Buying A Home? Hire The Right Inspectors
Don’t Let Your Agent Do This “One Weird Trick”
Buying a home is costly. In addition to paying loan costs, closing costs and your down payment, you’ve got to make sure the home you’re buying is sound.
Every aspect of the home should be inspected to make sure everything functions and is a good state of repair. These inspections are necessary to document potential issues so that you know, upfront, what the issues are, how they should be addressed and what you should ask the seller to repair.
There is a trend in home inspection companies to be a “one stop shop” handling home inspections, pool and other inspections. On the surface, this seems to be a good idea and one that saves the cost of an additional inspector to look at the home.
I can see why this is attractive. You’re saving a bit on the cost of the inspection and you can easily coordinate for all inspections to happen at the same time and day. Makes sense on the surface. However….
A Case In Point
I recently closed a home in Rocklin with a pool. I was the listing agent. The buyers agent, a very well meaning and seemingly diligent agent, showed up with the buyer and a “one stop shop” to do the pool and home inspections. To me, that is a RED FLAG!
I don’t ever recommend this. Historically, home inspectors just don’t do a very good job with pool inspections. The home inspector came back with one slight repair which was consisted of connecting a boot to a wire housing. The seller fixed the one pool issue the buyer requested and the buyer was satisfied with HIS inspectors assessment of the condition of the pool.
Fast forward to last week. The seller moved out and the buyer didn’t take possession right away. I think they came by the house about 3 or 4 days after the seller moved out. The temps had spiked and the pool had gotten a little funky in the process.
The buyers agent emailed me a bit dismayed that the seller would leave the pool in “such bad condition”.
Being the listing agent, I didn’t have any responsibility to the buyer but as a gesture of goodwill I called a pool guy, who came highly recommended, and asked him to go over and clean the pool.
In the process, he does a complete inspection at the buyers request not mine. I just wanted him to clean the pool, that was it.
Upon finishing his assessment of the condition (you should be asking yourself “wait, didn’t they do that already??”) he tells the buyer that the timer is broken, the filters need to be replaced along with a tank o-ring and he also needed a skimmer basket in addition to being chemically treated and cleaned.
I thought I just asked for the pool to be cleaned as a courtesy to the buyer?? (Who incidentally wasn’t even my client)
Keep in mind, NONE of these items were found on the initial report by the home inspector that the buyer paid for:
1) The mention of the timer in the initial report was “operated when tested”.
2) The mention of the pool filter in the initial report was “operated when tested”.
3) There was no mention of the tank o-ring needing replacement.
4) There wasn’t a skimmer basket included in the sale of the home.
During this process the buyer tells the pool guy, who reported back to me, that the buyer told him that the home inspector didn’t even open the filter housing to check the filters. I think that would have been a good thing to check, right?
The Lesson?
It is every agents job to recommend that every buyer conducts the proper inspections. In all honesty, I don’t know if the agent recommended a pool guy, not the home inspector, to inspect the pool but the buyer chose the home inspector instead. 
Me? I would have protested that and had the buyer sign a waiver that he had been advised to get a qualified pool guy out there to inspect the pool but had chosen a different inspector. This approach conveys a sense of seriousness in a transaction to the buyer and if they go against broker advice, it could come back to bite them after the close of escrow as it did in this case.
In short, ALWAYS get the proper inspector to inspect your new home. For the home, get a home inspector. For the pool, get a pool inspector. For the plumbing, get a plumber if you see there could be problems or if the system is something other than a city connected. Concerned about boundaries of the lot or acreage? Pests? Dry rot?
I think you get the point.
If you don’t hire the right inspector and something comes up right after the home closes escrow, you just bought that problem along with your new home when it could have been avoided.
Looking for an agent who will recommend the right inspectors to inspect your new home?? I’m your guy. Give me a call, I’d love to help.
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