Don't Buy a Money Pit! Ask the Home Inspector - Home Inspection Tips for First Time Buyers

good evening and Welcome to our second black history live for the month last week we talked about representing yourself whether or not that's going to work for you and now we have a special guest the next four lives will have a special guest our special guest tonight is Jamal the Channel's favorite home inspector and um he has we have a video on the channel just kind of preparing first-time homebuyers for um the process and what they're going to look for in an inspection but one of the things that I said you know in the thumbnail of this video is the number one fear of most first-time homebuyers is the inspection process or is buying something that's a money pit you buy it then there's so many repairs things you didn't think about and so I really want Jamal to answer and try to you know alleviate some of your fears of buying your first home around the inspection process and making sure you buy something that's not going gonna cost you a lot of money soon after you move in all right Jamal you want to represent your I'm going to represent you want to introduce yourself and say how long you've been um inspecting yes uh my name is Jamal patillo with perimeter property inspectors I have been inspecting now for almost seven almost eight years um uh my brother and I have our own business here in Atlanta and uh we are both internationally certified and uh that took us a long time to do but we we can go all around the country and in some other countries and inspect all right that's very very impressive so somebody's gonna fly you out to inspect their home in a different country I have no intention of going anywhere else but uh but we can if we need to gotcha gotcha all right after this after they see you famous on YouTube you know they might you're like I'm calling Christine says hello everyone Tasha's here first hello Tasha put your home inspection questions in the chat so we were talking before we came on live what would be our answer when I said the number one fear a first time home buyers is like you know buying something that's gonna cost them money because a lot of times first-time home buyers they save for the down payment they save for um and there's one thing I think is kind of weird they say for the down payment they save their closing costs you know they're saving for all this stuff and then they don't want to spend 400 500 on the inspection um when they're buying something that's 400 000 but what do you think um what's the best way or what's the best advice you have for first time home buyers to avoid buying um a money pit something that's going to cost them money soon after they come in with repairs and that sort of thing um the first thing that I tell people is something to tell people all the time um is 70 of my job is literally just that I walk up to the house looking at it differently than you do you walk up to the house and you're looking for pretty things and you're looking to you walk into the house and you're looking for where your furniture is going to go will your TV fit up on that wall how you're going to be living in there and a big part of inspections is I walk up to the house looking for problems and if you can turn that part of your brain off that's excited during the home buying process and turn on the part of your brain that's like what are the problems here so much of it is extremely obvious you know when you're walking up to the house you know if that house is sitting back down below a hill well water runs back towards the house that's something to think about if you walk up and you're seeing a bunch of damaged wood outside around the fashion the soffit if you're seeing a bunch of damaged wood around your windows well then you may have a moisture intrusion issue you may have some some damaged wood that needs repair if you go up to the house and the gutters are hanging off of the side well how did those gutters get pulled down and what caused that thinking about those types of things is really important because that stuff all adds up the thing about a house is on the cheap end everything that goes wrong in the house will cost you about a thousand dollars so you must always think about if something goes wrong there's a thousand dollars and I know you think oh it's only gonna be a few hundred no after Labor and all this and they got to do it again and this has to be doing a thousand dollars every time you have to think that way and understand that those things are now your responsibility and how much of this responsibility do you want to take on so walk into the house looking at it with the eyes of where are issues and how many of these am i counting up as I'm walking around this house if it's just a few no big deal wait for the inspection but if you walk into that house and you're seeing a bunch of stuff going on that doesn't look right it might not be worth even going through the contract on that one because you know you end up wasting time and money okay so let's talk about turning off the excitement and turning on the um are there any problems bringing so the excitement typically is oh look at these countertops look at this look at this view look at this they painted the door yellow it's so pretty like we need to turn off all like nice um light fixtures and uh you know white cabinets and blah blah blah we need to turn that off right and then turn on oh the root looks like it's about 20 years ago the water heater was you know um hasn't been replaced since 20 um you know 2000 2000 okay so turn on that part of your brain look at it more critically because sometimes he's correct even with new construction and even with you know resales and new construction you're too excited like look at it with the more critical eye like I usually when I'm going with my clients I let them look at oh this bedroom is here and this you know the the bedroom is big and has walk-in closets and I'm looking at oh you know the HVAC is original to the house the roof looks original I go through all of the expensive things and I tell them all of this stuff looks original and when I'm saying it looks original then depending on the age of that house you may have to replace some of those things in the near future so I usually tell them like the HVAC looks original the water heater looks original the roof looks original um I really can't see Electric and Plumbing that sort of thing it's a foundation if there's like obvious things with the foundation I may point it out but that's more of an inspection but though I'm looking at all of them the expensive things and I'm pointing that out to a buyer um so that's what you're kind of talking about right yeah definitely um the the big ticket items um HVAC uh your roof and you know structural issues you know that's a whole different ball game unto itself but typically coming in and you know go and check out the HVAC you know in the if it's winter time you know what I'm saying turn the heat up a couple degrees and just see what's going on in all the rooms that it's supposed to be servicing is it coming out warm is it is it working properly you know go to the sinks and just hit the hot water and see if you get hot water coming out of the tap real quick you know what I'm saying there's nothing wrong with that you're not tearing up nobody's house just see if you get a little bit of hot water coming out of the tap at every tap just making sure that things are working properly it's very simple things that you can do that you're going to do every single day uh that you can go walk in and just check out the house a little bit for yourself before you start really moving forward and it just it helps with the process um so that you don't get yourself because the other thing is it can be very tiring getting excited and then having an inspection and being disappointed and then getting excited again and having an inspection being disappointed it helps if you can help the inspector out by finding something that he's not going to have to absolutely tear apart and come in and tell you I'm so sorry this house is has a lot of problems paying for those inspections over and over how many inspections have you ever done for one class I got up to about five um I did five for one uh young lady before I literally uh just stopped her because she she called me and she said what do I need to do and I made a list out for her because of the type of housing she was looking for the the her price rate I made a list for her of what she needs to be looking at when she goes to these homes uh and we were finally able to get her into one um I did about five I know my brother had a client where he did almost nine because like you said they're so excited they're like oh