The Expert Podcast

If you're looking to purchase a home one of the most common first steps that many people put in their contract is to do a property inspection and as a footnote in the 2021 real estate market sometimes people are waiving inspections because of the hot market and they don't want to lose out on a property even if you have a availability to do an inspection you may want to do it a different way instead of hiring a property inspector so to speak you may want to actually just hire an actual contractor or a number of contractors.

And here's the reason why property inspectors by definition in some states aren't required to have really any kind of license beyond just a business license sometimes they don't have to really know anything about real estate or construction or electrical or plumbing they can just say i'm a property inspector sometimes they have to take a course but they're not going to have the same level of knowledge as an actual contractor in those various industries in some cases they're very under qualified.

We've seen you know dozens and dozens of property inspections over the years that have missed very large defects in a property could be roofing could be structural it could be electrical could be plumbing because nobody's going to have all the knowledge even if you had a general contractor that knows a lot about different things they may miss some specific things on electrical or plumbing so one of the strategies that we see use and we've used it ourself in in property purchases is instead of hiring a property inspector which may not have high quality knowledge of every part of a home construction hire two or three specific trades contractors.

For example call an electrician have them come look at the house you may have to pay their hourly rate to have them come look at the electrical for an hour hire a plumber for an hour in some cases the cost to hire two or three specialized contractors is less than what a home inspector would charge because a home inspector is going to try to look at everything and they might spend four or five hours on a house and charge you five or six hundred dollars you may be able to have an electrician come out pay them an hourly rate of let's say a hundred dollars have a plumbing contractor come out pay their hour the rate of 150 having a roofer come out some types of contractors may even do it without cost with the hope of getting the work if they find something.

It's actually good if they find more things than a home inspector would because that'll help you with your negotiations whether you have it in your contract as a contingency or not having an inspection done will give you an idea of what the house needs one of the things you can also do is as part of the pre-purchase viewing of the house just like a showing is to not make the inspections part of a contract but do the inspections before you do a contract if you can arrange that you know have your showing look at the house make sure it's what you want and then do a second showing and bring your contractors with you and they can all do it simultaneously even if it takes an hour if they're doing it all at the same time that might be a way to protect yourself from getting a house that has serious defects before you get into it.

Even a general contractor in many cases is going to have more knowledge about the multiple systems of a house prior to or other than an inspector if you do hire a home inspector ask what their experience is are they a licensed contractor do they have experience or do they just a lot of home inspectors used to be a realtor they've become in home inspectors so you have an alternative to a home inspector who may not have the credentials or experience or knowledge that a specific contractor of a trade or general contractor might have to look at a house and see what's wrong with it to see what the defects might be.

And you can decide to go forward if you find that it needs ten thousand dollars worth of work but it's still worth doing that's fine but at least you'll know and you'll know if there's any other potential defects that could be deal breakers for example structural defects in a roof or in framing or even erosion defects if you live near the beach where it's eroding the house you could find that out where a general contractor is much more likely to be able to pick up on those things than a home inspector who may not have the knowledge of all the different systems in a house and all the different things such as grading or water intrusion or other defects that can really pop up later and find out that there's big expenses needed to keep that property intact.