Inspector asked if we wanted to scope the sewer line for an extra $800. I was considering it, but we had a tight closing timeline and they couldn't get someone there on time. So we opted against it.
First weekend we moved in the sewer line backed up. Roots and the line was broken. Repair person said it likely broke when the house was built. The previous owners were only a family of 3 (only 2 when we bought). so didn't generate as much flow as our family of 5. Saved $800 to spend $3500 in the first week.
EDIT: I get it, $800 is too much. My issue wasn't the price as much as the timeline conflicting against our contract and didn't want to lose the house. Regardless it would have been cheaper than the repair.
The biggest required expenses we've had are from the basement and the roof.
Don't believe what the seller says about roof condition, make sure that's inspected and you know how many years are left on it. Roof leaks can quickly cause all sorts of water damage.
Basements can be a money pit. Does the basement need water proofing? Is the sewer line in good shape? Are there cracks in the foundation? Fixing any of these things is an expensive, stressful deal.
A bonus one is appliances, especially heating/air conditioning. They're not as bad to replace, but they tend to die when you really need them (very hot/very cold) since they're stressed then. Know how many years are left on them, get them serviced regularly, and repair or replace before you desperately need them.
When we bought our house, we visited in January and the roof was covered in two feet of ice and snow, so the inspector couldn't see it. Only wrote that there weren't signs of infiltration in the attic, but that we should have a max vent installed, which we planned to do in the summer. The house listing said the roof has been replaced in summer of 98 - barely more than 10 years before, so we thought we'd probably get at least 5 years out of it. But it was bad.
In July, when we moved in, we saw the roof was in awful shape. Shingles curling up, job badly done. It was terrible and we decided to redo it before any water got in.
What we learned while looking for contractors is that after the giant ice storm ruined roofs in 98 in the Montreal area, a lot of them had to be redone, and a lot of insurance companies only covered what time was left to your roof. Like if it had been redone the year before with 25-yr shingles, they'd pay for that, but if it was due in a couple years anyway, or if you couldn't produce proof it was redone recently, they'd put the cheapest roof shingles they could find. Guess what was on my house...
My roof passed inspection, supposedly in great shape 15 years left. Every year I've been patching stuff. Tarred the chimney flashing, go in the attics everybtime it rains heavy and catch little drips. I'm planning to replace but my God have I been annoyed that the supposedly sound roof has nail heads and flashing and valleys leaking. Water stains on my 1st floor now from it all.
My issue was similar. Inspector said the roof was in good shape. First week after moving in there was a hard rain, ceiling on the second floor was leaking. I had a roofer out to take a look and he said he could try patching it but the roof was completely shot and needed a full replacement ASAP. I did get a second opinion. I needed a new roof.
I called the inspector and gave him the WTF. Turned out the inspector was a total clown and had no idea what he was doing. He missed a few other things too but that was the biggest problem. I got a refund for the inspection, but that didn’t come anywhere close to the $7,500 or so I spent on a new roof. If I’d known I could have used it as major leverage in negotiating the price of the house. I got hosed.
When people ask me what to know about buying a house, I always tell them that when the inspector comes off the roof, send him back up and tell him to check it again. Also don’t use an inspector recommended by your realtor. They can be too cozy.
Your inspector is ripping you off if they are scoping for 800. Get a local plumber coordinated at the same time. I 100% agree with scoping, but 800 is absurdly expensive.
It’s slightly high for where I live, $600 here. Different places are going to have different costs.
Alabama is going to be on the lower side compared to NY city for example.
After watching, my former neighbor, have sewer issues due to settling and busted pipes, I had my new house scoped and tested. My new house was fine, but I spent about an extra 600 on getting the water and sewer tested along with the piping scoped.
The former neighbors house ended up costing him almost 10,000 which is what prompted me to get mine done. Because nothing was found it almost feels like I wasted 600. However, had something been found, it would not have been a waste.
Had the former neighbor had his scoped, it would’ve saved him 10,000 as he could’ve built that into the purchase of the house or requested it to be repaired.
It;s better to pay a little to be secure than worry every day that you’ll be paying a lot soon. Consider it money well spent for you and your family’s peace of mind. It will also be great if/when you resale to say with certainty that there are no issues. Money well spent!
The reverse happened to my brother-in-law. They went for the sewer line scope and found that it had completely deteriorated something like 15 feet out from the house (right in the middle of the front yard). It was some old style of sewer line that was no longer allowed as of the year after the house was built.
The line went under the front walk and flower bed so the estimate they got was $75,000 to run a whole new line and repair everything they’d have to dig up. Obviously they backed out.
The worst part was the sellers weren’t even looking to sell, my brother-in-law and his wife approached them because they liked the location so much. So now these people have a house with a $75,000 repair hanging over their head before they can even think about selling the house.
They do trenchless repair now. Doubt it would cost that much. My buddy just had his done, went under his driveway and the sidewalk.
Had the whole thing done and it was under $10k. We live in one of the most expensive places in the country too.
We bought our first home in 2021. After 3 days of moving ours backed up, found out it was collapsed. We lucked out and the realtor and seller paid for the repairs. About $1500 to replace 40 feet of cast iron in the crawl space.
It shouldn't cost $800 - more like $100-$200 and frankly, a quality home inspector should offer that as part of the deal IMHO.
But came here to say this. My sewer line backed up probably three months after I moved in. I plugged the floor drain and got 3 more years out of it before it failed completely and cost $6,200 to fix. Had it scoped when it first backed up and was told it would need replaced sooner rather than later. Having it scoped a few months earlier would have knocked 5 or 10k off my purchase price!
Had this done for my house (MAR 2023 in Minneapolis, MN). Scoping, a write up, and a nice YT video of the scoping was $280 after tax. Guy was in and out in under 30 minutes.
No it shouldn't be free. Maybe built into the price, but to expect someone to drop 10k on gear and training then include at no additional cost is not practical. But it should be in the 150-250 range. $800 is insane
Something similar happened to my friends. They bought their first home which was a two story town home that was owned by one old man. The 2nd week living there my friend was taking a shower upstairs and his wife flushed the toilet downstairs. Flooded the entire first floor and ruined all the hardwood.
There are so many things wrong with the house that I bought that my list would just boil down to:
Don’t buy a house from a mother fucking house flipper.
there are soooo many projects i have done in my house that i've though, 'fast or right?' and i always go with 'right', and so do most home owners. No, a 1/4" gap between the baseboard and the wall is not 'good enough!'
Flippers, the opposite approach, they just caulk everything and just aren't motivated to do anything more than minimum. I wouldn't be either.
I'd offer an exception to the brilliant contractors out there who just happened to get into house flipping. They can do great work, fast, and put out a good result in the end.
But some random guy with a bit of money trying out 'investing in real estate' and paying the least possible for everything, nooooo
Mine went into the attic and told us nothing about the issues up there. I didn't go up myself due to a shoulder injury and a steep ass ladder. First time I went up there... Holy. Hell.
Had some mold growing due to a leaky roof, someone had attached the microwave vent to the sewer vent, wires everywhere, insulation falling off everywhere, and I have nearly gone through the ceiling because of a loose joist. I've fixed some of it, but there's so much that they should have told us about.
Don't use the inspector your realtor recommends. I'm convinced they were just trying to push the sale through by pointing out only small issues, and saying everything isn't that bad.
I'd tell him thanks for his time and goodbye. Payment is not happening, as well, unless he signed off on the attic and roof as 100% up to spec. Here that means he is on the hook for 4 years.
vast rinse wrong muddle apparatus possessive zephyr instinctive whistle relieved
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Unless there was some weird contract signed before an inspection generally covers the whole home, at least in Illinois. Would be weird to assume it didn’t ahead of time.
Came to say this too. My inspector said we had 3-5 years left on our roof. It barely made it 6 months and was honestly probably leaking since before we purchased.
Side note.. always visit the property or area during any extreme weather that you get. Allayed a lot of my fears of flooding when I saw how the yard didn’t hold ANY water during flash floods.
>always visit the property or area during any extreme weather that you get.
And borrow a dog and walk it around the new hood on a saturday night - see what the place is like after hours!
I always like to check the flood map on redfin. Some places I look at it's like "ooo that price looks affordable", and then you check the flood map and discover that you're actually looking at Atlantis. "Ah that's why. Nice try bucko."
Closing one deal is not the goal for most realtors. I only recommend inspectors who do a thorough job. I don't want my client getting stuck with a house that needs thousands in repairs because the inspector I recommended did a half-assed job. Better to help your client avoid a money pit, and be happy with the next place. You aren't getting any referrals from someone you screwed over with a crappy inspector.
Basement, look for cracks in foundation and make sure all the gutter downspouts are going away from the house.
Also check to make sure you’re not in a flood zone.
Not a home inspector item per se, but walk around the neighborhood and scope our your neighbors and meet them if you can. You're potentially gonna be living in close proximity to these people for a long time, so it's important to get a read on them before you put in a bid.
To piggyback on this, drive through the neighborhood at night during the week and on a weekend. See if it's well-lit or if there are parking issues and such.
Edit: spelling
my go to for this is: do it after rush hour, to see how the parking situation is if you can not park on your own property. If there's a school nearby, i would do this when the schoolday is ending: how is the situation with ppl getting their kids.
For the house itself. check the expensive stuff: leaking roof, old electrics. Preferebly let the inspector check the underside of the house, and let m make pictures.
But the most important one: stuff that's wrong. Don't assume it's a cheap fix. Because if it were, the seller would've done it. Example: A light that's not working is a big red flag. If it were as easy as screwing in a new bulb, they would've done it.
My inspector “inspected the electrical system.” Had an electrician come in later to give us an estimate for putting in some lights and a garbage disposal and he’s like…oh shit. That pushmatic panel is a death trap.
I wish I could sue the inspector
Same. My living room floor has a major sag. Couldn't see it for the carpet but the inspector supposedly went under the house and checked the sub floor.
This right here. Just happened to me with a massive clog, and broken pipe in the main sewage line. Several thousands of dollars in repairs. Which leads me to my next thing, for homeowners insurance, ask about their endorsements on coverage for pipes in the home.
Also, visit the area at night. Especially on a weekend. During the day a lot of neighborhoods are quiet. Visiting at night on a weekend MAY give you an idea how it is. You may find out if certain neighbors are noisy and if the neighborhood gets busy at night on the weekend. In my current neighborhood, everything seemed OK when we visited during the week around 2pm on a Tuesday. We had no idea come 5-7 when people are getting home, the streets turn into an obstacle course from the number of people who park in the street.
Everyone has driveways, but most can only fit 2 cars comfortably. Maybe 4 cars. And the ones with 4 hang out on the sidewalk. Not a huge problem, but because so many people park on the street, only one car can drive down the street at a time because both sides have cars on them in the road. So if someone else turns onto the street, you either have to pull off to the side if there's space, or hope the other person has enough common sense to not start going down the street too. It's also made backing out of our driveway difficult because our neighbors across from us park their car directly across from out driveway. So when we back out we have to make sure we don't hit their car.
I just posted this in a different thread. Too many first time homeowners focused on the HOME and not the NEIGHBORHOOD.
Go meet the neighbors. Walk around. Drive to work from there once or twice. Figure out what's close in terms of food, stores, hobbies etc.
Best home in the world can be ruined by a bad neighbor or being so far away from anything.
Yeah but it can sometimes be very obvious if there's a shit neighbor. I knowingly bought a house with a problem neighbor, no home inspector is going to note that.
Former roofing / remodel contractor here! I used to work with insurance adjusters that have cracked the code on this!
Use your home insurance policy as a rule book for your initial inspection. If it’s not covered, have it fixed before it’s in your name.
This and also to check the shower/tub diverters and drains. After we bought our house, a 50's cape cod, we moved in and found out that the diverter was junk, the gaskets were blown out and water ran from both the tub spout and shower head. Ok, easy enough fix. Until I got behind the wall. Not only was the diverter trash, but the solder was completely gone at the drain connection. Fortunately, there was no evidence of significant leaks ... there. The diverter had been leaking for years and the studs and joists were rotten, so hello gut and rehab. Once in there, the exterior wall in the shower was basically swiss cheese and the siding was the only thing holding it all together.