put a contract in then you're doing an inspection deal falls apart because there's so many like you said obvious things that were wrong with the house and now they see it in inspection they terminate so you're doing it over and over and over exactly I think we answered Tiffany loves question um what to look for in inspection so good question Tiffany you guys let's keep it focused on inspection questions for Jamal so I see it some other things on there please Tom Thomas thank you for reminding me please hit the like button on this video if you want more things like this this is a question we get all the time Jamal should I get a personal home inspection on new construction and you're gonna be surprised we're gonna tell you to get three three on home inspections go ahead uh yes you should definitely get um your own personal home inspector for a new construction um new construction can have issues just like any other home just because it was built new doesn't mean that it was done properly all the time I know that's that can be scary to hear um but a lot of times sometimes even if the house was done well it helps to have an inspection done one to help you locate a lot of the things in the house that sometimes you won't always know are there and also to catch some of those small things that that it helps so that you don't have to bicker back and forth with the project manager about getting small things fixed before you move in um it's very good to have a home inspection done even on new construction because not all companies are created equal there are companies out there and Builders out there who are doing phenomenal work and there are Builders out there who are operating uh a bit differently and they and they use materials and cheaper labor that um you know creates a house that's going to have some issues down the line um good Builders will typically build a home where they are thinking 5 10 15 years down the line what's this house going to do um some of the other builders aren't thinking that way and you can tell immediately in the way that the development was set up and then the way that the houses are sitting a lot of different things that go on with the way that the house is built it's not built to last the test of time and you're going to have problems you know in certain instances immediately and in other instances uh you know within four or five years you start having issues um and you know Builders have their warranties and everything but you know a warranty is literally just expect a problem and you and we'll come back and deal with it well you know a house that's brand new you should go a good decade before you really have to do any major things in that home um and you know if you have to start calling on that warranty within the first year or two that's a problem you shouldn't have that because you know in everyone's mind and this is hard to get rid of new construction is a dream you know what I'm saying this is my dream home I'm having a house built from scratch but you know once problems start to arise it's a nightmare and so you want to definitely try your best to avoid that and having an inspector come out and check as much of it out as he possibly can he or she possibly can then um then it really helps okay let's talk about those three inspections that they can get on new construction what's the first one well you can get um the first one the first overall encompassing inspection that you can have done is what's called a phase inspection that will Encompass everything so phase inspections is where the inspector will come out you know basically at the groundbreaking um and they're going to be checking as the electrical lines go in the plumbing lines go in they're going to be checking as the concrete is poured all the way through the process pre-drywall and final inspection um the more typical way of things going because you know a lot of Builders do not like phase inspections they don't want because they're already having code inspections done so much that they don't want anything else slow and process so phase inspections are hard to get done um you really have to push for those but the more typical is typically we'll do a pre-dry wall that is where you know all of the framing is up the roof is on the house is typically wrapped windows and doors are installed all of the plumbing is installed electrical HVAC all that stuff is installed it's rough installed and then uh and then we'll come in and we'll check everything before the the drywall the walls go up and all that stuff gets sealed up so that we can see what's going on how they installed all of that has it been done properly um and you know do any changes need to be made um and then the final inspection or you know to a lot of times we come in we're just doing a final inspection so I didn't get to see what they did Behind the Walls I didn't get to see how they put this electrical in I don't know what's going on with this foundation and so you know it can be a bit tough in a new home because you know just like anything else it takes a little while for things to break in so you know we go in and do our very best to what I call stress test the home you know we go in and I'm going to be running a lot of water and all the electrical and have all the appliances going to try and see can the house hold up to this um to try and you know see where the house starts to bend or break a little bit um but you know there's only so much that we can do uh one thing that an inspection is is it's a day in the life it's a day in the life of your house tomorrow this is a different house everything is different and so you have to be aware of that all right I want to tell this story so it stays in all of new construction buyers minds and you'll like get an inspection so um these clients they did do the pre-dry wall and they did the final but they didn't do that phase one that your mom was talking about like when they're pouring the before they pour the foundation they're like putting all the utilities and all kind of stuff in so they they close on the house about three months later um they've noticed that water was coming like up from the from the slab all around the island up in like the side just water water now mind you it is under warranty for that first year everything's under warranty so they came in and um what they figured out was when they were initially putting the plumbing in they didn't connect the plumbing appropriately underground underground right so for the laundry room all the water was coming in like through the slab Behind the Walls like it was just pouring in okay so these clients of course they call me this three months later and I'm calling lawyers and I'm calling them okay so how a warranty works is they are obligated to fix it but they're not obligated to put you in a hotel they're not obligated to you know give you pain and suffering for the time that you lost because you couldn't work from home like you were going to right they are just obligated to fix it and so they did come in and fix it but my clients were very inconvenienced during this time exactly remind you they had to like go into their Landscaping they had to um you know go and read like reroute the water like the plumbing line they had to take up all of their flooring they had to do mold remediation Behind the Walls so imagine you going through this in like a month of your house and there's nothing you can do but then just to allow them to fix the problem so when we're talking about warranties you're talking about they're obligated because I talked about three lawyers right they're only obligated to fix they have agreed to fix the problem within that first year and make you whole again that could take them a month that could take them you know two months but you would have rather you know done your inspections had that happen and know that you're good like what your mom said for the next maybe 10 years and you don't have to go through some of those inconveniences so I highly recommend now I used to recommend like two now I'm recommending that third one that's the experience that I had because that never happened to me before um but now I know right so definitely definitely get your new construction Home Inspections we have some other that was the most major thing that's ever happened to a client but I've had you know other clients close new construction and things happen and they you know they're dragging their feet you've already closed okay they're not rushing over there to handle business like you know so just be mindful of that it's not like your apartment where maintenance gonna come the second the next day you're gonna put in a ticket and then they're gonna come if it's not what they deem to be an emergency they'll