heck, that’s how we found out about him in the first place – word of mouth. Met him once and knew he was our man.

One of the important things about getting a home inspection is to allow plenty of time for it. We generally estimate 1 hour per 1000 square feet — and that means total square feet, including crawl spaces and attics. The average development home can take four hours or more to fully inspect.

Our website has a lot of information about home inspections in general, along with a “Hall of Shame” with hundreds of pictures of things Bob has found during his inspections (including a dead mouse on an electrical panel, and a family of bats living in an attic!). Even if you’re not in our service area, the information can help you evaluate your home inspector’s services.

Not everything in an inspection is a crisis, and having an inspector who can put it all in perspective is worth his weight in gold.

What was best was that he then sat down with us an showed us item by item how big of a deal these things were. Things we can fix ourselves (loose bolt on garage door), things that were likely done wrong on a high percentage of the homes in our neighborhood (shingles not installed to mfr specs, hot and cold water reversed at faucet), and what we should take back to the seller (water heater issue)

I can’t remember how much I paid for the inspection, but it was worth every penny to not be buying someone else’s problem. The bank refused to negotiate on the price (was in foreclosure), so I walked. Hopefully the guy who did buy the place knew what he was getting himself into.

But another bigger issue is that buyers often hire inspectors then ignore their advice, as though the whole episode is just another hurdle to clear on the way to closing.

Never fall so in love with your purchase that you ignore the advice of the people you’re paying to represent your interests.

A problem that your inspector points out won’t go away, certainly not with verbal assurances from the seller or smooth words from the agents, all of whom are primarily interested in closing the deal, details be damned.

Your bargaining position evaporates after closing, so make sure everything is taken care of before then.

Over here in Singapore, we only have real estate agents who are only concerned about selling or buying your house.

They lack the professionalism and i wish my country’s real estate profession would become as professional as yours.

Now, sure, the home owners probably weighed the risk of finding out they had a big pile of wood instead of a house (something they would have to disclose to the next folks) with making sure everything was good to go and decided to wait for the next folks with a less enthusiastic inspector.

It worked out really well for us, though, because the house we ended up buying is the perfect house for us. absolutely perfect.

Dylan is right – Your realtor has a conflict of interest. Consider them Satan’s little helper handing you a life jacket to cross the river of Styxx. Just kidding, calm down realtors. But there are some shady ones out there – like all industries.

Another suggestion: If you’re building a new home, consider hiring an inspector for a “pre-drywall” inspection, as they’ll have full access to the plumbing, electrical work, etc. Once the drywall goes up, you just have to trust that all of this stuff was done right.

There is a huge conflict of interest in getting a recommendation from your realtor for a home inspector. You want an inspection by an objective home inspector, working only for your own interests. The last thing you want is a home inspector that feels like they owe the realtor a favor.

John DeFlumeri Jr