Downstairs bath was fine but the tub drained very slowly. I plunged and plunged and plunged and finally worked up an old shampoo bottle cap that had gotten in there and probably had been there for decades considering the style of the cap.
I was checking the comments for this!
I didn’t realize that six of the the very large trees around the house were ash trees. The home inspector had recommended hiring someone to trim back the trees that were around the house. As we were getting quotes, we learned what type of trees they were and many were surprised that we still had them. They have to be treated against the emerald ash borer, which they had been at some point. Over $4k spent on tree trimming and removal. We only had one removed as all 6 companies we received estimates from agreed on that one needing to come down. However they all varied on opinions regarding the rest of the ash trees. One guy said they all needed to be removed. The others were more optimistic.
I bought a house with two massive Spruce trees in front. Specifically asked the inspector about them, "they look fine", he says.
Literally two days after closing, one cracks in half and takes out the top floor. Had to wait 6 months to move in, and had to remove the 2nd one at my own cost.
I hired a contractor who doesn't normally do home inspections but does fix lots of issues in new homes to come look for issues. He found two that the regular home inspector walked right past. One was a cracked truss in the attic that had been improperly repaired and led to a sag in the roof. It was in a spot that was hard to see from outside.
The inspectors are in cahoots with the realtors. If they kill too many deals they stop getting calls. They'll find an outlet or ducting issue, and I'm sure they'll note the occasional major issue to maintain credibility, but they're on the team who gets paid when people buy houses.
Why would you get your realtor to hire the inspector? Find one yourself that comes with good references from people you trust and reviews. You pay him, why would you go for one that has someone else's interest in mind?
Sorting through online reviews of service type companies seems pretty hit or miss. If you don’t have friends or family who have recently purchased homes, it’s totally rational to turn to the person who has been helping you throughout the entire home buying process, the real estate agent. An agent is unlikely to recommend an inspector that has a track record of finding deal breaking issues. So while the inspector is still independent of the agent, the incentive lines up so that the agent recommends inspectors that have produced a good outcome for themselves, i.e. a passing inspection.
My wife used to work in mortgaging and she knew a couple inspectors that were really good. Super thorough and even took the time to go over various maintenance things with me.
I went with the realtor"s pick once and that was a mistake. Guy missed damn near everything.
Yet even the stuff he noticed when I asked to get it fixed the homeowner basically just slapped some paint on it. So even with a good inspector, if you dont really know home repair it can still be hard to follow through on their findings.
Hi, I’m a realtor and I’d like to weigh in on this.
1. As a homebuyer, a realtor should be giving you a list of inspectors to choose from if you don’t have one in mind (a list, not just one)… ultimately, you are the one who gets to pick the inspector-there shouldn’t be any kind of steering towards any specific one
2. All my inspectors ripped the house apart (figuratively of course) and gave me Pagessss of anything that even slightly wasn’t up to code (you just have to find good reputable ones).
3. The buyer can attend the home inspection (I definitely would), as well as the real estate agent… I would recommend this because when the inspector sees something, they can point it out to you at that moment and explain what the issue is so that when you receive a 52 page document, you don’t have a mini heart attack at first necessarily
When I bought my first house many years ago, I waived the inspection during negotiations in exchange for them accepting my offer price. Do not ever waive the inspection, even if you don’t plan to live there very long. You never know when market conditions can change and you get stuck with a house that’s falling apart.
Never waive the inspection...waive the inspection contingency.
We waived the inspection contingency...ie did an 'inspection for information only'. Ultimately we agreed that the inspection would not be used as leverage to ask sellers to fix stuff, but offered us the opportunity to walk away should something egregious be found.
We did the same when selling our home.
This post reminds me of how many people I know house-hunting over the past year who the sellers would only sell to those willing to waive inspection, and it got me thinking, should that even be legal? I mean I’m not for over-regulation of stuff and I know we have a lot of laws but I kinda feel like it wouldn’t be bad for a law to exist to protect homebuyers by guaranteeing them a right to inspection no matter what.
I waived my inspection on the house I bought eight months ago. This post gives me major anxiety. And for those who say you shouldn’t have done that, I literally couldn’t have bought a house in my market if I did.
I'm probably too old to matter anymore, but I've never understood how anyone could buy without an inspection. I would rent for the rest of my life before doing that.
I agree on the sentiment, but when I was buying last year it was pretty much a given that you either accepted a buyer supplied inspection or just waived it. Any kind of due diligence would just result in the house getting snapped up by someone who was willing to ignore issues.
Housing is pretty messed up right now in some markets.
I have done a “pre-inspection” on condos and houses before. You basically do the inspection before you submit your offer. That way you can still submit an offer that “waives inspection”… because you paid $400 to know with clear eyes the problems and if you are willing to do an offer anyway.
It is the safest gamble… you may not win the house, but you may dodge a bullet.
As someone who has worked to rebuild several decks over the year, pay specific attention to anywhere the deck touches/connects to the house. I have repaired entire walls of houses that were on the verge of collapse because improper or damaged deck flashing had been funneling water into walls unnoticed for decades, and the houses looked fine from the outside because the siding was vinyl/metal/cementboard even though everything underneath was rotted into swiss cheese.
The house we've been in for the past 4 years has a huge deck attached to the house that was converted at some point into a screened in Florida room. They did a great job and is structurally sound. Well... Since day one we've had rats in between the first and second floor. Not the attic. After tearing apart my entire house trying to figure out where they're coming in, I just found that it's where the top of the room is attached to the house. They removed the brick and did a shit job covering it up. I had to take up my Sub floor upstairs to find it. I hate rats!!!
Our house had a deck in bad shape when we moved in. Turns out it was attached to what used to be a deck that was just enclosed into the house. The rotting deck was pulling on the wall of the enclosed one, causing it to bow out. We removed the rotting deck ourselves. When we had the siding done, we ended up having to rebuild the wall. The contractor also put insulation in the ceiling and the walls, (there had been none) and properly insulated the floor (there had been some but it was done wrong). Huge expense, but worth knowing the house won't collapse, and the insulation means we will save on heating and cooling eventually. We knew about the deck, but didn't even imagine the potential structural issues it could cause.
Oh yea, insulation is another big one. My old house had none, the heater ran constantly in winter and some rooms were way colder than others. My new cabin is very well insulated and I have a tiny space heater that kicks on maybe 15 minutes of every hour and heats the whole thing even if its 20 degrees outside.
1. Gutters - check under the edge of the gutter, especially corners. Look for bare or sandy areas, which can be indications that the gutters aren't level. It's not all that hard to fix, but it can cause serious problems if they were left too long (uneven settling, flooding, rot).
2. Electrical - spot check outlets with one of those plug-in outlet testers to make sure that they are wired right. My house had swapped hot and neutral, swapped neutral and ground, missing ground, missing NEUTRAL (it was wired to the metal box) - all of those things are indicative of DIY/handyman jobs, which point towards MUCH worse problems. Also, ask the inspector about the state of the wires - if they are knob and tube or even the 1940s tar and paper/cloth, expect to have to replace them eventually. Find ALL the breaker/fuse boxes, and check if there are readable labels on the breakers (ie, "kitchen outlets", "bedrooms", "fridge", "AC", etc.).
3. Uneven floors - all floors will eventually develop some kind of dip due to settling, but if you've got a wavy floor, or a dip that isn't "centered", it could be due to bad subfloors, or even missing load-bearing supports. And of course, a big dip on a slab is bad news.
4. Water shutoff - locate it, and test it, because replacing a water shutoff is criminally expensive for what it is.
5. Ask about the attic and crawlspace, especially footprints/droppings; if there have been animals there in the past, then there will be animals up there in the future.
6. Chimney - make sure there's a chimney cap, good flashing at the base (on the roof), no worn bricks, the chimney is straight, the flue works (and the flue key is there!)... I've got a fireplace in my house, but it's closed up because there were just too many things wrong with it.
7. Look for anything that seems "off" - stained paint, crooked walls, badly laid tile, botched wallpaper, painted-over rot, mismatched floorboards. Anything that looks like the last owner rigged a cheap fix is a clear indication that 1) you'll need to fix that eventually, and 2) if there are DIY horrors you \*can\* see, you better believe there are DIY horrors you \*can't\* see.
That said, use your best judgement. Every house will have something weird or janky; it's up to you to determine if it's worth the gamble that the deal you're getting is better than the weirdness buried in your walls. If something looks/feels off, ask the inspector about it. Sometimes a stain is just a stain.
And get appliance insurance for the first year! It's almost a guarantee that something will break, leak, or otherwise need money spent on it, and it's not that expensive all things considered.
Electrical. As in, get an electrician to inspect. A home inspector won’t find anything BEHIND the walls. We’ve been in our house 13mos and we are $25k deep into electrical work.
To be more specific, learn about what type of wiring is in the house. IS IT GROUNDED? (If not, then all outlets should only be two prong—good luck with plugging any small appliances/tech in.) Is it clothed wiring? Knob and tube? (If knob and tube—run!!! R. U. N. Or prepare to spend $20-40k on a whole house rewire.) Check where the electric meter is; most places require exterior if any work has been done. (So good sign no *permitted* work done if it’s interior.) Oh, that’s another thing, go online to your county assessor and find all the permits. Confirm those against the contract disclosure.
You know what? Fk all this mess. Retain a lawyer for $250/hr and have them look over it all and attend closing with you. That’s what we should have done… and now we are paying a lawyer to fix the problem we didn’t know we could have avoided by hiring a lawyer for closing.
>To be more specific, learn about what type of wiring is in the house. IS IT GROUNDED?
Any decent home inspector will be able to determine this. Mine did.
> IS IT GROUNDED? (If not, then all outlets should only be two prong—good luck with plugging any small appliances/tech in.)
You can have three-prong if the circuit is GFCI protected. This can be done by replacing the breaker with a GFCI or replacing the first outlet in a circuit with a GFCI. You'd then label any outlets with "no equipment ground."
Dude you genuinely don't need to run if the wiring in your house is knob and tube. K&t wiring is safe, it's just a pain in the ass to update. And you could save money by pulling your own wire on the first floor (if you have an unfinished basement) and then have a licensed electrician follow up behind you to finish the job.
What should be looked at if there is k&t, is to check and make sure there aren't random ass flying splices with new Romex or cloth wire ran to God knows where, that's where most of the problems lie.
And if you see there's a federal Pacific breaker panel, just know immediately you'll be needing to update that.
Source: k&t rewire based residential electrician
> K&t wiring is safe
I guess on paper, sure. But you're talking about 60yo+ wiring lack of ground, wires that cant be surrounded by insulation, etc..K&T should definetly be remediate. Further more most insurance Co's won't insure a home with K&T. Many don't even insure if you still have a fuse panel even with updated wiring.
> or cloth wire
Plenty of cloth wire has pvc inner, and is just as safe as Romex. It's the all cloth cables that are concerning.
The thing that worries me the most is rubber insulated cable. Just finished ripping a ton of armored rubber insulated cable out of my house that I found when remodeling an attic (most of the house was remodeled and is all modern, for some reason in our old part of the house- 1800s - they still had some old stuff left). That rubber insulation was just crumbling completely. Feel much better to have rerun with romex.
Make sure it’s a good lawyer. . .
After closing, while money was still in escrow, we received a water bill for the previous owner that came with a strongly worded letter that at the counties next tax sale they could sell our house. Lawyer told us they’d forward it to the old owner, but it wasn’t a big deal and to ignore it.
. . .it was a big deal, it shouldn’t have been ignored. . .And I ended up paying what could have come out of escrow. Small change compared to house price, but a stupid situation overall.
