What is a Home Inspection? A visual inspection and written report on major components and systems: • Structural • Exterior • Roofing • Plumbing • Electrical • Heating • Air Conditioning • Interior • Insulation and Ventilation

Types of Home Inspections:

1. Re-Sales (seller-buyer transaction)

2. New Home:

• New Build Pre-Close Walk Through
• Before Expiration Of 1-Year Warranty (11 month)

3. Pre-Listing (to identify repair items before listing a home)

Why a Home Inspection?

Given the cost of buying or building a home in this day and age a home inspection is well worth the cost. For pennies on the dollar compared to the cost of a house you can have a trained professional inspect the house you plan to buy.

Should I Price Shop?

In our opinion, “No”. To be honest, you will be able to find another inspection company who will charge you less to do your inspection. But, as with most everything else in life, with Home Inspections you tend to get what you pay for. There’s a reason one Home Inspector charges more than another.  You’re paying the inspector for his/her time. The old adage “time is money” applies to the home inspection field too. Charging less for an inspection equates to less time spent on the inspection. Is that what you want on such a large, costly and important purchase? Again, in our opinion, it is well worth the extra money (usually $25 to $75) you might pay to have us perform your inspection over a company that provides ‘discounted’ fees. On average we spend in the neighborhood of 5 to 6 hours on each re-sale or new home final walkthrough inspection (inspection, walk through and report writing). Though we charge slightly more for our services than some inspectors, our fees are comparable to industry averages (most inspections are in the $300 to $350 range).

Here are some questions to ask that ‘discounted’ inspector:

• How long have they been in business? We’ve been in business since 2003 and have performed thousands of inspections.

• How long will the actual inspection take? Our ‘rule of thumb’ is a minimum of 1-1/2 to 2 hours (small home or condo) and about 1 hour per 1,000 square feet. Longer for older homes or homes with pools.

• How long will the inspector spend with you after the inspection walking you around the house, answering questions and going over their findings? For us it’s as long as it takes but our average walkthrough is 30-40 minutes.

• Will they enter the attic (if applicable) or only view it from the access hatch? We do our absolute best to enter and fully inspect the attic.

• Will they walk on the roof or will they only inspect it from the ground or a ladder? We believe the best way to inspect a roof is to get up there and really check it out (if accessible, not easily damaged [clay tile], allowed by homeowner/builder and weather conditions permit).

• How long will they spend writing the report? This varies with the size of the house and how many issues we find but generally we spend about 2 hours writing up our findings.

• Will the report be all ‘canned’ comments that are written for every house they inspect and every issue they find? We spend the extra time trying to customize each report to that particular house and what we found during the inspection.

• What kind of report will you receive and when will you receive it? We provide an email version of the entire report (summary, detailed report and photos) within 24 hours of the inspection and a bound hard copy of the report printed in digital color that is either delivered or mailed to the client/Realtor.

• Will the report include pictures and do they charge extra for pictures?  All of our reports include digital, color pictures and there is no additional charge for them.

Another Thought on Home Inspection Pricing:

Let’s say you were buying a used car for $10,000. Would you be willing to pay $100 to have a certified mechanic look over the car to ensure the major components (engine, transmission, electrical, etc.) were functioning properly? I think most people would say “yes, that’s a fair price”. Then doing the math, for a $10,000 car, you would be willing to pay one percent ($100/$10,000 or .01) of the purchase price to ensure there are no major issues.

Now let’s say you’re buying a $300,000 house. If you were to pay one percent (.01) of the purchase price of the house to have it inspected by a certified Home Inspector the fee would be $3,000 ($300,000 * .01).  But, our average home inspection fee is only in the neighborhood of $300, or one tenth of one percent (.001) of the purchase price of a $300,000 house. Seems like quite a bargain given it’s generally the largest, most expensive purchase most people make in their lives! So, before you go with an inspection company because they charge $50 less than us, think about what you’re paying for and ask yourself...“Is it worth the extra $50”?