South Florida Home Inspection $770.00 WOW (recommendation, square footage, cheapest, fee)
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Recently moved from Seattle buying a house in Delray Beach Town 33444,,just off Atlantic Ave & Swinton. Has a Swimming pool 3bed/2bath 1300 sq foot 1946 house, totalled remodeled on a city street no association.
Called home inspector I found on Google and got a quote for $770.00.. Is this correct or am I being taken?
Last House I bought was 2007 in Seattle built in 1901 and I paid $350.00 before than So Cal where it was cheaper...
Is that what it has come to in 5 years or is this Just South Florida issue?
I think inspection rates are pretty local, so you might want to ask in the Florida forum(s) as well. But I am wondering if the inspector who quoted you $770 is including a pest/termite inspection, radon inspection, etc.? Or was that JUST for the basics?
I just had a home inspection and it was $325 (and he was VERY thorough and explained everything as he went). That was for a 2-story house with 2400 square feet. But I'm in New Hampshire!
That's higher than what I've seen, even with pier and beam. Get a referral and quote. And ask what the cost covers - it might be inclusive of a few other type inspections as well. Is there a pool? Those inspections are extra.
Why not call a few places and see what they quote? That will be your best way to figure out if the price is OK. I wouldn't necessarily go with the cheapest one though.
I agree with the other comments you've received. I'm in the Sarasota area but most inspectors I see here charge $300-375. WDO inspections run anywhere from free to $50. Mold tests can be $250-750 depending on the extent of the testing. I've never seen a radon test done in my area.
Just remember when you "buy" the cheapest, you usually get what you pay for. I would look at the person's training and qualifications, as well as what exactly will be done during the inspection.
Just remember when you "buy" the cheapest, you usually get what you pay for. I would look at the person's training and qualifications, as well as what exactly will be done during the inspection.
I can't tell you what your prices are in Florida but SouthernBelleInUtah is very correct in the highlighted statement above! Be very careful about price shopping for Inspectors as it can cost you a lot more than the inspection fee. I have written various Blogs about these issues on my WEB site but will synopsis the recommendations here.
Don't price shop as it will bite you hard in the end! If your first conversation with the Home Inspector starts out with price questions you're immediately at a disadvantage and the less than honest and ethical Home Inspector knows that and will take advantage of it!
Call around and find at least three Home Inspectors using whatever criteria is important to you. During your first call to Home Inspectors perform your interview and leave price questions out of the conversation altogether. What you want are three Home Inspectors you feel will perform the job you will be paying them for. You want three just in case your number one choice is not available when needed.
After you find your three Home Inspectors now go back and talk to each of the three about their fee amount. At this point you have chosen the Home Inspectors you feel can do the job. Now if you want to price shop you can among those three and line them up from lowest to highest price.
Stay away from the Home Inspector offering all kinds of free services! All they are trying to do is draw you in and nothing is free. All those free services are going to cost you in one way or another. Either they already added it to the fee or if they haven't then your level of inspection service is going to decrease. There are plenty of ways that a dishonest Home Inspector can reduce their workload to not spend additional time needed to give you all of those free services. Any good, and honest Home Inspector is charging you what they are worth and what their services and time are worth. Inspecting any home properly takes time and the more time they are using to provide those supposedly free services will take away from the time needed to do the job properly!
Don't be drawn in with all of the other freebies they like to advertise as they are mostly junk or you can easily get on your own. For example those free 90 day warranties are worthless and you'll find out later if you try to make a claim on them.
When you are first calling around to find your three Home Inspectors ask for a sample of their inspection reports. Make sure you specify you want a sample of an actual report they performed and you want the whole report. Obviously they will redact identifying information from the report to protect the privacy of the previous client and current homeowner. If they don't they won't be much concerned about your privacy either. Look over the report and compare it to others. You can tell a lot about the way they will perform your inspection by the way they write their reports. You'll be amazed at some of the junk reports you'll see.
When you are first calling around to find your three Home Inspectors ask for a copy of the inspection agreement contract. Compare those with the others as well. Look for the exclusions and limitations as well as a scope of work.
These basic steps for evaluating a Home Inspector will weed out many of the ones that will not be providing you the service you think you're going to get. Here in the Dallas area we have Home Inspectors who will promise you the world for $250 and many people take them up on it because they are so much cheaper than the good Home Inspectors. I hear from some of those consumers occasionally and have seen the reports. I can tell just from the reports they were ripped off!
Out here they charge by square footage and age. A larger home takes more time so it costs more. All home inspectors crawl under all houses. The type of foundation has nothing to do with anything. That seems really excessive unless there is a detached garage/shop, something that would run up the cost. Out here the good inspectors would charge between $300-$400 for that size and age.
All home inspectors crawl under all houses. The type of foundation has nothing to do with anything.
It does here since we have Slab Foundations in most newer (40+ year) homes. The older homes and some newer P & B require the inspector here to go under the house and they do charge extra.
I believe most newer FL homes are like ours, few to no basements and Post tension Slab Foundations.
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