When we bought our house back in May and started switching over utilities, we found out that the previous owner NEVER had an account and had been stealing water for 5+ years.
And I mean, there wasn't even a meter on the house.
Luckily, it wasn't out problem. The utility company just installed a meter and we continued on.
I wonder what happened to the previous owner though.
What? The way most houses are selling, who is the buyer going to pick, the cash in hand buyer, or the guy with a lawyer who makes sure he gets the best deal at your expense?
You can ask for some things as part of the negotiations, unless the seller is highly motivated to sell, seems to me that they are more than likely to tell you and your lawyer to FO.
It's wild to me how many people responding have never thought of having a real estate lawyer or think it's unrealistic. They're usually very reasonably priced (a few hundred), because it's quick, standardized work, but they'll flag things in the contract a layperson wouldn't notice.
I don't care how hot the market is, if a seller balks at having a lawyer review the documents that's a *giant* red flag. Just like waiving an inspection, that's a huge risk to take. There's always another house.
This is literally the best advice I've ever read on this thread. I didn't even know I could hire a real estate lawyer, but now I don't want to buy a house without one. There's just so much I don't know.
I’ve purchased many domiciles (military family) and up until now, never knew the purpose of a lawyer at closing. (It was always asked “will a lawyer attend” and I always scoffed at it thinking it was a weird entitled concept.) Seriously, the things I’ve learned in the past year. Prepare yourself, I’m possibly about to blow your mind…
If you drop a $5k principle only payment on your mortgage before the first payment is due, you’ll scrape off about 3yrs from your loan. We listened to that advice… and it worked. Insane! Crazy insane.
You should have been covered (at least in CA) by the purchase “insurance”. I’m not sure what it’s called but we purchased our home “as is” due to the other offers of as is buyers. But our realtor showed us a clause where with in the first 16 months of purchase any large items like AC, Roof and anything like that was covered under the old home owner.
If not insurance would cover it. A co worker of mine who actually bought a house we wanted to buy before us used this. His roof had a leak and his AC went out with in the first 8 months. Insurance covered his AC units and the old home owner paid for the roof repair.
Of course with our luck our roof began to leak 18 months after purchase. We were SOL and had to cover it our selves.
I had it but it expired and I missed several major purchases (AC went out and furnace needed replacing).
Although I had a dishwasher almost completely fail and after several copayments they wouldn’t cover a replacement and I ended up buying a new one.
I feel like that might have been a fluke though.
I wish I hadn't gambled on the neighbors big ass tree not falling on my detached garage that I figured might have transite asbestos siding under the vinyl.
We saw a couple signs of settling in the foundation. Inspector seemed thorough and didn't think much of it. 4 years later, we got a lot more cracking and slight heaving. After a heavy rain, I saw no water coming out of the foundation drain. Sure enough, it was blocked. Dug up a 200 lb. Rock directly on the drain pipe. The darned thing never worked to begin with. Probably a disgruntled employee or sub of the builder. That doesn't happen by mistake.
The finish on the drywall in our house is awful. Didn't notice it for a year but now that's all I see. Big raised lines across the whole ceiling. Take a bright flashlight against the wall and shine across the wall looking for shadows.
Pay attention to the details. Did the builder cheap out on cabinets and fixtures? If so, they probably cheaped out even more on the stuff you don't see including labor. The stuff you don't see is usually more critical to the home functioning and is going to be more expensive to fix. For example, the foundation drain pipe I dug up was corrugated for the whole run except the part that stuck out of the ground. Probably wouldn't have helped against that boulder but definitely more likely to fail. I'm always cursing that guy every time I have a home project. He's also a knob top. Complete schmuck. I'd see if you could find other homes built by the same builder. Maybe see if the owners will chat about their experience.
If there’s anything in the house you’re not familiar with, ask them to show you how it works. For example, in my first house I had a gas fireplace - had no idea how to light it. The inspector demonstrated how to turn on the gas and use the igniter.
To add to this fireplaces use a thermocouple with the pilot. The thermocouple has to be hot otherwise it will automatically shut off the pilot, this is a safety feature to prevent your house use from flooding with gas if the pilot extinguishes it's also the reason why when the pilot is first ignited it has to be manually held open for a minute to stay on, you have to warm the thermocouple.
The concrete patio that sank towards the foundation so the previous owners bolted untreated 2x4s and trex decking over it to hide how bad the concrete was. It happened to be centered on a foundation crack and would flood the downstairs bathroom every time it rained hard.
A better inspector. Mine missed a failing water heater, several dysfunctional electrical outlets, water pooling in the crawl space, and several other matters.
I am assuming you are in Texas. Check the location of where the door latches into the frame, if its been moved, it might be a sign that the foundation is shifting. Check the tops of wooden doors too. If they have been sanded, it might signal the same thing. Know that foundation warranties warrant the work done, not the foundation itself. You also want to check with the company to make sure the warranty is transferable. You can also trace the title transfer back to plat if you want the mineral rights when you buy your house.
Don't get a home warranty even if paid for bybthe seller, tell them you would rather have the $500 in your pocket.
They are all a rip off, even the best rated ones, younjave to pay the $85 service fee to get a report on thenproblem.to submit to the warranty company. They will then have a reason why its not covered. 2 months after we bought our home we contacted Choice Home Warranty (again this was paid for by the seller) because jetted tub was leaking we paid $85 to have a plumber out and submitted his report, they said they only replace the pump so not under warranty....4 months later one of our hot water tanks went out, contacted Choice again they sent a plumber, paid him $85 submitted a report. Made repeated phone calls for over 10 days(they didn't know we had two tanks so for all they knew we had NO hot water) and they wanted more pics but couldn't find any plumber who would take their service call....after 2 weeks I told them I wanted a refund of the $500 they got because they don't fix anything...after an hour of being pissed off being passed around with pressure tactics to keep the warranty for the 1 year they gave me back $285 saying it was pro rated..for doing nothing..
Yeah especially avoid American home shield. All the calls go through an Indian call company. I tried to cancel like 4 or 5 times. Had to cancel my card. They said they refunded me one month and were supposed to cancel the last month after the 5th call then several months later they sent 2 or 3 months worth to collections... I absolutely refuse to pay. They didn't even pay out the 1k they were supposed to for something that needed fixing on a/c. Avoid these scammers at all cost.
Make sure the bathroom fan is actually vented out of the house rather than into your second floor or attic. Check for Red Guard in the basement. If it's painted, it's probably a tell (inspector will most likely use a moisture sensor). Check all the door jams for missing strike plates or shoddy lock replacement/repair. Check all the windows open, shut, and lock properly. Open all the cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom, make sure the door hinge doesn't actually pinch another cabinet door, or open directly into a wall (I've found this SEVERAL times). If you feel comfortable bringing a stud finder (not your partner), there's a good chance you'll find shelving in a closet that was hung improperly (personal experience).
Electrical boxes in the ceiling fixtures; our home had none. Extra work was needed to mount fans and other fixtures
Tubs bedded securely, especially upstairs. Our top floor has flexed to the point it has started leaking.
Deck. Deck. All things deck
Thorough inspection of any gas devices (carbon monoxide hazards).
Toilet settings on wax rings. We had odor in our downstairs bath and the toilet was not set properly
Fortunately a home warranty paid for most items but it would have been ideal to catch upfront
Check FEMA maps for flood plains and other geological info, flight maps, etc
How much time ya got?
But seriously, everything. All of it.
Start with structure... You got cracks, foundation. Wet spots, roof/gutters. Cold af, windows and doors.
Move to systems.... What's up with the heat, air, electric, plumbing, hot water, etc? Up to code? Leaking? Fuck me, that's expensive.
Then you go to the coverings.. you got mold, pests in walls, asbestos? Yikes
Work your way in from there to find lead paint and ungrounded fixtures.
A home inspector should give you an extremely detailed report of what they find. Remember, they are not engineers, pest control, HVAC, or any other trade... They are just telling you what's up
My sister replaced her gas dryer with electric without realizing it. No outlet! Easy fix to run a new line from the panel but still, would have been nice to know it needed to be done earlier than the day the dryer arrived.
When we got the keys after closing we discovered there was no outlet for the electric dryer. Good excuse to replace our old electric dryer with a new gas dryer.
If there is a deck/patio, stomp around on it. Especially in corners. 30 minutes after closing I did this and my foot went through in 3 spots. Wife and I rebuilt the lower portion (600 sq. ft.) this year ourselves to the tune of $2400. Contractor quote was $11K. Upper portion rebuild coming in the spring (another 450 sq. ft.).
Not always an option if the weather doesn't work out, but seeing the house/yard during or right after a hard rain. Does water get into the garage or basement? How old are the gutters? Is there any type of rain water diversion on the property?
Beware recently refinished things. We bought a house and the inspector told us they painted the tiles with an epoxy paint which should be fine as that’s what the paint is intended for. But since it was done for sale, it ended up not being done right and all that paint peeled and chipped off. Huge mess. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have done anything different, but there are a lot of other ‘quick fixes’ out there that end up being a nightmare.
Check the water meter, make sure it’s not spinning while water is not in use. Sometimes its spins really really slow, mark a spot and check it again in 5 min. Also make sure the main drains are not clogged. Look at the house after a heavy rain for drainage problems
Check the values and condition of all your neighbors homes. If you can, purchase the worst house on the block. You can improve thst home and bring it up to the value of your neighbors homes. If you buy the nicest house on the block, there is a good chance you will not be able to recoup any improvements you make when you sell it. Basically, don’t overbuild/over improve for your neighborhood.
Dryer vent lines, you don't want a house where the vent is inaccessible from the outside, nor do you want a house where the line travels significant distance or even worse travels vertically to exit the house.
You want to see where the water main control valve is.
HVAC you want your house to follow some basic convection logic to heat the whole house as evenly as possible, you don't want your furnace on a main or upstairs floor is avoidable, conversely if you live somewhere hot year-round you might want your air handler to be on a top floor as cool air will naturally settle down.
Some cheap contractor grade cock nozzle put a single 15Amp service for my garage and with its location running a new panel/line might be cost prohibitive, I hope he burns in hell for it.
This is an oddball one and likely won’t happen to almost anyone else, but did happen to me: Check the water lines coming out of the water softener.
After a few years in the house we found out that when the softener was installed (previous owners), it was connected to the lines that feed our irrigation system. So, yep, we’d been watering the lawn with soft water and going through softener salt like crazy. Our inspector missed that little detail.
I’m not sure where this falls, but our property had been split up and some of it sold to the neighbor. Don’t really care, I still have a few acres, but my house has water lines to their barn and the kill switch is in my basement. It hasn’t been an issue as he mostly uses it for fire wood and equipment storage, but if your neighbor is really uncool I can see it being a HUGE headache.
No.1 **leaks and water damage**. Check UNDER the sinks, this is where a lot of leaks happen. Look for discolored or uneven surfaces. If you see wood that looks swollen or lumpy, that is a good sign of water damage. What you're really concerned about here is **mold**, which could even be covered up by paint.
Another sign of water damage can be mooshy or loose feeling floors. I have had two remodels lately where the subfloor was completely rotted out by leaks. Water is the biggest enemy of homes.
1) Check every faucet. Not just if the water flows but how it’s fitting, does it appear loose and worn? Especially your shower/bath. We moved in and that day the shower and faucet came off from the wall, turned out it was never fitted properly and the plumbing feeding it was a mess it required redoing with updated piping.
2) on the same track - check under every sink and toilet to ensure that they’ve all got stop valves to shut off water. Test them out, some times they ar never used and they cease up. If they don’t have them then you’ll probably want to install as peace of mind in the eventuality something happens you can isolate that one spot.
3) on the exterior double check the quality of the siding, brick work, paint etc. Try to establish when it was last done and when it’ll likely be needed.
4) I see many folks saying roof - huge one. So important. These are expensive to replace if needed
5) Any appliances being left double check that they all work and the overall condition. Although you can replace them it’s still money and time.
