Reviews

10/10

Martina has helped create 3 beautiful homes for us over a period of 17 + years. Each a very different style. Martina listened and respected our wishes but injected her own flair, and her knowledge and relationship with the tradespeople eased everything along. I couldn’t imagine living in a house that Martina had not designed. Her energy, knowledge and ability to interpret what we wanted -the feeling we wanted in our home- has been worth every penny. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Martina, and have done so many times.

Approximate cost of services:
$100,000.00
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10/10

Hiring Ted Gilmour to complete a home inspection has saved us from an unknown amount of future aggravation and expense. He knows his business. Others may have mentioned it in their reviews also, but we would not complete a home purchase without him from now on. Ted is professional, courteous, punctual, thorough and kind. We found Ted by 'accident'. A combination of a verbal referral by another (unavailable) home inspector (we didn't pay too much attention to this at first, in the rush of having found a house we both liked) and then frenzied 'net research. Of course, we didn't even consider home inspector referrals given to us by any realtor. Don't get caught up in the excitement of an accepted offer and make this costly mistake just because you really want the purchase to go through. Do yourself a huge favour and invest in a home inspection from this guy. You will be taking a sure step to investing in your peace of mind. The 'manual' about the house we received afterwards, as well as a verbal report as I did the inspection WITH Ted, and PDF summary meant we had a thorough understanding of the house going forwards. Again, others have said it too I think, but people can spend more time researching and buying a car/pet/appliances/researching vacations than really understanding a house they are buying. Just doesn't make any sense. A huge thank you, Ted.

Approximate cost of services:
$1,700.00
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Company Response

Hi Jo,
There was nothing easy about your purchase process, one of the critical points is: agents operate as if the seller was paying their commission when in fact it's the buyer who brings the money to the table to be divvied up. I suspect there was a point where you may have considered hiring another inspector because I was requesting as many as 10 hours access for the inspection when most other inspectors could be finished within 4 to 6 hrs.. Yes, they were hoping for an agent friendly inspector.
I often find agents treat homebuyers as if they are freeloading on the agent's goodwill, very politely of course, dragging their heels, so to speak when it comes to responding to requests for access time and sometimes information. It's not uncommon to find agents working against the buyer's best interests, working towards the center, the center which is them and their bottom line. I'm often told: there are honest agents out there.
It was a big old home, it had lots going on, and as we discovered and through further investigations there were no easy solutions. One thing people don't realize; just because the homeowner made multiple improvements over the years, they may have only addressed the cosmetic and functional aspects of the living environment. As they say all this cosmetic candy can be distracting while the infrastructures may have been fudged and or covered over malignancies by: uncaring, unskilled, and unscrupulous contractor/trades people.
So when people wonder why an inspection takes a complete day, it's because I have a lot of work to do, detecting and track down the obscure deficiencies to verify their cause and educating you, the buyer. This level of deficiency discovery is not limited to older homes. In my opinion a home inspection should be a complete day or more turnaround, too many people are looking for a quick, cheap and easy inspection, I say they should save their money and just buy the house if they want it that badly.
Thankfully you recognized the easy garden path laid out for you and decided on your own path of due diligence.

Happy trails,
Ted