probably tell you if there's like a leak a little leak go ahead and turn off the water like then and we'll come back out in about a week and fix it you have another you know you have another bathroom in your house go ahead and use that just don't use that bathroom that's the kind of thing you're going to go through with warranty issues with new construction so very good question I think that answered a lot of the new construction questions that I saw um all right Kiva has a good question what are your top three red flags like when you and I'm going to talk about my first time home buyer guide because in that I have like sample inspection so you know what inspection looks like before you buy your first home but typically on these inspections they put them in like things that are serious things that are like not that serious so what do you feel like are like red flag will you put like the serious you know point on it um the number one most serious thing that you're going to run into uh typically you're gonna structural issues is a big it's probably the biggest red flag um structural Foundation issues cause the most problems um because you know a structural issue can can cause Plumbing issues it can cause roof issues because once the house begins to shift everything goes along with it um so your structural issues is the number one red flag um and from my experience typically because you know we typically don't deal in deal breakers structural issues are typically a deal breaker they're it's a very very expensive to fix structural issues so that's typically your number one red flag um the second red flag um and it's one that we've really just begun to run into in the last five years or so is roofing issues um roofing issues have become a much bigger deal over the last five years or so because insurance companies are not keen to take on the risk of an older roof and when I say an older roof a roof that's 15 years old you know a group that has a 20-year lifespan but it's 15 years old they're not always Keen to take on that roof and so you have to be very very careful and very diligent about getting knowing the exact age of the roof because we do an estimation we estimate the age of the roof because I don't have any of the paperwork telling me I can typically look at a roof uh walk a roof or run my drone over a roof and get an idea of how old that roof is but you want to know the exact age of that route for your insurance and you want to make sure that your insurance is going to cover that roof because you know a lot of times they will take they will quote you and then you're they'll say you're good but every insurance company has the right after you've closed to do a walk by and that adjuster walks out there and he sees a roof that he doesn't like he or she doesn't like they have the right to drop you and so you have to be very very careful with older Roots um we make a we make a much bigger deal about older groups now than we used to it used to be you know for roof was 15 years old and had a 20-year lifespan you know we'd say if you need some patches here or there keep an eye on it within the next five to ten years it's going to need to be replaced we don't get to do that anymore we have to be very tough on groups because insurance has become a lot tougher on Roots so we have to kind of pass that responsibility off to a licensed roofer who can do things that we can't like pull the roofing up and take a look underneath see look for rusted nails look for leaks that haven't seeped through um that type of thing um so roofs are definitely uh the next big red flag um probably three a and 3B HVAC issues are big because HVAC is very expensive very very expensive to have to replace HVAC um you know and you know here in Georgia we typically get um all four seasons fairly fairly well so you know you're going to want your heat to work you're going to want your your AC to work um so you always want to keep up with you want to know what are the ages of these like I said if it's winter time when you go and look at the house hit that hit that heater and see if and see if you've got hot air coming out and if it's and make sure it's coming out good at all the registers same thing in the summertime go ahead and knock that uh thermostat down a couple of notches and see what type of cold air you've got coming out of there um we do a more exhaustive check but that's something you can do right off the top to see is this thing working the way it's supposed to um and then the other one for people more than more often people who want a basement or I'm saying or the house has a basement moisture intrusion is a big thing because moisture intrusion can cause a lot of different problems typically where the house meets that Foundation a lot of times that'll be below ground and so you'll get where moisture can just find its way into water always needs to find its way in and so you know anytime you've got big moisture issues if you go down into a basement of a home especially one that's finished and they got a couple of dehumidifiers going down there full bore that's the that's a sign that more than likely they've been having moisture issues um and that's something that you really want to ask about and get as much information about as you can because moisture causes a lot of problems Invasion so those are probably the top three big issues uh Foundation roof and HVAC slash moisture intrusion okay very good good very good list very good list hope you all are taking notes on that one all right so I'm gonna go back to the minor question I'm gonna say this how do you go about finding your own home inspector so Jamal is in Atlanta but he's International all right guys don't do me like that you can pull him out but um what I typically inspectors like I never give somebody just one inspector so if your agent's on the chat never just get I love Jamal but I'm sending a list of people with your mom because what happens is your client will say well you told me to um use your Mall your mom misses it now I'm at fault I totally suggested Jamal right so my inspection list is probably about six inspectors that I've done inspections with in the past now Jamal is at the top of that list so they'll see that one first however your agent should give you a list of inspectors so you can kind of look at them see their reviews see all that kind of stuff and see if you want to use them so that's how typically I would say you would find your inspector or like YouTube video I don't know so how do people normally find you Jamal um most of my business comes in through referral um I've been doing this long enough at this point that I have a lot of different contacts and so a lot of my business comes in from Agents investors um other clients that I've worked with and they got a family member who's getting the house and they immediately say use Jamal uh so that's where most of my business is Word of Mouth for me um and that has always kept that has always sustained me um as far as if you do a good job for people they always remember you um but the easiest way you know you want to go on you want to look through reviews you know you're gonna when you go on the Google and you put type in inspector you're going to get somebody typically within your area you want to look through people's reviews you want to go to their website and try to see what it is they're offering um for the price you don't always want to go with the cheapest um and I know I say that as we are one of the cheapest but that's my only one yeah they're affordable that is my personal thing my brother doesn't like it but that's my personal thing I don't believe in charging people a lot of money for what it is that we do um but you understand you don't always want to go with somebody who's offering you you know a 200 inspection well sometimes you get 200 results you want to go with somebody who's typically an inspection on a medium-sized house anywhere between two and three thousand square feet will cost you somewhere around 350 to 400 um and it should that's about how much it should it should cost you um and you want to find out all the different things that they offer you want to find out if they are licensed and insured and that includes uh you know uh liability insurance error and omissions insurance you want to make sure that they've registered with the state or if not with the state with the with the county um or the city that they're in business license um and you want to find out that they have been licensed or you want to get their license because you are not required to be licensed in some states Georgia being one of them there is no requirement to be licensed as an inspector really anyone can technically inspect a home so you want to be careful about