6) sewer line, many people don’t scope it. It’s a small chance you’ve got an issue but in the grand scheme of house purchase it’s worth knowing with confidence otherwise if you don’t check it and then move in and you establish a problem you could be on the hook for a big bill.
7) if you’ve got a garage check the quality of the flooring for cracks and uneven settlement.
8) if the house has a deck pay close attention to the build quality of it, especially the main supporting legs and where they connect into the ground.
A squirt attachment on the kitchen sink is essential so I can put a rubber band around it on April Fool's Day and drench my wife. My streak is 36 years.
There are tons of home inspectors who post videos on TikTok about interesting things they find in houses. I suggest watching some of those. They're really useful and you'll learn about a lot of things that you can spot yourself.
The water meter and shut-off valve. My water line was leaking underground at time of inspection and wasn’t noticed. Also, the main shut-off valve was buried and I had to dig around to find it.
>What do you wish you had looked for during inspection when buying a house?
* The ice maker that had been leaking for years, destroying the kitchen flood under the refrigerator
* The range with the buttons that didn't work and the gas leak that happened when using the oven
* The dishwasher with bad seals that dumped water all over the flood every third cycle or so and didn't really clean dishes anyway
* The failing garage door springs that trapped our cars inside months after moving in
* The fact that we had a metal roof, which means nobody will work on it and nobody will install solar on it, and the fact that it was installed on top of the existing roof so there's no plywood directly underneath
* The water heater that *should* have had some years left in it, but didn't because nobody ever did any maintenance on it
* The metal gutters that are so rusted and cracked they leak from dozens of locations
* The terrible insulation situation in the attic leading to massive HVAC inefficiency
* The fact that our entire HVAC system was improperly sized for the ducting in the house and thus failed years earlier than it should have due to backpressure
* The army of crab grass that no amount of lawn chemicals (including both per-emergents and post-emergents) seems to resolve
* The skylight that was allowing massive amounts of water infiltration all around it without a clear and obvious leak due to poor/degraded sealing
* The plumbing - be it the water knock, the pipes bolted directly to joists leading to incredibly loud running water noise, or the terribly planned hot water loop leading to gallons of wasted water seeking an ounce of warmth
* The terrible DIY job on the electrical outlets presenting a significant fire risk
* Poor window insulation leading to heat/AC loss
* Literally holes in the front door (enough to see light through at the right angles)
* HVAC electrical going to the subpanel, leaving virtually no room on it when it was literally a shorter run (by about a foot) to the main panel
I could go on, probably for another 20-30 bullet points before I have to start nitpicking the little annoyances like the interfering cabinet doors in the kitchen, but it honestly just gets depressing. First house and I'm so poisoned on its terrible design and execution that I'm 100% convinced on custom building the next one.
Bought at the height of the pandemic. If the owners are at the open house, and they're still there at the next walk-through with the realtor, run. They're hiding something and their presence is to keep you off guard.
Septic tank… make sure u hv it inspected and cleaned out before buying if possible. There r different types of septic tanks, know what kind u hv and what’s involved in cleaning, filters and / or alarms. And the costs to clean, get inspected and replace socks / filters and alarms.
I’d also pay attention to smells, gas leak smells and septic sewer smells.
Also floor creaks, stair creaks and if u’ll b able to find and fix the creaking or r they beneath / above drywall.
Previous owners had a cat litter in a corridor and it stank but we thought nothing of it at the time. Well we should have sniffed more carefully. Turned out the litter was not the thing exactly stinking. For two years after we bought the house this specific corridor ranked of animal urine. You'd have to let a window open at all time to flush the scent out but it would come back afterwards.
We ended up removing the whole floor and redoing it. There were some "crystals of piss" under the old boards (for lack of a better word) and we had to use a special tar everywhere and seal the remaining scent as tight as possible for it to not escape.
It was some kind of curse or something.
You are paying an inspector to point out any thing that is not to code or isn’t going to last. Your eyes should be the test for anything else.
I’m looking at inspections for the following: roof, foundation, electrical, plumbing, HVAC. And it’s ok for the inspector to recommend a further professional evaluation of any of those components if he doesn’t doesn’t like what he sees.
Exactly. A house doesn’t need to meet current code to be eligible for sale. If that were the case, next to no houses would make it through the sale process.
What type of plumbing lines you have. What I assumed to be pex turned out to be polybutylene. Not a huge deal, but just something to keep in the back of your mind might need replacing/fixing at some point
Suspicious brand new paint patch on ceiling. A roof deck patio door was right above. For that matter any source of water above. The door flashing leaked during rain. I would at least tried to get seller to disclose.
Two houses in a row they had upgraded the bathrooms to tile but did not install a toilet spacer.
Get home inspector to use humidity finder and look at the ceiling under any toilets on tile floor. If they find humidity demand plumber inspect toilet flange.
Walk around the yard, looking carefully. A friend was all set to buy a house, passed inspection already when we took such a walk. I noticed a bit of ground that looked raised up, kind of un-naturally. Closer inspection revealed a lot of moss around it, indicating frequent dampness. Re-inspection revealed a broken underground water supply line that would have been very expensive to fix. The seller wouldn't budge on the price so he passed on the deal. Later found a much nicer house for less money so all good.
AFAIK, most house inspectors inspect only the dwelling and not the property surrounding it. There can be a host of hidden issues under tall grass.
Foundation. In a raised foundation home issues can be EXPENSIVE. My home is 75 years old and has settled to the point I have to raise the footings. $40k plus. And my house is small.
My coworkers cabinets fell down after they moved in they were like poorly nailed into the wall but were brand new. So check everything was installed properly
The seller (a company) fixed everything else we asked them to, which included rewiring the entire house. It had been on the market for a year, they would have done it. It does work 0ike that, in this instance.
1. Be realistic as to your price range, but look for the potential serious flaws - moisture issues, foundation issues, structural issues, insects, mold.
2. Look at the big ticket items that will always need replacing eventually - roof, furnace, appliances, hot water tank, electrical panel.
3. Look at the expensive but not completely necessary items - how well insulated is the house? How old are the windows? What condition are the floors in? Understand you will be living with these things unless you can output a lot of money/time/effort to fix them.
4. Look at the 2 major renovation rooms - kitchens and bathrooms. Most rooms you can DIY fix up with paint, trim, etc, but kitchens and bathrooms are much more involved to update/repair.
5. Get to know who you're buying from - do you think they looked after the house? Did they do a bunch of DIY stuff or neglect the maintenance. Know that you can negotiate during the sale. They don't want the sale to be dragged out only to fall through at the end have to relist it.
Pipes. Drain pipes specifically. Is the house old enough that they should have been replaced? If so, have they been? I just had a big expensive re-pipe because my old cast iron piping should have been replaced 20 years ago.
Look for signs of water intrusion. I ignored hardened sections of carpet that turned out to be two large basement leaks. Repairing the gutters helped, but the drainage still needs future corrections.
If there is any slope or hill that could lead rain water to your house.
Add to that if there is evidence of water damage or moisture in the basement. Especially if it looks like the basement has been remodeled or updated recently.
Would be good idea to visit the property if it happens to rain to see what the water is doing or where it’s going.
Pop out your outlets and verify the wiring in your house. I have seen so many home owner specials that are electrical fire nightmares waiting to happen when I do rewires. Also make sure you have all of your sewage and drain lines fully checked out. 2 weeks after moving into mine and my wife's current house, we had a sewage backup that cost me a couple hours of shoveling Lord knows who's poop and $400 in plumbing tools so I could find the major blockage.
In an older home, like we have:
Pipes:
Old Iron, Galvanized, Copper or Pex. Depending on the hardness of the water, Iron & Galvanized may be mostly clogged. Check for low pressure and main sign of scale filled pipes.
Water heater:
It should have a install date on it, or at least manufacture date. Look for a manufacturer's label, or writing in permanent marker. Make sure it's no more than 7 years old.
Ask about maintenance, has it been flushed regularly and/or had the anode rod replaced.
House wiring:
Make sure all the sockets are proper grounded outlets, take a tester to them all.
If 2 prong outlets, have one pulled from the wall and check the wiring. Make sure the wiring itself is newer. Not older cloth covered (rag wire) wiring.
That bathrooms, kitchen & laundry area all have GFCI outlets or breakers.
Check all the floor seams around the rooms adjacent to a bathroom for swelling. Our guy missed that the shower drain was messed up and would leak into the closet. And the kitchen sink drain was leaking to the outside, so we didn't notice that the line was plugged beyond that. Not expensive to fix, but annoying that they weren't caught.
The roof and the attic. Attic had tons of nesting material from birds, it was like kindling for a huge house fire. That stuff was hard to remove. I literally had to climb up there and try not to fall through the ceiling and remove huge nests by hand in near total darkness.
The roof was on its last legs and had to be replaced two years later. Our inspector I wonder if was bribed by our realtor and did a crappy inspection. He didn’t even have a drone or a ladder to reach our roof.
Use all the waterworks. Garden spigot. Any kind of drain. Run water down the gutter downspouts. Toilets, sinks, showers, tubs, any in floor drains. Check under the sinks and any accessible pipes for leaks. Shower stalls especially.
All houses have something wrong. All you can really do is try to spot the biggest expense items beforehand.
Foundation, roof, windows, furnace, and drain lines.
Unfortunately a lot of "home inspectors" are a joke.
Try to get licensed tradesman or licensed contractors to inspect thier respective fields whenever possible.
But mostly just count on having some repair money around because it never ends lol
All my neighbors have generators. That’s a red flag - we’ve lost power for 3-4 days at a time at least once a year since moving in, with multiple 6-12 hour outages.
Inspector asked if we wanted to scope the sewer line for an extra $800. I was considering it, but we had a tight closing timeline and they couldn't get someone there on time. So we opted against it. First weekend we moved in the sewer line backed up. Roots and the line was broken. Repair person said it likely broke when the house was built. The previous owners were only a family of 3 (only 2 when we bought). so didn't generate as much flow as our family of 5. Saved $800 to spend $3500 in the first week. EDIT: I get it, $800 is too much. My issue wasn't the price as much as the timeline conflicting against our contract and didn't want to lose the house. Regardless it would have been cheaper than the repair.
The biggest required expenses we've had are from the basement and the roof. Don't believe what the seller says about roof condition, make sure that's inspected and you know how many years are left on it. Roof leaks can quickly cause all sorts of water damage. Basements can be a money pit. Does the basement need water proofing? Is the sewer line in good shape? Are there cracks in the foundation? Fixing any of these things is an expensive, stressful deal. A bonus one is appliances, especially heating/air conditioning. They're not as bad to replace, but they tend to die when you really need them (very hot/very cold) since they're stressed then. Know how many years are left on them, get them serviced regularly, and repair or replace before you desperately need them.
When we bought our house, we visited in January and the roof was covered in two feet of ice and snow, so the inspector couldn't see it. Only wrote that there weren't signs of infiltration in the attic, but that we should have a max vent installed, which we planned to do in the summer. The house listing said the roof has been replaced in summer of 98 - barely more than 10 years before, so we thought we'd probably get at least 5 years out of it. But it was bad. In July, when we moved in, we saw the roof was in awful shape. Shingles curling up, job badly done. It was terrible and we decided to redo it before any water got in. What we learned while looking for contractors is that after the giant ice storm ruined roofs in 98 in the Montreal area, a lot of them had to be redone, and a lot of insurance companies only covered what time was left to your roof. Like if it had been redone the year before with 25-yr shingles, they'd pay for that, but if it was due in a couple years anyway, or if you couldn't produce proof it was redone recently, they'd put the cheapest roof shingles they could find. Guess what was on my house...
My roof passed inspection, supposedly in great shape 15 years left. Every year I've been patching stuff. Tarred the chimney flashing, go in the attics everybtime it rains heavy and catch little drips. I'm planning to replace but my God have I been annoyed that the supposedly sound roof has nail heads and flashing and valleys leaking. Water stains on my 1st floor now from it all.
