pre-purchasing home inspection
Ted's inspection was very detailed and through. The most importantly, he knows what he is doing. We were told to bring a notepad for inspection. Ted tell us a lot, what should be corrected and how should we maintain the house during his inspection. Also, his report was amazingly good, contains lots of reference, pictures and even his drawing. His inspection was expensive, but at then end, both my husband and I agree it totally worth the money. Instead of spending 3-4 hrs to inspect the house, Ted spent 6-7 hrs to check it and almost 2 days to put all together. We believe it is worth to pay more to find out the truth of what we are purchasing rather than spend hundreds but get nothing. So glad to have Ted for our pre-purchasing inspection. We will absolutely recommend Ted to our family and friends.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $1,700.00
- Company Response
Hi W & J, I’m pleased you were able to negotiate a better sale price to reflect some of our discoveries.
For clarity: most of my clients count the time from when they arrive at the inspection, I might be there an hour and sometimes more prior to my clients arrival, the actual time that I spent on this house was just over 8 hours. Getting there a little bit early allows me uninterrupted observation and analysis of the exterior, the most important part of the house; so when you arrived at 9:30 AM I had a good account of the home's exterior elements. Together we reviewed the entire exterior before we proceeded to the interior. This home had some serious deficiencies and unpermitted work done after the original city inspections. There were plumbing, drain and electrical infractions that confirmed my suspicions that the basement was finished post city inspections.
Your HVAC system will be a sizable repair job, all the deficiencies aside, there were many solid aspects of the house that were without concern; mainly the structure and interior finishing.
With the selling agent constantly reminding us to hurry up and finish we proceeded at our steady pace of discovery and discussion and managed to complete the inspection prior to my 6:00 original estimate and in spite of the agent’s interference. Slow and easy does it.
As you are aware; the inspection industry is virtually designed and controlled by real estate sales interests, any home inspector who spends more than 3-4 hours on a house will not get agent referrals and can even get blackballed. Agent referrals represent more than 60% of all home inspections, guess what caliber of home inspector is the beneficiary to that 60% market?Being totally unfettered by promises of inspection referrals I am also not intimidated by any controlling/interfering real estate agents. The only reason they think they can control the home inspection is because they are quite accustomed to telling inspectors how to do their job and how long they can stay in the house. Most home inspectors do not know what their clients rights are and/or are afraid to push back against agent manipulation of the inspector's time. I know most home inspectors would say they never have any problems with agents controlling their inspection, that’s simply because their discovery and reporting do not pose any threat to the sale.
In the end meddling agents generally are only accomplished at making themselves look foolish, trying to rush the inspector out of the house, this behavior speaks for itself, is unprofessional and represents an unauthorized interference with the buyers legal right to exercise their Due Diligence. Happy trails, Ted