that and make sure that they are licensed um the two big licensing boards and inspections are internachi and ashy internachi is the is the one my brother and I are a part of actually is another organization that does really good work um there are some others uh when we first started there's online training you can get uh with a company called a hit um it doesn't mean that they're a bad inspector it just means that they didn't have to go and learn everything all at once it's a good way to get your foot in the door but after that you would prefer they learn a little bit more but you want to make sure that they have those things you want to check out their reviews and read through all of them because you know sometimes you know sometimes a bad review is just somebody was salty but sometimes a bad review is saying some things that you really need to understand about how this person goes about their work and if you start to see a pattern in that well then you may have an issue um so it you know you have to do your due diligence as far as finding your own inspector and finding someone that you're comfortable with someone that you feel like is going to go out there and do a good job the thing you must always remember with an inspector is that the inspector even though you are hiring this inspector this inspector is not there for you the inspector is a is is outside of the realm of this business deal so the inspector is coming in and the inspector is here for the house I'm not on the buyer's side I'm not on the seller's side I'm not on the bank's side I'm not on anybody's side I'm here for the house and I'm going to Simply inspect the home and I'm going to give out the results what I like to tell people is I have a conversation with the house and I come back I tell everybody what the house said and that's it and then I removed myself from a situation because uh I'm not really here for any anybody I'm not here to tell you whether or not no inspector should tell you whether or not you should buy a house no inspector should you know I'm saying we have what we call deal breakers in the in the industry where you know they they're alarmists they everything's the biggest deal in the world very rarely is anything that big of a deal every house has issues um you know you just they should most inspectors should be fairly even Keel we see a lot of terrible things every day so most houses aren't that big a deal to us they should be able to talk to you in a way that helps you understand what the issue is and whether or not it's going to be a hassle getting that issue fixed um so you know it's it's a lot to think about but you know it's sometimes it's just a field thing you work with somebody and and you can feel that they're going to do a good job for you um so it it's it's a lot of first doing your due diligence and then getting a feel for the inspector okay very good answer very thorough um good questions tonight everyone so now we're going to go to the flip side of major red flags and do minor things because a lot of times first time home buyers are like crazy about the little little little things like they want Perfection on a a used house right so I'll give you one like anything cosmetic like paint issues um unless it's new construction but like paint issues um minor carpet or flooring issues um those are things that people really get honed in on and it's not that big of a deal so like I look I look at first any safety issues typically when I when I help my clients go through the report and then I'm looking at any expensive issues like things that are going to cost them a lot of money so when they start being like oh that that um that light switch is missing the face plate and I'm like come on you get one of those for two dollars at Home Depot like we're not going to ask them to replace the base plate let's focus on the things that are most expensive that are going to cost you the most money so what are some other things that you say are minor that people think are major sometimes um a lot of times you know moisture stains will oftentimes be something that people will see in a ceiling or something like that um and you know they will think well is there a leak there well number one um nine times a lot of ten no uh if you if you live in the house for long enough you're going to cause a moisture stain by either overfilling your tub or overfilling the sink or doing something stupid because you live there and we're human beings but what as an inspector I'm not only going to document that moisture thing I'm going to test it to see if it's active and so if it's inactive then it just needs to be painted over with what's called bacteria killing paint what happens is people try to paint over a moisture stain and it bleeds back through you have to kill the bacteria first and then you can paint over it and you'll be fine um moisture stains is something that people see again paint issues here and there one thing that people have to understand is that 99 of cosmetic issues in a home an inspector is not even going to mention them because that is outside standard operating procedures cosmetic issues can very easily fall underneath personal preference and that includes cleanliness unfortunately unless it's something that's you know uh hazardous you know how dirty the house is you know little things like that's not really that's not really my business because you know that's that's the way they're keeping it it's just because they painted the walls in some weird colors because they let their kids crayon all over the walls that's their personal preference it's not what we call a material defect there's not something absolutely wrong with that it didn't they didn't damage the wall they just made it not look as good as most people would want it to look um so you you kind of have to look past that it takes some Vision sometimes to walk into a house that people haven't been taking care of cosmetically and be able to see that all this stuff just needs to be cleaned up and some new paint needs to be put up and yeah carpet um typically carpet is something that we will mention in a report you know if it has wrinkles and stuff like that we'll we'll say that it needs to be restretched um if it has stains um we'll say that it needs to be cleaned the only time we're really going to be mentioning carpet as far as something serious is if it has massive holes and stuff in it that someone could trip over but other than that you know we're really not going to say anything when it comes to like wood flooring and stuff like that what we're looking for there is damage and if there's no damage if it really this needs to be refinished well that's something you can do at any time um so you know we try to stay away from you know small cosmetic issues um you know in every bathroom there's always a sink stopper that's not working there's always some toilet bolt covers that are missing there's always little things going on around the house um that people just don't take care of uh and it's it's typically a really simple fix and you know the thing that you that a lot of people find out when they move into a house is that they don't want to do that stuff either nobody feels like walking around being meticulous and putting everything back in place um you know this is where you live and you want to be comfortable and these people who were living here before they want to be comfortable and so they weren't taking care of all those little knick-knack things the real thing you want to see is were they maintaining the home in the places that were important and as long as they were doing that the rest is honestly can be a bit trivial you really want to try to back away take a take a wide view of things and see you know is this house uh are the bones of this house good versus worried about really small things because you can get lost in the weeds when it comes to small things and a lot of times uh the more I do this job the more of those small things I end up leaving off of my report because you can blow I could I could go and I could bloke every Report with a bunch of small stuff here and there if I wanted to but you know what you really want is for your client to focus on what's important okay very good and I also wanted to say when you're talking about carpet a lot of times and this is just something that happened to me before that we didn't look under the bed like you know little things like that so when they moved out and it was time to walk through there was like a huge a huge thing after we're like oh my goodness you know so we have to kind of negotiate that so like kind of look under things when you talk about those cosmetic it's not that you can't get a credit for it or ask the seller for some kind of credit