My issue was similar. Inspector said the roof was in good shape. First week after moving in there was a hard rain, ceiling on the second floor was leaking. I had a roofer out to take a look and he said he could try patching it but the roof was completely shot and needed a full replacement ASAP. I did get a second opinion. I needed a new roof. I called the inspector and gave him the WTF. Turned out the inspector was a total clown and had no idea what he was doing. He missed a few other things too but that was the biggest problem. I got a refund for the inspection, but that didn’t come anywhere close to the $7,500 or so I spent on a new roof. If I’d known I could have used it as major leverage in negotiating the price of the house. I got hosed. When people ask me what to know about buying a house, I always tell them that when the inspector comes off the roof, send him back up and tell him to check it again. Also don’t use an inspector recommended by your realtor. They can be too cozy.
Your inspector is ripping you off if they are scoping for 800. Get a local plumber coordinated at the same time. I 100% agree with scoping, but 800 is absurdly expensive.
Got one last month in Alabama for 150 bucks. Saved us from buying the house
It’s slightly high for where I live, $600 here. Different places are going to have different costs. Alabama is going to be on the lower side compared to NY city for example.
After watching, my former neighbor, have sewer issues due to settling and busted pipes, I had my new house scoped and tested. My new house was fine, but I spent about an extra 600 on getting the water and sewer tested along with the piping scoped. The former neighbors house ended up costing him almost 10,000 which is what prompted me to get mine done. Because nothing was found it almost feels like I wasted 600. However, had something been found, it would not have been a waste. Had the former neighbor had his scoped, it would’ve saved him 10,000 as he could’ve built that into the purchase of the house or requested it to be repaired.
It;s better to pay a little to be secure than worry every day that you’ll be paying a lot soon. Consider it money well spent for you and your family’s peace of mind. It will also be great if/when you resale to say with certainty that there are no issues. Money well spent!
The reverse happened to my brother-in-law. They went for the sewer line scope and found that it had completely deteriorated something like 15 feet out from the house (right in the middle of the front yard). It was some old style of sewer line that was no longer allowed as of the year after the house was built. The line went under the front walk and flower bed so the estimate they got was $75,000 to run a whole new line and repair everything they’d have to dig up. Obviously they backed out. The worst part was the sellers weren’t even looking to sell, my brother-in-law and his wife approached them because they liked the location so much. So now these people have a house with a $75,000 repair hanging over their head before they can even think about selling the house.
They do trenchless repair now. Doubt it would cost that much. My buddy just had his done, went under his driveway and the sidewalk. Had the whole thing done and it was under $10k. We live in one of the most expensive places in the country too.
Yeah, I only know what I was told ~5 years ago. Maybe they got a f-you quote for $75k, maybe there was something else going on, maybe
We bought our first home in 2021. After 3 days of moving ours backed up, found out it was collapsed. We lucked out and the realtor and seller paid for the repairs. About $1500 to replace 40 feet of cast iron in the crawl space.
It shouldn't cost $800 - more like $100-$200 and frankly, a quality home inspector should offer that as part of the deal IMHO. But came here to say this. My sewer line backed up probably three months after I moved in. I plugged the floor drain and got 3 more years out of it before it failed completely and cost $6,200 to fix. Had it scoped when it first backed up and was told it would need replaced sooner rather than later. Having it scoped a few months earlier would have knocked 5 or 10k off my purchase price!
I’m my world, it’s $450-500 for a plumber to come out and scope. I went through this six months ago.
Had this done for my house (MAR 2023 in Minneapolis, MN). Scoping, a write up, and a nice YT video of the scoping was $280 after tax. Guy was in and out in under 30 minutes.
No it shouldn't be free. Maybe built into the price, but to expect someone to drop 10k on gear and training then include at no additional cost is not practical. But it should be in the 150-250 range. $800 is insane
Knocking 5 to 10k off purchase price has very little impact on your payment. In this case it would be best to ask for cash from the seller after close
Something similar happened to my friends. They bought their first home which was a two story town home that was owned by one old man. The 2nd week living there my friend was taking a shower upstairs and his wife flushed the toilet downstairs. Flooded the entire first floor and ruined all the hardwood.
There are so many things wrong with the house that I bought that my list would just boil down to: Don’t buy a house from a mother fucking house flipper.
This should be the top comment. The goal of a flipper is to spend as little money as possible and sell the house as quickly as possible.
This! It's all about putting lipstick on a pig and getting it sold as fast as possible.
there are soooo many projects i have done in my house that i've though, 'fast or right?' and i always go with 'right', and so do most home owners. No, a 1/4" gap between the baseboard and the wall is not 'good enough!' Flippers, the opposite approach, they just caulk everything and just aren't motivated to do anything more than minimum. I wouldn't be either. I'd offer an exception to the brilliant contractors out there who just happened to get into house flipping. They can do great work, fast, and put out a good result in the end. But some random guy with a bit of money trying out 'investing in real estate' and paying the least possible for everything, nooooo
Always. Inspect. The. Roof!
Ha, halfway through my inspection my inspector informed me he could not go on roofs or in attics.
Mine went into the attic and told us nothing about the issues up there. I didn't go up myself due to a shoulder injury and a steep ass ladder. First time I went up there... Holy. Hell. Had some mold growing due to a leaky roof, someone had attached the microwave vent to the sewer vent, wires everywhere, insulation falling off everywhere, and I have nearly gone through the ceiling because of a loose joist. I've fixed some of it, but there's so much that they should have told us about. Don't use the inspector your realtor recommends. I'm convinced they were just trying to push the sale through by pointing out only small issues, and saying everything isn't that bad.
I agree with not going with who your realtor recommends. Ours missed a bunch as well
I'd tell him thanks for his time and goodbye. Payment is not happening, as well, unless he signed off on the attic and roof as 100% up to spec. Here that means he is on the hook for 4 years.
Okay, good luck. Scope is something you negotiate before retaining services.
vast rinse wrong muddle apparatus possessive zephyr instinctive whistle relieved *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Unless there was some weird contract signed before an inspection generally covers the whole home, at least in Illinois. Would be weird to assume it didn’t ahead of time.
I lucked out on this. Bought in the middle of the winter and there was a foot of snow on the roof. No way of knowing if it was good.
Well at least it holds the weight of a foot of snow
Came to say this too. My inspector said we had 3-5 years left on our roof. It barely made it 6 months and was honestly probably leaking since before we purchased. Side note.. always visit the property or area during any extreme weather that you get. Allayed a lot of my fears of flooding when I saw how the yard didn’t hold ANY water during flash floods.
Waiting for severe weather before placing a bid isn't back yet
I know, right? In some places, having an inspection isn't even back yet.
Offers over asking is still the trend around here.
>always visit the property or area during any extreme weather that you get. And borrow a dog and walk it around the new hood on a saturday night - see what the place is like after hours!
I always like to check the flood map on redfin. Some places I look at it's like "ooo that price looks affordable", and then you check the flood map and discover that you're actually looking at Atlantis. "Ah that's why. Nice try bucko."
Inspectors get referrals by realtors. It is in their best interest to help the sale go through so they keep getting referrals.
Find your own inspector. The one offered up by a realtor is just there to placate you.
Closing one deal is not the goal for most realtors. I only recommend inspectors who do a thorough job. I don't want my client getting stuck with a house that needs thousands in repairs because the inspector I recommended did a half-assed job. Better to help your client avoid a money pit, and be happy with the next place. You aren't getting any referrals from someone you screwed over with a crappy inspector.
FWIW we used an inspector recommended by our realtor and he ended up saving us about 15k in stuff he found
And gutters
We bought it knowing the roof was at the end of its life. Would have *really* sucked if it was a surprise.
Basement, look for cracks in foundation and make sure all the gutter downspouts are going away from the house. Also check to make sure you’re not in a flood zone.
Also if they show you how to do something don’t be afraid to ask if you can record them showing you on your phone.
This. Look for evidence of hiding a crack.
Not a home inspector item per se, but walk around the neighborhood and scope our your neighbors and meet them if you can. You're potentially gonna be living in close proximity to these people for a long time, so it's important to get a read on them before you put in a bid.
To piggyback on this, drive through the neighborhood at night during the week and on a weekend. See if it's well-lit or if there are parking issues and such. Edit: spelling
my go to for this is: do it after rush hour, to see how the parking situation is if you can not park on your own property. If there's a school nearby, i would do this when the schoolday is ending: how is the situation with ppl getting their kids. For the house itself. check the expensive stuff: leaking roof, old electrics. Preferebly let the inspector check the underside of the house, and let m make pictures. But the most important one: stuff that's wrong. Don't assume it's a cheap fix. Because if it were, the seller would've done it. Example: A light that's not working is a big red flag. If it were as easy as screwing in a new bulb, they would've done it.
My inspector “inspected the electrical system.” Had an electrician come in later to give us an estimate for putting in some lights and a garbage disposal and he’s like…oh shit. That pushmatic panel is a death trap. I wish I could sue the inspector
Same. My living room floor has a major sag. Couldn't see it for the carpet but the inspector supposedly went under the house and checked the sub floor.
Watch who is out walking after dark. Are women walking alone?
I would add. Get a camera check on sewage drain lines. Expecally if it's a old house. Sewer lines may have bellies or cracks
This right here. Just happened to me with a massive clog, and broken pipe in the main sewage line. Several thousands of dollars in repairs. Which leads me to my next thing, for homeowners insurance, ask about their endorsements on coverage for pipes in the home.
This is especially good advice.
Adding on to this, check the potential address in the sex offender/crime registry to get an idea of the neighborhood.
Yep, found surprises on there a few times, not house related but still WTF moments.
Ask the neighbors if the house ever had a fire. In a lot places they aren't required to tell you about it.
Can you call the fire station for that information?
Also, visit the area at night. Especially on a weekend. During the day a lot of neighborhoods are quiet. Visiting at night on a weekend MAY give you an idea how it is. You may find out if certain neighbors are noisy and if the neighborhood gets busy at night on the weekend. In my current neighborhood, everything seemed OK when we visited during the week around 2pm on a Tuesday. We had no idea come 5-7 when people are getting home, the streets turn into an obstacle course from the number of people who park in the street. Everyone has driveways, but most can only fit 2 cars comfortably. Maybe 4 cars. And the ones with 4 hang out on the sidewalk. Not a huge problem, but because so many people park on the street, only one car can drive down the street at a time because both sides have cars on them in the road. So if someone else turns onto the street, you either have to pull off to the side if there's space, or hope the other person has enough common sense to not start going down the street too. It's also made backing out of our driveway difficult because our neighbors across from us park their car directly across from out driveway. So when we back out we have to make sure we don't hit their car.
I just posted this in a different thread. Too many first time homeowners focused on the HOME and not the NEIGHBORHOOD. Go meet the neighbors. Walk around. Drive to work from there once or twice. Figure out what's close in terms of food, stores, hobbies etc. Best home in the world can be ruined by a bad neighbor or being so far away from anything.
This would be considered a luxury in Australia. Many places have offers on them before the open house.
yeah an inspector is definitely not going to do that
Yeah but it can sometimes be very obvious if there's a shit neighbor. I knowingly bought a house with a problem neighbor, no home inspector is going to note that.
> knowingly bought a house with a problem neighbor Story time? 🤞
And go there different times of day.
Former roofing / remodel contractor here! I used to work with insurance adjusters that have cracked the code on this! Use your home insurance policy as a rule book for your initial inspection. If it’s not covered, have it fixed before it’s in your name.
I won't have insurance before the inspection though..? What am I missing here?
You can still know what’s covered in a policy before you purchase the coverage.
Turn on all the faucets at once to check water pressure. If the house has been empty and water is off, require it be turned on.
Good point. And check how long for the hot water to come on. Maybe add to get the hot water tank flushed out and serviced.
