who I always recommend" or "he's a friend, I trust him" are NOT good enough reasons.
You should of SUED the inspector.
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