because you may have to replace the carpet you may have to repaint the house it's just that you may not put that as a higher priority over like your roof or the HVAC if it's a matter of them painting the house versus giving you a new roof we're focusing on the new roof and you're not going one thing that you guys have to realize as first time home buyers you're not going to get everything that the home inspection lists you have to kind of prioritize what you're going to ask for and what's most important to you is not that they're going to make this home like it was new again okay so just be mindful of that it's kind of like we're talking about used cars you wouldn't expect back to buy a used car and then tell them to put in a new engine and put in a new you know have everything new you're buying it used and usually you're buying it at like a discount right so a lot of times resales aren't expect are aren't as expensive as you know new construction in that same area because of that so just be mindful of that um great question let me close that one up um Kirsten Grace says loving these lives thank you so much ahita and thank you Jamal we appreciate you guys joining us um all right sure Donna says how does inspection work for Condominiums and lofts that is those are very different that is a good question so for Condominiums and Lofts um it can be it's it's pretty straightforward the same but it's very different because a lot of the utilities will be in very different areas and so the inspector a lot of times will have to come in and work with the the management company to get access to a lot of the other things like a lot of times the AC units will be on the roof and so and the roof will be locked up and so you have to get them to give you key access and you have to go all over the place and unfortunately a lot of times especially in condos downtown none of that stuff is labeled so you get up there and there's about 300 AC units and none of them are labeled and we don't know which one is yours and they say oh those are supposed to be labeled I know they're supposed to be um so you know you deal with that a lot of times some of the older condos downtown will be on a boiler unit which will be what does all of your heating and cooling it'll do all all of your hot water will come from that and so you know we'll have to go down into the utility area and check out the boiler unit um so you'll be dealing with some things that are a little bit different from um single-family homes even Town Homes uh things can be a little bit different when it comes to that but for the most part it's still straightforward we're going in we're checking the space and uh trying to see if there are any defects inside the space that you're going to be living in frames at home or Bill that are typically worse or better so talk and I think we're talking about like times when they didn't use lead-based paint or when they didn't use certain things so is there like a certain age that you're like okay it was built before this time you may need to be more cautious um yes so um if you're if you're buying a house that was built I believe before 1968 uh don't quote me on that but I believe it's 1968 you may end up with some electrical issues because that's when a new standard of uh electrical came in and so homes began to go from what was considered two wired to three wire uh three wires is literally you know when you look and you got the three little prongs down there that third prong at the bottom is your ground wire well before that you didn't need that because you know homes were only using and appliances were only using two prongs which means they didn't need to be grounded well if you go and you get a get yeah y'all know what he's talking about you have that little third one on the bottom so instead of like two you have three yeah and so you know if you go and you buy a home that was you know built before that before 1968 or so and you know they've gone and they've updated the electrical and put in three prong Outlets the question then becomes did they update the wiring because updating to a three three-prong outlets and put even putting a new panel in doesn't necessarily mean that they rewired the house um so you want to be very careful with that because when you update to a three wire three wire pump three-prong uh outlets and update the electrical panel but you don't change out that old wiring what you have is in ungrounded system now there are a lot of ways that that can be remedied some I like some I don't personally like but they are all legal as far as NEC code um but um but you just want to make sure because when it comes to that there are a lot of older homes that have some electrical that hasn't been done quite right that's one thing to think about um lead paint um lead paint isn't always as big a deal you you want to be more worried about uh lead Plumbing lead paint the one of the things that's acceptable as far as fixing lead paint is painting over it uh so if you have small children if you have animals um lead paint is something you might want to be worried about as far as the house and you need to be worried about it as far as um because sometimes the approaches will make a big deal about lead paint um leg pain stopped after 1978. yes um so yeah if your house is built after 1978 you don't have lead paint um but one of the ways to fix lead paint is literally just to paint over it so sometimes people get scared about lead paint it's nothing to be afraid of it's very easily uh remediated unless you're like literally like your kids are like chipping the paint and putting it in their mouth Yes yes that is the other thing and the way the blood paint affects you is you eat it so so you know it's not the it's not the boogeyman that people always make lead paint out to be it's a pretty easy fix and you know as long as you make sure your kid AIDS or your animals aren't eating it you'll typically be fine as far as lead paint is concerned um an era that really seems a little bit more modern but had a lot of issues basically 80s to early 90s homes have some typically have some pretty big issues because during that times there were some there was a lot of recalls on electrical panels siding Plumbing uh lots of different things that were going on in the 80s and all the way up to the mid 90s that were a little bit funky uh one thing uh polybutylene Plumbing came in in the I think it was like the late 70s through and then it got taken out in the uh mid 90s um polybutylene Plumbing is typically it it got recalled and then it got uh class action lawsuit because it had a tendency to burst um so that's one thing that came in during that time um there are some different electrical panels that are uh still present in homes all across America today uh what is it called uh Federal Pacific uh was the company that's fighting right no that's uh that's a that's a different one that's Georgia Pacific and Louisiana Pacific okay uh do the did the siding that got recalled um Federal Pacific it was an electrical company and they had panels uh electrical panels that ended up getting recalled because basically the breakers wouldn't always shut all the way off and so it would cause fires and they still cause I think last I saw the average is like 3 000 fires per year so if you have one of those in your home go and just uh go and just look them up um so you can see what they look like they are you can tell them immediately when you see one um they don't look like other panels um it's always a good idea to go ahead and have an electrician replace those um so that's another thing that came in the 80s speaking of the siding um wood composite siding was a big thing in the 80s and early 90s wood composite siding was basically them just taking a big mash and slurry of wood and then pressing it together really well and it was supposed to be longer lasting and stronger than just wood itself and cheaper uh and but it has a tendency to just soak up moisture just pull it right on in and start to rot away on you and a lot of that ended up getting recalled uh until we ended up that's how we ended up with Hardy plank which is a concrete composite um so those are things that were done in the 80s and early 90s that was an ERA where homes were they were doing they thought that they were innovating but they they weren't quite there okay good the good question all right I know that you're in Atlanta so maybe you can't do this but just give them kind of a range on those three inspections like how much would that inspection cost the second the third and then if they I guess they bundled it all together and you know hired you for each one of them you know give them like a ballpark I guess two thousand three thousand square feet for