A home inspection is one of the most important steps in the process of buying or selling a home. It lets you know the condition of the home so that you can make more informed decisions. In a typical home inspection, you get to know the condition of major components of the home like electrical, cooling, structural and roof defects, etc.
The home inspection report lists down all the major and minor damages so that as a buyer you can negotiate the price. As a seller, a home inspection report without much damages will improve the value of the home. However, many people make many mistakes during the home inspection process which costs them time and money. If you are a buyer and want to get your new home inspected, make sure you avoid the most common mistakes mentioned below.
1)Not knowing about the inspector:
To make your home buying process faster, you tend to give less importance to home inspection assuming that everything is fine. In this process, you just get the home inspection done without knowing much about the inspector in terms of his/her experience, certifications, and overall profile.
If you don’t research about all these aspects, you cannot expect good service from them. All you need to do is research about them for just half an hour through their websites. For instance, if you want home inspectors in Delaware, search for best home inspectors in Delaware and you will get several options. Open their profiles and read about them in detail to know about them.
2)Skip the live inspection:
The other common mistake most people do is not being present during the inspection. Reading the report alone is just enough, you have to be present during the inspection too. If you are present during the inspection, you will get to know how it’s been done and ask any question you have then and there itself. You can even remind them if at all they skip any components in your home.
3)Going for the cheapest inspector:
Quality doesn’t come cheap, this applies to anything including the home inspection too. If you hire a home inspector for the lowest price and just for the sake of getting it done, there is no use. You can better skip the inspection in that case. If your budget is low, try to get the best inspector at that price by researching a few of them. To be upfront, you can spend a little more than your budget because you don’t want to buy a house with hidden damages after spending loads of money on it.
4)Not preparing a checklist:
Home inspectors usually have a fixed pattern where they inspect limited components of the home. They mostly avoid inspecting tanks, pipes, and sewerage systems. If you can add them to your checklist, you can ask them during the inspection so that they don’t miss out on these. It’s better to opt for another inspector if your inspector is not willing to inspect these components.
5)Skim over the report:
Inspection reports are usually long which makes it hard to go through them entirely. But, as a buyer, you need to read it very carefully as you don’t want to miss out on something important. Find out all the issues that you can ask the seller to fix. Don’t even leave the smallest of damages as they can turn into a big mess in the future.
Conclusion:
Along with the above-mentioned mistakes, there are some other mistakes like avoiding exterior problems, relying only on the realtor for inspection, not knowing how a home inspection works and hesitating to ask questions to the inspectors, etc. So, before your home inspection, keep these points in mind and you are good to go.
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