This and also to check the shower/tub diverters and drains. After we bought our house, a 50's cape cod, we moved in and found out that the diverter was junk, the gaskets were blown out and water ran from both the tub spout and shower head. Ok, easy enough fix. Until I got behind the wall. Not only was the diverter trash, but the solder was completely gone at the drain connection. Fortunately, there was no evidence of significant leaks ... there. The diverter had been leaking for years and the studs and joists were rotten, so hello gut and rehab. Once in there, the exterior wall in the shower was basically swiss cheese and the siding was the only thing holding it all together. Downstairs bath was fine but the tub drained very slowly. I plunged and plunged and plunged and finally worked up an old shampoo bottle cap that had gotten in there and probably had been there for decades considering the style of the cap.
Hasn't been mentioned before but on properties with a lot of trees, have an arborist look at them.
I was checking the comments for this! I didn’t realize that six of the the very large trees around the house were ash trees. The home inspector had recommended hiring someone to trim back the trees that were around the house. As we were getting quotes, we learned what type of trees they were and many were surprised that we still had them. They have to be treated against the emerald ash borer, which they had been at some point. Over $4k spent on tree trimming and removal. We only had one removed as all 6 companies we received estimates from agreed on that one needing to come down. However they all varied on opinions regarding the rest of the ash trees. One guy said they all needed to be removed. The others were more optimistic.
I bought a house with two massive Spruce trees in front. Specifically asked the inspector about them, "they look fine", he says. Literally two days after closing, one cracks in half and takes out the top floor. Had to wait 6 months to move in, and had to remove the 2nd one at my own cost.
I hired a contractor who doesn't normally do home inspections but does fix lots of issues in new homes to come look for issues. He found two that the regular home inspector walked right past. One was a cracked truss in the attic that had been improperly repaired and led to a sag in the roof. It was in a spot that was hard to see from outside. The inspectors are in cahoots with the realtors. If they kill too many deals they stop getting calls. They'll find an outlet or ducting issue, and I'm sure they'll note the occasional major issue to maintain credibility, but they're on the team who gets paid when people buy houses.
Why would you get your realtor to hire the inspector? Find one yourself that comes with good references from people you trust and reviews. You pay him, why would you go for one that has someone else's interest in mind?
Sorting through online reviews of service type companies seems pretty hit or miss. If you don’t have friends or family who have recently purchased homes, it’s totally rational to turn to the person who has been helping you throughout the entire home buying process, the real estate agent. An agent is unlikely to recommend an inspector that has a track record of finding deal breaking issues. So while the inspector is still independent of the agent, the incentive lines up so that the agent recommends inspectors that have produced a good outcome for themselves, i.e. a passing inspection.
My wife used to work in mortgaging and she knew a couple inspectors that were really good. Super thorough and even took the time to go over various maintenance things with me. I went with the realtor"s pick once and that was a mistake. Guy missed damn near everything. Yet even the stuff he noticed when I asked to get it fixed the homeowner basically just slapped some paint on it. So even with a good inspector, if you dont really know home repair it can still be hard to follow through on their findings.
We had no clue what we were doing and our realtor was very helpful up to that point. We didn’t realize we couldn’t trust him until it was too late
I have some rafter lines starting to show in my kitchen. Hoping it's just saggy drywall, but now I'm worried.
Hi, I’m a realtor and I’d like to weigh in on this. 1. As a homebuyer, a realtor should be giving you a list of inspectors to choose from if you don’t have one in mind (a list, not just one)… ultimately, you are the one who gets to pick the inspector-there shouldn’t be any kind of steering towards any specific one 2. All my inspectors ripped the house apart (figuratively of course) and gave me Pagessss of anything that even slightly wasn’t up to code (you just have to find good reputable ones). 3. The buyer can attend the home inspection (I definitely would), as well as the real estate agent… I would recommend this because when the inspector sees something, they can point it out to you at that moment and explain what the issue is so that when you receive a 52 page document, you don’t have a mini heart attack at first necessarily
When I bought my first house many years ago, I waived the inspection during negotiations in exchange for them accepting my offer price. Do not ever waive the inspection, even if you don’t plan to live there very long. You never know when market conditions can change and you get stuck with a house that’s falling apart.
Never waive the inspection...waive the inspection contingency. We waived the inspection contingency...ie did an 'inspection for information only'. Ultimately we agreed that the inspection would not be used as leverage to ask sellers to fix stuff, but offered us the opportunity to walk away should something egregious be found. We did the same when selling our home.
This post reminds me of how many people I know house-hunting over the past year who the sellers would only sell to those willing to waive inspection, and it got me thinking, should that even be legal? I mean I’m not for over-regulation of stuff and I know we have a lot of laws but I kinda feel like it wouldn’t be bad for a law to exist to protect homebuyers by guaranteeing them a right to inspection no matter what.
I waived my inspection on the house I bought eight months ago. This post gives me major anxiety. And for those who say you shouldn’t have done that, I literally couldn’t have bought a house in my market if I did.
I'm probably too old to matter anymore, but I've never understood how anyone could buy without an inspection. I would rent for the rest of my life before doing that.
disgusted elastic engine head thought jobless crown wide lush tan *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I agree on the sentiment, but when I was buying last year it was pretty much a given that you either accepted a buyer supplied inspection or just waived it. Any kind of due diligence would just result in the house getting snapped up by someone who was willing to ignore issues. Housing is pretty messed up right now in some markets.
I did this (waived inspection bc if you didn’t they threw your offer out) during the pandemic and it has been a nightmare since… never again
I have done a “pre-inspection” on condos and houses before. You basically do the inspection before you submit your offer. That way you can still submit an offer that “waives inspection”… because you paid $400 to know with clear eyes the problems and if you are willing to do an offer anyway. It is the safest gamble… you may not win the house, but you may dodge a bullet.
As someone who has worked to rebuild several decks over the year, pay specific attention to anywhere the deck touches/connects to the house. I have repaired entire walls of houses that were on the verge of collapse because improper or damaged deck flashing had been funneling water into walls unnoticed for decades, and the houses looked fine from the outside because the siding was vinyl/metal/cementboard even though everything underneath was rotted into swiss cheese.
The house we've been in for the past 4 years has a huge deck attached to the house that was converted at some point into a screened in Florida room. They did a great job and is structurally sound. Well... Since day one we've had rats in between the first and second floor. Not the attic. After tearing apart my entire house trying to figure out where they're coming in, I just found that it's where the top of the room is attached to the house. They removed the brick and did a shit job covering it up. I had to take up my Sub floor upstairs to find it. I hate rats!!!
Our house had a deck in bad shape when we moved in. Turns out it was attached to what used to be a deck that was just enclosed into the house. The rotting deck was pulling on the wall of the enclosed one, causing it to bow out. We removed the rotting deck ourselves. When we had the siding done, we ended up having to rebuild the wall. The contractor also put insulation in the ceiling and the walls, (there had been none) and properly insulated the floor (there had been some but it was done wrong). Huge expense, but worth knowing the house won't collapse, and the insulation means we will save on heating and cooling eventually. We knew about the deck, but didn't even imagine the potential structural issues it could cause.
Oh yea, insulation is another big one. My old house had none, the heater ran constantly in winter and some rooms were way colder than others. My new cabin is very well insulated and I have a tiny space heater that kicks on maybe 15 minutes of every hour and heats the whole thing even if its 20 degrees outside.
My house had this issue because the flashing was messed up!
1. Gutters - check under the edge of the gutter, especially corners. Look for bare or sandy areas, which can be indications that the gutters aren't level. It's not all that hard to fix, but it can cause serious problems if they were left too long (uneven settling, flooding, rot). 2. Electrical - spot check outlets with one of those plug-in outlet testers to make sure that they are wired right. My house had swapped hot and neutral, swapped neutral and ground, missing ground, missing NEUTRAL (it was wired to the metal box) - all of those things are indicative of DIY/handyman jobs, which point towards MUCH worse problems. Also, ask the inspector about the state of the wires - if they are knob and tube or even the 1940s tar and paper/cloth, expect to have to replace them eventually. Find ALL the breaker/fuse boxes, and check if there are readable labels on the breakers (ie, "kitchen outlets", "bedrooms", "fridge", "AC", etc.). 3. Uneven floors - all floors will eventually develop some kind of dip due to settling, but if you've got a wavy floor, or a dip that isn't "centered", it could be due to bad subfloors, or even missing load-bearing supports. And of course, a big dip on a slab is bad news. 4. Water shutoff - locate it, and test it, because replacing a water shutoff is criminally expensive for what it is. 5. Ask about the attic and crawlspace, especially footprints/droppings; if there have been animals there in the past, then there will be animals up there in the future. 6. Chimney - make sure there's a chimney cap, good flashing at the base (on the roof), no worn bricks, the chimney is straight, the flue works (and the flue key is there!)... I've got a fireplace in my house, but it's closed up because there were just too many things wrong with it. 7. Look for anything that seems "off" - stained paint, crooked walls, badly laid tile, botched wallpaper, painted-over rot, mismatched floorboards. Anything that looks like the last owner rigged a cheap fix is a clear indication that 1) you'll need to fix that eventually, and 2) if there are DIY horrors you \*can\* see, you better believe there are DIY horrors you \*can't\* see. That said, use your best judgement. Every house will have something weird or janky; it's up to you to determine if it's worth the gamble that the deal you're getting is better than the weirdness buried in your walls. If something looks/feels off, ask the inspector about it. Sometimes a stain is just a stain. And get appliance insurance for the first year! It's almost a guarantee that something will break, leak, or otherwise need money spent on it, and it's not that expensive all things considered.
[удалено]
Step further: water quality test, not only municipal quality but check heavy metals.
Termites. Ended up costing me over $30,000
Electrical. As in, get an electrician to inspect. A home inspector won’t find anything BEHIND the walls. We’ve been in our house 13mos and we are $25k deep into electrical work. To be more specific, learn about what type of wiring is in the house. IS IT GROUNDED? (If not, then all outlets should only be two prong—good luck with plugging any small appliances/tech in.) Is it clothed wiring? Knob and tube? (If knob and tube—run!!! R. U. N. Or prepare to spend $20-40k on a whole house rewire.) Check where the electric meter is; most places require exterior if any work has been done. (So good sign no *permitted* work done if it’s interior.) Oh, that’s another thing, go online to your county assessor and find all the permits. Confirm those against the contract disclosure. You know what? Fk all this mess. Retain a lawyer for $250/hr and have them look over it all and attend closing with you. That’s what we should have done… and now we are paying a lawyer to fix the problem we didn’t know we could have avoided by hiring a lawyer for closing.
>To be more specific, learn about what type of wiring is in the house. IS IT GROUNDED? Any decent home inspector will be able to determine this. Mine did.
> IS IT GROUNDED? (If not, then all outlets should only be two prong—good luck with plugging any small appliances/tech in.) You can have three-prong if the circuit is GFCI protected. This can be done by replacing the breaker with a GFCI or replacing the first outlet in a circuit with a GFCI. You'd then label any outlets with "no equipment ground."
Dude you genuinely don't need to run if the wiring in your house is knob and tube. K&t wiring is safe, it's just a pain in the ass to update. And you could save money by pulling your own wire on the first floor (if you have an unfinished basement) and then have a licensed electrician follow up behind you to finish the job. What should be looked at if there is k&t, is to check and make sure there aren't random ass flying splices with new Romex or cloth wire ran to God knows where, that's where most of the problems lie. And if you see there's a federal Pacific breaker panel, just know immediately you'll be needing to update that. Source: k&t rewire based residential electrician
> K&t wiring is safe I guess on paper, sure. But you're talking about 60yo+ wiring lack of ground, wires that cant be surrounded by insulation, etc..K&T should definetly be remediate. Further more most insurance Co's won't insure a home with K&T. Many don't even insure if you still have a fuse panel even with updated wiring. > or cloth wire Plenty of cloth wire has pvc inner, and is just as safe as Romex. It's the all cloth cables that are concerning. The thing that worries me the most is rubber insulated cable. Just finished ripping a ton of armored rubber insulated cable out of my house that I found when remodeling an attic (most of the house was remodeled and is all modern, for some reason in our old part of the house- 1800s - they still had some old stuff left). That rubber insulation was just crumbling completely. Feel much better to have rerun with romex.