me personally on on our side of things um at 3 000 square feet two thousand three thousand square feet we typically charge about 325 and then uh pre-dry wall is 200 and uh those phase inspections depending on how many have to be done um are 150. um so typically it'll end up somewhere between 800 and a thousand dollars um for uh larger inspection companies you may pay a little bit more now the thing I always tell people we are we are an independent small business um so you know there are things that we can do and things that we can't sometimes it is worth paying that extra money to a larger company because number one they can give you guarantees because they can afford they have they have corporate behind them they can give you guarantees I can't give you they can go in and do things because they have a lot more Insurance than I can than I can carry they can go in and do things that I can't do they can take things apart that I can't take apart they're oftentimes going to send two or three inspectors out there so you know it's sometimes worth going with a larger company uh if it if if the value is right for you they're going it's going to be more money but it is oftentimes worth it because they're going to do things that we as a smaller company can't always do all right that's why I love Jamal I give it to you straight give it to you all right um do you charge more do most inspectors charge more for basements versus slab homes yes uh we charge um we actually have to go up we charge fifty dollars extra for unfinished basement it ends up being the same whether it's finished or not uh because we charge by the livable space as far as square footage is concerned so if the space is unfinished in your basement we charge you fifty dollars typically if that space is finished it ends up running the square footage up to the point where we're going to end up charging you that extra fifty dollars anyway so uh and then we charge fifty dollars for crawl spaces a slab you know we don't charge any extra as far as this lab is concerned okay thank you for that question don't forget to get my first time home buyer guide Miss amen raw is moderating she's putting that in the comments so make sure you get that guide it's going to save you money because what I made this guide because too many people are emailing me after they close and they're trying to sue their agent you gotta pay for the lawyer and you're probably going to lose um because you know agents have so many Protections in those contracts want to do it right the first time so make sure that you're getting the um the my first time home buyers guide because I specifically made it based on me being on this channel getting emails most of them after closing that cost thousands of dollars to try to fix all right so make sure you're getting that Windows Jamal should they be concerned so I know on every inspection you open all windows open and close open close when should they be concerned about Windows Windows there's a lot of different things to be concerned with about Windows um as far as you know you can a lot of times you'll get moisture intrusions into windows and that's something that you should notice um depending on how the windows were constructed you know if you're in an older home and you have uh and even you know in some some of the more upscale neighborhoods they still require wood windows when they're building um so you'll get wood rot and stuff around windows water tends to settle into those areas any imperfections in the flashing uh any imperfections in your gutters um if you haven't been cleaning out your gutters and stuff like that and water is running down the face of your home well that is going to find its way and seep into your windows so you know windows can be a problem as far as that are concerned that that's a but that's a more of a maintenance issue um Windows now are typically made we don't really do single pane windows anymore they are dual pane even three pane windows are being developed now um and uh they are pumped there's an Argon gas that's pumped into those and it creates a seal for efficiency of the home so basically you know on a hot day that heat's not penetrating and coming through that glass on a cold day that cold isn't coming through um but oftentimes what will happen those windows are given a lifespan like other appliances in your home they're given a lifespan as well and typically depending on the uh the manufacturer anywhere from 10 to 20 years and so at that at those marks you'll begin to see a lot of people have gone into homes or you might be in a home right now where you look at that window and there's a bunch of fog sitting in between the windows what that is is that seal beginning to fail once that seal fails there is no way to fix that that seal will continually degrade and once that seal is gone you no longer and typically once it's gone you'll know it'll be completely fogged out you almost can't see through it you'll have water droplets and stuff in between the pain once it fails you know I'm saying that's now basically just a single pane window again and you've lost the efficiency as far as that concerned and the only way to fix that is to replace that window if you go into a house and you see a bunch of fogged out windows that can be you know if you've got one or two no big deal um you know keep an eye on them we tell people budget to replace them in the future but if you go into a house and all of those windows are fogged out number one the efficiency of that home is has probably been lowered significantly and replacing all of the windows in a home adds up really really quickly um in a small house sometimes it's not that big a deal it might only cost you you know four or five thousand dollars but in a larger home if all of those windows are fogged out which sometimes people do uh in ignorance not understanding how those windows are to be taken care of um they'll do that damage themselves and that can cost you anywhere from twenty to thirty thousand dollars like I said in some of the upscale neighborhoods they don't allow you to put vinyl windows in the in the home you have to have those wood windows and wood windows that are that are sealed like that are very very expensive so it can end up costing you a lot of money one thing about those windows that you'll notice they have Inlet latches those latches are designed so that you can pull that lower section of the window in and clean it by hand you are never to spray your windows even with just a regular garden hose because you spray those windows you can knock that seal out and once you've done that that window has to be replaced well that's a good to know so hopefully y'all can play that back when you're looking at these when to make sure we clarify this for everybody there's no requirement for any mortgage for you to get a personal home inspection okay this is something that's your due diligence to make sure you're buying something that's in good condition and I think a lot of people confuse this because USDA and government they're like as long as it's inhabitable like it is they call it safe and sanitary meaning there's no broken windows the plumbing Works they're testing for like the basics right they're not going deep into these inspections because they're bringing uh like FHA appraisal they'll make sure it's safe and sanitary they do not do a full inspection on that home and no lender is going to require you to do an inspection a home inspection okay so this is your responsibility as a first time home buyer to make sure that you get your own inspection do not be confused between an appraisal and an inspection there are two totally different things it does not work where I'll just get the appraiser and they'll look at the house literally I had I was like at an inspection I sat outside they came in they walked around the house once the FHA appraiser walked around the house once flushed the toilet ran the water and left they're taking that house all of 15 minutes okay a home inspector is going to stay in your home for like hours at least two hours depending on the size they're staying in that home and testing everything so do not let me say this about three times do not not confuse an appraisal a government appraisal with a home inspection two separate things save money and I say save money for at least two home inspections if you only save money for one home inspection you're assuming the house you're going to get is going to be perfect right and you're going to close on it that doesn't always happen you may get something where it's a deal breaker for you and you say I want to terminate you still have to have money for another inspection um for some of my first time home buyers it kind of hurt like they got to come