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What a Home Inspection is Not
Buying a home is a process. And having a home inspection is part of that process. It comes after you’ve reached “mutual acceptance” with the seller, and have basically “tied up” the property, in that you’ve blocked out the other buyers and you can now focus (and invest some time and money) into due diligence on the property.
Due diligence = research. You research the things that you fully understand, whether that means room layout, amount of natural light, garden space and neighborhood feel — and you put stock in experts for some of the other things like title search, appraisal, and home inspection.
The home inspection takes place almost always in the first 10 days of escrow, and takes about 3 to 4 hours on site at the home. Good inspectors check a laundry list of components and systems, from foundation to roof to electrical to plumbing and beyond, and fill you in on the general condition, any immediate big-ticket items you’ll have to fork out for, recommended improvements and what not.
The point of the inspection is to help you, the buyer, make a more educated buying decision about the home.
The home inspection is NOT a full, technically exhaustive analysis of every square inch of the home. And the home inspection is not a warranty.
Inspectors have limited access, in that they can’t see through walls, inside pipes or ducts, under finished surfaces, and they can’t get to absolutely everywhere a mouse could get.
But the good ones find clues and intuit conditions that non-inspectors may just not see. And then they communicate verbally and typically in writing the story that the house could tell if it could talk.
All… so you can make a more educated buying decision. NOT to provide you with a money-back warranty on the house, or on the inspector’s time.
Know what you’re paying for when you get a home inspection, and what you’re not paying for. Ask lots of questions until you indeed feel well educated about the house, and you’ll be able move forward with your home purchase with confidence, like it should be!