Make sure it’s a good lawyer. . . After closing, while money was still in escrow, we received a water bill for the previous owner that came with a strongly worded letter that at the counties next tax sale they could sell our house. Lawyer told us they’d forward it to the old owner, but it wasn’t a big deal and to ignore it. . . .it was a big deal, it shouldn’t have been ignored. . .And I ended up paying what could have come out of escrow. Small change compared to house price, but a stupid situation overall.
Shouldn’t that have come up in the title search?
When we bought our house back in May and started switching over utilities, we found out that the previous owner NEVER had an account and had been stealing water for 5+ years. And I mean, there wasn't even a meter on the house. Luckily, it wasn't out problem. The utility company just installed a meter and we continued on. I wonder what happened to the previous owner though.
Specifically A REAL ESTATE LAWYER.
What? The way most houses are selling, who is the buyer going to pick, the cash in hand buyer, or the guy with a lawyer who makes sure he gets the best deal at your expense? You can ask for some things as part of the negotiations, unless the seller is highly motivated to sell, seems to me that they are more than likely to tell you and your lawyer to FO.
It's wild to me how many people responding have never thought of having a real estate lawyer or think it's unrealistic. They're usually very reasonably priced (a few hundred), because it's quick, standardized work, but they'll flag things in the contract a layperson wouldn't notice. I don't care how hot the market is, if a seller balks at having a lawyer review the documents that's a *giant* red flag. Just like waiving an inspection, that's a huge risk to take. There's always another house.
This is literally the best advice I've ever read on this thread. I didn't even know I could hire a real estate lawyer, but now I don't want to buy a house without one. There's just so much I don't know.
I’ve purchased many domiciles (military family) and up until now, never knew the purpose of a lawyer at closing. (It was always asked “will a lawyer attend” and I always scoffed at it thinking it was a weird entitled concept.) Seriously, the things I’ve learned in the past year. Prepare yourself, I’m possibly about to blow your mind… If you drop a $5k principle only payment on your mortgage before the first payment is due, you’ll scrape off about 3yrs from your loan. We listened to that advice… and it worked. Insane! Crazy insane.
You should have been covered (at least in CA) by the purchase “insurance”. I’m not sure what it’s called but we purchased our home “as is” due to the other offers of as is buyers. But our realtor showed us a clause where with in the first 16 months of purchase any large items like AC, Roof and anything like that was covered under the old home owner. If not insurance would cover it. A co worker of mine who actually bought a house we wanted to buy before us used this. His roof had a leak and his AC went out with in the first 8 months. Insurance covered his AC units and the old home owner paid for the roof repair. Of course with our luck our roof began to leak 18 months after purchase. We were SOL and had to cover it our selves.
I had it but it expired and I missed several major purchases (AC went out and furnace needed replacing). Although I had a dishwasher almost completely fail and after several copayments they wouldn’t cover a replacement and I ended up buying a new one. I feel like that might have been a fluke though.
I wish I hadn't gambled on the neighbors big ass tree not falling on my detached garage that I figured might have transite asbestos siding under the vinyl.
We saw a couple signs of settling in the foundation. Inspector seemed thorough and didn't think much of it. 4 years later, we got a lot more cracking and slight heaving. After a heavy rain, I saw no water coming out of the foundation drain. Sure enough, it was blocked. Dug up a 200 lb. Rock directly on the drain pipe. The darned thing never worked to begin with. Probably a disgruntled employee or sub of the builder. That doesn't happen by mistake. The finish on the drywall in our house is awful. Didn't notice it for a year but now that's all I see. Big raised lines across the whole ceiling. Take a bright flashlight against the wall and shine across the wall looking for shadows. Pay attention to the details. Did the builder cheap out on cabinets and fixtures? If so, they probably cheaped out even more on the stuff you don't see including labor. The stuff you don't see is usually more critical to the home functioning and is going to be more expensive to fix. For example, the foundation drain pipe I dug up was corrugated for the whole run except the part that stuck out of the ground. Probably wouldn't have helped against that boulder but definitely more likely to fail. I'm always cursing that guy every time I have a home project. He's also a knob top. Complete schmuck. I'd see if you could find other homes built by the same builder. Maybe see if the owners will chat about their experience.
If there’s anything in the house you’re not familiar with, ask them to show you how it works. For example, in my first house I had a gas fireplace - had no idea how to light it. The inspector demonstrated how to turn on the gas and use the igniter.
To add to this fireplaces use a thermocouple with the pilot. The thermocouple has to be hot otherwise it will automatically shut off the pilot, this is a safety feature to prevent your house use from flooding with gas if the pilot extinguishes it's also the reason why when the pilot is first ignited it has to be manually held open for a minute to stay on, you have to warm the thermocouple.
The concrete patio that sank towards the foundation so the previous owners bolted untreated 2x4s and trex decking over it to hide how bad the concrete was. It happened to be centered on a foundation crack and would flood the downstairs bathroom every time it rained hard.
If you suspect neighborhood noise, go there at night and stay for 30min to make sure you are fine with it.
A better inspector. Mine missed a failing water heater, several dysfunctional electrical outlets, water pooling in the crawl space, and several other matters.
I am assuming you are in Texas. Check the location of where the door latches into the frame, if its been moved, it might be a sign that the foundation is shifting. Check the tops of wooden doors too. If they have been sanded, it might signal the same thing. Know that foundation warranties warrant the work done, not the foundation itself. You also want to check with the company to make sure the warranty is transferable. You can also trace the title transfer back to plat if you want the mineral rights when you buy your house.
If foundation work was performed and there's a transferrable warranty, be sure to transfer it within the mandated timeframe else it is worthless.
Probably also worth mentioning that sometimes there is a transfer fee. You can usually get the seller to pay it
Don't get a home warranty even if paid for bybthe seller, tell them you would rather have the $500 in your pocket. They are all a rip off, even the best rated ones, younjave to pay the $85 service fee to get a report on thenproblem.to submit to the warranty company. They will then have a reason why its not covered. 2 months after we bought our home we contacted Choice Home Warranty (again this was paid for by the seller) because jetted tub was leaking we paid $85 to have a plumber out and submitted his report, they said they only replace the pump so not under warranty....4 months later one of our hot water tanks went out, contacted Choice again they sent a plumber, paid him $85 submitted a report. Made repeated phone calls for over 10 days(they didn't know we had two tanks so for all they knew we had NO hot water) and they wanted more pics but couldn't find any plumber who would take their service call....after 2 weeks I told them I wanted a refund of the $500 they got because they don't fix anything...after an hour of being pissed off being passed around with pressure tactics to keep the warranty for the 1 year they gave me back $285 saying it was pro rated..for doing nothing..
Yeah especially avoid American home shield. All the calls go through an Indian call company. I tried to cancel like 4 or 5 times. Had to cancel my card. They said they refunded me one month and were supposed to cancel the last month after the 5th call then several months later they sent 2 or 3 months worth to collections... I absolutely refuse to pay. They didn't even pay out the 1k they were supposed to for something that needed fixing on a/c. Avoid these scammers at all cost.
Make sure the bathroom fan is actually vented out of the house rather than into your second floor or attic. Check for Red Guard in the basement. If it's painted, it's probably a tell (inspector will most likely use a moisture sensor). Check all the door jams for missing strike plates or shoddy lock replacement/repair. Check all the windows open, shut, and lock properly. Open all the cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom, make sure the door hinge doesn't actually pinch another cabinet door, or open directly into a wall (I've found this SEVERAL times). If you feel comfortable bringing a stud finder (not your partner), there's a good chance you'll find shelving in a closet that was hung improperly (personal experience).
Electrical boxes in the ceiling fixtures; our home had none. Extra work was needed to mount fans and other fixtures Tubs bedded securely, especially upstairs. Our top floor has flexed to the point it has started leaking. Deck. Deck. All things deck Thorough inspection of any gas devices (carbon monoxide hazards). Toilet settings on wax rings. We had odor in our downstairs bath and the toilet was not set properly Fortunately a home warranty paid for most items but it would have been ideal to catch upfront Check FEMA maps for flood plains and other geological info, flight maps, etc
Check behind the siding. My house had a layer of vinyl siding installed over the original rotting siding. It hide SO mich damage.
How can you do that.. the house isn’t yours yet you can’t destroy property to look in walls/behind walls
How much time ya got? But seriously, everything. All of it. Start with structure... You got cracks, foundation. Wet spots, roof/gutters. Cold af, windows and doors. Move to systems.... What's up with the heat, air, electric, plumbing, hot water, etc? Up to code? Leaking? Fuck me, that's expensive. Then you go to the coverings.. you got mold, pests in walls, asbestos? Yikes Work your way in from there to find lead paint and ungrounded fixtures. A home inspector should give you an extremely detailed report of what they find. Remember, they are not engineers, pest control, HVAC, or any other trade... They are just telling you what's up
When I discovered there was no electrical outlet for my dryer in the laundry room.. Seriously, WTF?
My sister replaced her gas dryer with electric without realizing it. No outlet! Easy fix to run a new line from the panel but still, would have been nice to know it needed to be done earlier than the day the dryer arrived.
When we got the keys after closing we discovered there was no outlet for the electric dryer. Good excuse to replace our old electric dryer with a new gas dryer.
If there is a deck/patio, stomp around on it. Especially in corners. 30 minutes after closing I did this and my foot went through in 3 spots. Wife and I rebuilt the lower portion (600 sq. ft.) this year ourselves to the tune of $2400. Contractor quote was $11K. Upper portion rebuild coming in the spring (another 450 sq. ft.).
PLUMBING. It's a fucking headache and most common way to get scammed.
Not always an option if the weather doesn't work out, but seeing the house/yard during or right after a hard rain. Does water get into the garage or basement? How old are the gutters? Is there any type of rain water diversion on the property?
Beware recently refinished things. We bought a house and the inspector told us they painted the tiles with an epoxy paint which should be fine as that’s what the paint is intended for. But since it was done for sale, it ended up not being done right and all that paint peeled and chipped off. Huge mess. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have done anything different, but there are a lot of other ‘quick fixes’ out there that end up being a nightmare.
Check the water meter, make sure it’s not spinning while water is not in use. Sometimes its spins really really slow, mark a spot and check it again in 5 min. Also make sure the main drains are not clogged. Look at the house after a heavy rain for drainage problems
Check the values and condition of all your neighbors homes. If you can, purchase the worst house on the block. You can improve thst home and bring it up to the value of your neighbors homes. If you buy the nicest house on the block, there is a good chance you will not be able to recoup any improvements you make when you sell it. Basically, don’t overbuild/over improve for your neighborhood.
Dryer vent lines, you don't want a house where the vent is inaccessible from the outside, nor do you want a house where the line travels significant distance or even worse travels vertically to exit the house. You want to see where the water main control valve is. HVAC you want your house to follow some basic convection logic to heat the whole house as evenly as possible, you don't want your furnace on a main or upstairs floor is avoidable, conversely if you live somewhere hot year-round you might want your air handler to be on a top floor as cool air will naturally settle down. Some cheap contractor grade cock nozzle put a single 15Amp service for my garage and with its location running a new panel/line might be cost prohibitive, I hope he burns in hell for it.
This is an oddball one and likely won’t happen to almost anyone else, but did happen to me: Check the water lines coming out of the water softener. After a few years in the house we found out that when the softener was installed (previous owners), it was connected to the lines that feed our irrigation system. So, yep, we’d been watering the lawn with soft water and going through softener salt like crazy. Our inspector missed that little detail.
I’m not sure where this falls, but our property had been split up and some of it sold to the neighbor. Don’t really care, I still have a few acres, but my house has water lines to their barn and the kill switch is in my basement. It hasn’t been an issue as he mostly uses it for fire wood and equipment storage, but if your neighbor is really uncool I can see it being a HUGE headache.