out of the 350 another 400 but I told them hey save up to to begin with with the anticipation that you might have to do a second one because if we terminate you're still looking for house and you got to get another inspection okay do you have anything to say about um you know the the lender inspection uh yeah they they their job is very very different from ours they're coming in there to make sure that everything that is listed and everything that is supposed to be there is there that things are the things look solid that things look good that water is running things like that that all of their that the rooms are bedrooms and that something is enlisted as a bedroom that's not they're just making sure and then they're gonna go and do uh comps and all of that they're there to see if the house is you know worth what it's being sold for um that's not we as far as the as far as that goes that's a completely different side because we don't deal in the worth of the home whatsoever um so that that is a very different thing for us um and you know you you do you don't want to just rely on the appraisal uh because you know especially like during the pandemic I saw they didn't they weren't required to get out of the car right they call them like the dry path so you know you you really want to be I'll say um you know the only thing that comes close to us is a VA appraisal because they are just they're they're tough all right um somebody's saying like multi-family or town homes or thin walls is there anything they could look for to see if they have enough insulation without like spending the night in the house I guess to see if they could hear their neighbors if that is something that you are worried about yeah um well number one if it's thin walls like that one worry would be that there's not a proper firewall um because a proper firewall in between units would alleviate some of that sound some older town homes and condo units like that firewalls weren't required at the time they were built and it could be the code inspection hasn't come through there in enough time for them to have come in and said hey y'all need to put up a firewall so it could be more than just a sound issue it could be a safety issue as far as that goes um so you definitely want to find out if there's a firewall there and if there is then you know that is one of the things of you know living in the town home or a condo sometimes because it's not a requirement that you get uh sound diffusion uh that is you know you got somebody right next to you you might hear them right here all right another question would you know that HVAC system that uses R22 freon so for those of you that don't know they're doing like a whole change of like old Freon I guess it's like the EPA or something it's saying they can't use certain things anymore so like even in my own house we have to replace our furnace and they're like well do you want the new one the old one and I'm like okay one was like you know fifteen thousand dollars the other one was like three thousand dollars so I went with the three thousand dollars but I know in my mind that the next you know when that goes bad I have to go to the new one so do you note that on your inspection or do inspectors no that yes we do know the R22 freon um typically and we will still put it in a major concern but typically when I note it I will uh recommend that they contact UM the nearest HVAC Tech to see you because what it is is it's it's not really it wasn't recalled it was just discontinued and so it's basically difficult to find now you can find it you can go online and buy it you can there's different places to find it um but not every HVAC tech company is really keeping up with that and keeping it in-house and so you know if you have trouble getting a hold of it well then when your freon goes low it's going to be warm so you know my suggestion is always before closing make sure that you contacted an HVAC company that's going to be able to service this unit because you can't find one and if the homeowner or can't find one well then that isn't that's where you start talking about replacing the unit okay good good answer okay what happens okay then this happened to me we're talking about Wildlife In The Attic like do you point that out now I don't remember my inspectors this before I knew Jamal this is six years ago I don't remember my inspector checking for wildlife but now like on my inspections now I do see like there's you know droppings like they may not see actively the wildlife because the wildlife comes out at night you guys we moved in in this house and we're sleeping it's like winter time we hear like like squirrels were in our attic so um do you ever tell people that there possibly can be like wildlife in their attic yes anytime we see any evidence um a lot of times in uh addicts you know birds and squirrels a lot of times they don't always necessarily nest in your attic they come in there to get warm or come in there to grab some and do something they go running around it's just an area for them to occupy for a little while um the the thing that you're typically going to see when you've got a lot of like droppings and things like that in your attic is tree rats and raccoons um or bats bats and Out in the Country you get bats a lot um and so you'll get that up there at any time we see evidence of that we're going to recommend that pest technician come in and uh first and foremost figure out how they got in seal that up and then try to trap them as best they can and begin to get rid of them um it's definitely something that you want to be aware of because rodent droppings uh can be hazardous um that's the type of stuff you want to just be breathing in is not good for you so you definitely want to keep in an eye on that another way to stop that stuff from happening one and you don't just get pest technicians to come to your house when you start seeing the problem that's something that you can always do beforehand hire a pest technician company when you first buy the home to take care of the home and be on the lookout for those things another thing that you should do we always tell people because you know especially hearing this our people love trees that create shade those trees hanging over the top of your roof is how those things get in there and so you always if even if you love your trees trim them back away from your house if you were looking down at your house from the sky you should have about 10 feet in every direction around your house that's clear because if you have any if you have a tree limb hanging over the top of your house anything can get in there okay very good very good and you guys in this video all of your Mall's information will be in the comments of this video so you can hire him and you can recommend him all of that I'm going to go through a few more this is a good one are we able to be present for the home inspections we true let's talk about she's talking about new construction but let's talk about new construction and resales I'll tell you what I tell my clients I say let the home inspector work because sometimes I used to tell my clients yes you can go at the same time as a home inspector they'll be there at 10 they'll probably be done by 12 30 or whatever but then you have like a buyer like oh what's that and what's that and what's in there and then the home inspector can't do their job so what I tell them now is or I tell the home inspector ahead of time when's a good time for us to get an overview of the report like when will you be about finished because that'll allowed me to get some like um you know eyes on any of the problems so we can actually see what you're talking about um before we get the report okay so that's what I usually suggest I ask the inspector like about what time do you think you'll be done I tell my client or I'll come and we'll you know meet there and they'll give like an overview of like the the major things that they found in the house but what do you suggest um in the new construction they can't tell you that you cannot be there they try to do that during the pandemic oh we can't have all these people in the house all that kind of stuff but you should be able to be present during your home inspection even for new construction what do you say um Jamal um yeah I I recommend that uh you be there typically I try to let people know you know if I have a 10 a.m inspection I let people know um you know it typically is going to take me about two to two and a half hours depending on the size of the house it may take longer and I try to give them a time that I anticipate beginning to wind down um that they can come because I know people still want to come there and start walking around and looking around and