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I am in the process of buying a foreclosed house. My realtor emailed me with the inspector she wants us to use. I've heard it's not good to go with the realtor recommendations for inspectors and financing. Should we find our own inspector?
I am in the process of buying a foreclosed house. My realtor emailed me with the inspector she wants us to use. I've heard it's not good to go with the realtor recommendations for inspectors and financing. Should we find our own inspector?
What you do depends on what you think of your agent. If you trust your agent, go with their recommendation. If you don't think highly of your agent, then search for your own inspector.
Pretty much what Silverfall said. Hopefully, though, your agent gives you a selection of choices (two or three) AND tells you you can research and hire your own.
I give my clients 4 or 5 recommendations and invite them to choose their own. With time a precious commodity, not all inspectors are available during the client's respective schedules and there is no time to lose with radon testing taking 48 hours. Sometimes it comes down to who's available.
I do have one inspector that a strongly prefer first time home buyers use, but I still give them options. The reason I prefer they use him? He's VERY thorough, while not thinking it's his job to incite panic, he tells them if something he finds is a $10 fix at Home Depot or a serious safety issue that needs to be addressed right away (and everything in between), and he's very good at telling them why something is a problem if it is and when it's not up to code but was up to code when the house was built (and if the code changed last week, he'll tell them that, too). He'll give them tips on keeping things running well (very useful for first time homeowners who used to leave all that to the landlord). He's just a damned good inspector with a talent for working with first time buyers.
But if they choose one of the others on my list, they're all good inspectors, no problem; if they choose one not on my list, I'll be paying even closer attention at the inspection to see if they should be on it.
So an agent recommending an inspector or inspectors doesn't have to set alarm bells ringing - there could be very good reasons, based on attending/reading dozens or even hundreds of inspections/inspection reports, for their preference. It all boils down to, do you trust your agent or not, as Silverfall said.
Any decent Realtor will give you more than 1 inspector name...if not I would see it as a red flag.
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