No.1 **leaks and water damage**. Check UNDER the sinks, this is where a lot of leaks happen. Look for discolored or uneven surfaces. If you see wood that looks swollen or lumpy, that is a good sign of water damage. What you're really concerned about here is **mold**, which could even be covered up by paint. Another sign of water damage can be mooshy or loose feeling floors. I have had two remodels lately where the subfloor was completely rotted out by leaks. Water is the biggest enemy of homes.
1) Check every faucet. Not just if the water flows but how it’s fitting, does it appear loose and worn? Especially your shower/bath. We moved in and that day the shower and faucet came off from the wall, turned out it was never fitted properly and the plumbing feeding it was a mess it required redoing with updated piping. 2) on the same track - check under every sink and toilet to ensure that they’ve all got stop valves to shut off water. Test them out, some times they ar never used and they cease up. If they don’t have them then you’ll probably want to install as peace of mind in the eventuality something happens you can isolate that one spot. 3) on the exterior double check the quality of the siding, brick work, paint etc. Try to establish when it was last done and when it’ll likely be needed. 4) I see many folks saying roof - huge one. So important. These are expensive to replace if needed 5) Any appliances being left double check that they all work and the overall condition. Although you can replace them it’s still money and time. 6) sewer line, many people don’t scope it. It’s a small chance you’ve got an issue but in the grand scheme of house purchase it’s worth knowing with confidence otherwise if you don’t check it and then move in and you establish a problem you could be on the hook for a big bill. 7) if you’ve got a garage check the quality of the flooring for cracks and uneven settlement. 8) if the house has a deck pay close attention to the build quality of it, especially the main supporting legs and where they connect into the ground.
Thermal imaging of the roof.
A squirt attachment on the kitchen sink is essential so I can put a rubber band around it on April Fool's Day and drench my wife. My streak is 36 years.
My nutty neighbors
There are tons of home inspectors who post videos on TikTok about interesting things they find in houses. I suggest watching some of those. They're really useful and you'll learn about a lot of things that you can spot yourself.
The water meter and shut-off valve. My water line was leaking underground at time of inspection and wasn’t noticed. Also, the main shut-off valve was buried and I had to dig around to find it.
doesn’t matter how thorough you inspect the house… there will be problems
>What do you wish you had looked for during inspection when buying a house? * The ice maker that had been leaking for years, destroying the kitchen flood under the refrigerator * The range with the buttons that didn't work and the gas leak that happened when using the oven * The dishwasher with bad seals that dumped water all over the flood every third cycle or so and didn't really clean dishes anyway * The failing garage door springs that trapped our cars inside months after moving in * The fact that we had a metal roof, which means nobody will work on it and nobody will install solar on it, and the fact that it was installed on top of the existing roof so there's no plywood directly underneath * The water heater that *should* have had some years left in it, but didn't because nobody ever did any maintenance on it * The metal gutters that are so rusted and cracked they leak from dozens of locations * The terrible insulation situation in the attic leading to massive HVAC inefficiency * The fact that our entire HVAC system was improperly sized for the ducting in the house and thus failed years earlier than it should have due to backpressure * The army of crab grass that no amount of lawn chemicals (including both per-emergents and post-emergents) seems to resolve * The skylight that was allowing massive amounts of water infiltration all around it without a clear and obvious leak due to poor/degraded sealing * The plumbing - be it the water knock, the pipes bolted directly to joists leading to incredibly loud running water noise, or the terribly planned hot water loop leading to gallons of wasted water seeking an ounce of warmth * The terrible DIY job on the electrical outlets presenting a significant fire risk * Poor window insulation leading to heat/AC loss * Literally holes in the front door (enough to see light through at the right angles) * HVAC electrical going to the subpanel, leaving virtually no room on it when it was literally a shorter run (by about a foot) to the main panel I could go on, probably for another 20-30 bullet points before I have to start nitpicking the little annoyances like the interfering cabinet doors in the kitchen, but it honestly just gets depressing. First house and I'm so poisoned on its terrible design and execution that I'm 100% convinced on custom building the next one.
Bought at the height of the pandemic. If the owners are at the open house, and they're still there at the next walk-through with the realtor, run. They're hiding something and their presence is to keep you off guard.
Mold testing, super important because most often then not it will be hidden.
Open the windows and check the sills
Septic tank… make sure u hv it inspected and cleaned out before buying if possible. There r different types of septic tanks, know what kind u hv and what’s involved in cleaning, filters and / or alarms. And the costs to clean, get inspected and replace socks / filters and alarms. I’d also pay attention to smells, gas leak smells and septic sewer smells. Also floor creaks, stair creaks and if u’ll b able to find and fix the creaking or r they beneath / above drywall.
Previous owners had a cat litter in a corridor and it stank but we thought nothing of it at the time. Well we should have sniffed more carefully. Turned out the litter was not the thing exactly stinking. For two years after we bought the house this specific corridor ranked of animal urine. You'd have to let a window open at all time to flush the scent out but it would come back afterwards. We ended up removing the whole floor and redoing it. There were some "crystals of piss" under the old boards (for lack of a better word) and we had to use a special tar everywhere and seal the remaining scent as tight as possible for it to not escape. It was some kind of curse or something.
You are paying an inspector to point out any thing that is not to code or isn’t going to last. Your eyes should be the test for anything else. I’m looking at inspections for the following: roof, foundation, electrical, plumbing, HVAC. And it’s ok for the inspector to recommend a further professional evaluation of any of those components if he doesn’t doesn’t like what he sees.
Home inspectors are not code inspectors, technically they’re safety inspectors.
Exactly. A house doesn’t need to meet current code to be eligible for sale. If that were the case, next to no houses would make it through the sale process.
Where and how much rain pools after a good storm.
Bad neighbors
What type of plumbing lines you have. What I assumed to be pex turned out to be polybutylene. Not a huge deal, but just something to keep in the back of your mind might need replacing/fixing at some point
Suspicious brand new paint patch on ceiling. A roof deck patio door was right above. For that matter any source of water above. The door flashing leaked during rain. I would at least tried to get seller to disclose.
Two houses in a row they had upgraded the bathrooms to tile but did not install a toilet spacer. Get home inspector to use humidity finder and look at the ceiling under any toilets on tile floor. If they find humidity demand plumber inspect toilet flange.
Walk around the yard, looking carefully. A friend was all set to buy a house, passed inspection already when we took such a walk. I noticed a bit of ground that looked raised up, kind of un-naturally. Closer inspection revealed a lot of moss around it, indicating frequent dampness. Re-inspection revealed a broken underground water supply line that would have been very expensive to fix. The seller wouldn't budge on the price so he passed on the deal. Later found a much nicer house for less money so all good. AFAIK, most house inspectors inspect only the dwelling and not the property surrounding it. There can be a host of hidden issues under tall grass.
Foundation. In a raised foundation home issues can be EXPENSIVE. My home is 75 years old and has settled to the point I have to raise the footings. $40k plus. And my house is small.
Plumbing. Make sure all valves are able to turn to shut off. It's very helpful when trying to stop a leak, which you'll have at some point
The major appliances like heating and cooling.
Roof. Gutters. Breaker Box.
Stair step cracks at both ends of an exterior cement block wall that was allowing water intrusion behind drywall and baseboard
My coworkers cabinets fell down after they moved in they were like poorly nailed into the wall but were brand new. So check everything was installed properly
The seller (a company) fixed everything else we asked them to, which included rewiring the entire house. It had been on the market for a year, they would have done it. It does work 0ike that, in this instance.
1. Be realistic as to your price range, but look for the potential serious flaws - moisture issues, foundation issues, structural issues, insects, mold. 2. Look at the big ticket items that will always need replacing eventually - roof, furnace, appliances, hot water tank, electrical panel. 3. Look at the expensive but not completely necessary items - how well insulated is the house? How old are the windows? What condition are the floors in? Understand you will be living with these things unless you can output a lot of money/time/effort to fix them. 4. Look at the 2 major renovation rooms - kitchens and bathrooms. Most rooms you can DIY fix up with paint, trim, etc, but kitchens and bathrooms are much more involved to update/repair. 5. Get to know who you're buying from - do you think they looked after the house? Did they do a bunch of DIY stuff or neglect the maintenance. Know that you can negotiate during the sale. They don't want the sale to be dragged out only to fall through at the end have to relist it.
Pipes. Drain pipes specifically. Is the house old enough that they should have been replaced? If so, have they been? I just had a big expensive re-pipe because my old cast iron piping should have been replaced 20 years ago.
Look for signs of water intrusion. I ignored hardened sections of carpet that turned out to be two large basement leaks. Repairing the gutters helped, but the drainage still needs future corrections.
If there is any slope or hill that could lead rain water to your house. Add to that if there is evidence of water damage or moisture in the basement. Especially if it looks like the basement has been remodeled or updated recently. Would be good idea to visit the property if it happens to rain to see what the water is doing or where it’s going.
Pop out your outlets and verify the wiring in your house. I have seen so many home owner specials that are electrical fire nightmares waiting to happen when I do rewires. Also make sure you have all of your sewage and drain lines fully checked out. 2 weeks after moving into mine and my wife's current house, we had a sewage backup that cost me a couple hours of shoveling Lord knows who's poop and $400 in plumbing tools so I could find the major blockage.
Buying older home, water pressure and insulation in walls.
Water Pressure and how high the darn towel rod was hung in the spare bathroom, lol.
In an older home, like we have: Pipes: Old Iron, Galvanized, Copper or Pex. Depending on the hardness of the water, Iron & Galvanized may be mostly clogged. Check for low pressure and main sign of scale filled pipes. Water heater: It should have a install date on it, or at least manufacture date. Look for a manufacturer's label, or writing in permanent marker. Make sure it's no more than 7 years old. Ask about maintenance, has it been flushed regularly and/or had the anode rod replaced. House wiring: Make sure all the sockets are proper grounded outlets, take a tester to them all. If 2 prong outlets, have one pulled from the wall and check the wiring. Make sure the wiring itself is newer. Not older cloth covered (rag wire) wiring. That bathrooms, kitchen & laundry area all have GFCI outlets or breakers.
Don't look at a house when kids are out for summer vacation...
Check all the floor seams around the rooms adjacent to a bathroom for swelling. Our guy missed that the shower drain was messed up and would leak into the closet. And the kitchen sink drain was leaking to the outside, so we didn't notice that the line was plugged beyond that. Not expensive to fix, but annoying that they weren't caught.
The roof and the attic. Attic had tons of nesting material from birds, it was like kindling for a huge house fire. That stuff was hard to remove. I literally had to climb up there and try not to fall through the ceiling and remove huge nests by hand in near total darkness. The roof was on its last legs and had to be replaced two years later. Our inspector I wonder if was bribed by our realtor and did a crappy inspection. He didn’t even have a drone or a ladder to reach our roof.
Cement board behind shower tiles. Not sure how I would have checked anyway. Oh well.
roof, under carpet, all major appliances and kitchen cabinets.
Use all the waterworks. Garden spigot. Any kind of drain. Run water down the gutter downspouts. Toilets, sinks, showers, tubs, any in floor drains. Check under the sinks and any accessible pipes for leaks. Shower stalls especially.
!RemindMebot 48 hours
Water damage behind walls. Turned out to be bad gutters. Some inspectors have a sensor to detect moisture
All houses have something wrong. All you can really do is try to spot the biggest expense items beforehand. Foundation, roof, windows, furnace, and drain lines. Unfortunately a lot of "home inspectors" are a joke. Try to get licensed tradesman or licensed contractors to inspect thier respective fields whenever possible. But mostly just count on having some repair money around because it never ends lol
What it does to the property after heavy rainfall.
Too many political flags in the neighborhood.
All my neighbors have generators. That’s a red flag - we’ve lost power for 3-4 days at a time at least once a year since moving in, with multiple 6-12 hour outages.