looking at stuff um so you know I typically about 45 minutes to an hour before I know that I'm gonna be finishing up I tell them that they can they can show up around that time and that gives me a chance to have knocked out some of the larger systems and some of the more intense things that I have to do before they come in because you know I don't mind answering people's questions and stuff like that they it's stuff A lot of times the things that people need to know um the thing you have to understand is that you know while we're working we work every inspector has a direction and a way that they work and it's the same thing every single time so just because you say what about this and he comes over there and looks at it and says okay most times when people say that to me I say yeah I see that and I walk off because you just stopped me from looking at something else and I can't break my system because if I break my system then I'll miss something so I understand that you have your question a lot of times it is better to hold to the end and then we can walk around all over the place and look at the stuff that you saw but you want your inspector to be able to stay to his system and move all around the house the way that he does because we have a very specific system that each inspector has for themselves and when that gets broken it's very easy for us to be like what was I doing and then go on to something else and now I miss something um so that's that's really good as far as new construction goes yeah you're allowed to be there different companies like to come up with different little weird things and say that this one can't be there and that one can't be there and only this and this and you are still allowed to be at the inspection um I always tell people don't don't let them tell you something that doesn't make any sense and that can never get a home inspector from the real estate agent never I would say no to this never however I would say Don't just get one right because you're number one the agent has a lot of liability because they only gave you one person right and then um you know there could be a conflict of interest because like some agents they're like I need this closing right and don't you know you never know like what's going on behind the scenes and I think this is what he may be referring to that these agents you know when they only give you one you should worry but when I give my list there's some national companies there's Jamal there's this and a lot of times by price like I want to make sure there's an affordable option um on there there are some expensive options on there so I would say the inspection list should be at the minimum three to four I have like six on mine so my answer to well he didn't ask a question I just wanted to address it not never right but they should be giving you a list if they're only giving you uh you use this inspector then that is is a red flag for you as a first time home buyer they should be giving you a list of inspectors that you could choose from and some of them should be National like companies that you could choose from as well all right um thank you guys people are saying um it's a very informative live somebody said excuse me tree rats all right hi Barry I'm gonna ask you a question okay help I bought a house two months ago I'm telling y'all these are the emails I get um two months ago and now all of a sudden I see a crack in the wall which started at on the top of the wall and now it's close to the bottom and a zigzag pattern what should I do my suggestion there would be um I would definitely have a structural contractor come out a lot of structural uh contractor firms they'll have contractors who do the work um instead of having the engineer come out they'll send one of the contractors out first you can look those up online Google structural Contracting firms and stuff like that and they'll send out a structural contract and a lot of times that won't cost you a ton of money um to have that contractor come out there take a look at it if that structural contractor takes a look at that and Deans that yeah this does look like an issue then they'll start they'll bring in the big gun of the structural engineer to take a look at things um because if it's if it's moving that aggressively I'm saying a lot of times when you see an aggressive crack like that it could be some type of issue I'm not sure of all the things that are going on with your home but um you never want to see cracking happening that quickly so definitely I would say call a structural contractor if you have an engineer that you know have them come by and take a look at it uh because you definitely don't want cracking to be happening that quickly okay it doesn't matter how like how wide it is or it's like a hairline crack or somebody told me something cracks if you put a quarter in it it's too big or something like does it matter how big the crack is well we look in a lot of different like I would I would say my thing would be if I were looking at it I would begin looking in a lot of different areas for other signs of cracking more than likely if there's an issue that's not the only place there's a crack I would say start looking over your door frame step step back and look at your door frames around your your window sills and trims start looking for cracks there take it take a step back and look and see if you see any sagging in your windows and doors above above the framing um start looking in all the corners of the rooms around the house you'll oftentimes start to see some cracks there and they will sometimes look like a hairline crack but if you're seeing enough of them they begin to add up to a bigger issue um so I would say start looking around and if you can get in touch with it if it's really bothering you um then definitely get in touch with the with a structural contractor and have them come and take a look at it because um it you definitely want to get to it before it becomes an issue okay that is very very very very very very good um I just want to mind you guys because I ended on that question I'm telling you I get emails after email after email get my first time home buyer guide it is in the description of this video your mom tell them how they can reach you you can reach me on my cell phone I know shahida said it's going to be in the description uh I answered my phone 24 7. still do I always say I always answer my phone if I don't if I miss your phone call leave me a message you can shoot me a text I will always get back to you as soon as I possibly can sometimes stuff slips through but I'm always going to respond to any clients all right thank you so much Jamal this has been very very helpful I hope everybody enjoys it please put in the chat if you enjoyed this conversation with Jamal question and answer also join me next week is going to be all not next week next Thursday this Thursday this Thursday is all going to be about um your state and probate okay we have 80 what is it like almost 80 or 75 um of African-Americans don't have a will so what's happening is your grandmother passes away everybody's fighting over the house and then you know you got to pay lawyers then everybody gets about five thousand dollars and that money goes right so we have to have a plan in place to try to we bet we are behind in the wealth building process because most people build their wealth from Real Estate so if you have the the opportunity to get to be um to have property that you inherit you don't want to lose it and that's what a lot of people are doing they're losing it because nobody's paying the taxes they're losing it because they're arguing about about it they're losing those properties so make sure that you join me on Thursday we're going to talk we have an estate attorney so get your free legal questions answered and a state attorney and a probate real estate agent she's the person that comes in and tries to sell the house you know after everybody goes through probate because the person died without a will so we're gonna be talking about that on Thursday please join me anything else you want to add Jamal no that sounds awesome time stamps all of the questions that were answered thank you so much Jamal I really appreciate it I appreciate you

Channel: Shaheedah Hill

Views: 11,596

Keywords: Atlanta Home Inspectors, Black Home Inspectors, georgia home inspector, home inspection, home inspection tips, home buying process, first time home buyer tips, buying a house, home inspection negotiation, negotiating home inspection issues, negotiating repairs after home inspection, home inspection tips for buyers, home inspection questions

Id: tX5lKN1nXpQ

Length: 69min 25sec (4165 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 08 2023