Home inspections for first-time home buyers

hi I'm Reuben Saltzman with structure tech home inspections and today's topic is home inspections for first-time homebuyers so my goal today is to give some information to first-time homebuyers all about what a home inspection consists of a home inspection is an objective visual examination of the physical structure and systems of the house from the roof to the foundation so what exactly does that mean objective means that the home inspector is unbiased they work only for their client they don't pay any money to a real estate agent for referrals they don't get kickbacks from a real estate agent for making their reports soft by kind of making a small deal out of potentially big hazards and whether a home sells or not the home inspector still gets paid by visual well that is the minimum standard it's it's kind of an old standard for inspections but it's been around for a long time and what it truly means is your home inspector does not require to use any special tools they don't need to use electrical testers and Kuril monoxide devices we're not required to use infrared cameras we don't need to use anything like that it's just purely visual now I don't know a single home inspector who still does a purely visual inspection we all have tools home inspectors love talking tools so that's kind of an old standard but it is the minimum the home inspection is also an education if you can be there during the inspection as a first-time home buyer this is a fantastic learning opportunity you get to learn all about the home the way it works when you buy a when you buy a vehicle you get this owner's manual I mean it's super thick you might washing machine and you get a huge owner's manual telling you how to operate it and all this stuff you get nothing like that for a home in general so if you can be there during the home inspection you get to learn a lot of information about the house I highly recommend attending your home inspection if you have the time the next stop because what gets reported on during a home inspection if there's four basic things that home inspectors report on it's gonna be installation issues things that just were not put in properly maintenance items things that need to be serviced things are at the end of their life the things that might leak those I would all consider maintenance items safety issues a lot of the time it's gonna be safety upgrades sometimes it's things just weren't done properly and it turns into a safety issue but home inspectors are big on safety and also performance now one thing that I didn't put on this list is code errors now your home inspector is not there to do a code compliance inspection so that's it's an important distinction the next part of this is timing when should the home inspection be done I'm a Minnesota home inspector here in Minnesota there are no rules about what home inspection needs to happen it's whatever your real estate agent puts in the purchase agreement and for most transactions that I'm involved in people are given 10 days to get the home inspection done you write it up in your purchase agreement you say that you are buying a home it's going to be contingent upon the inspection and you're going to get the inspection and any negotiations everything done within 10 days but it varies it's whatever is in your contract that clock starts ticking as soon as you have that signed purchase agreement so once you get that signed as a home buyer it's a good idea to line up home inspection right away so the goal is to get the home inspection done quickly and then after you get the home inspection what happens next what do you do with that information well it all comes down to your agent your agent is the one who's going to help you get through all this and there's four basic things that can be done after the inspection you can cancel the purchase that's always the least fortunate option because you're out of a bunch of money you pay for the home inspection and you've invested a lot of your time they know a home but it is an option people do have the right to cancel cancel purchase based on really anything that was found during the inspection you don't even need to tell the seller wire cancelling and I don't think much of that because I've been involved in transactions or buyers wanted to cancel the purchase before I even did the home inspection and they were just using the inspection as a get out of contract free card so you could cancel the purchase another option is to ask the seller to fix stuff now that one gets messed up a lot because a lot of the time people aren't specific and they don't ask for what they want and a lot of the time you're asking a seller to repair things that they have been stalled improperly the first time but it is an option another one is to negotiate price and that one's kind of tricky but there's two common ways that that you know tegoshi a price on a purchase one of them is to ask the seller to reduce the price of the home and the other is to ask a solder to pay closing costs it's kind of way of transferring some costs over to a seller based on the inspection and then option number four which is what ought to be done with maybe 95 to 98 percent of the stuff that comes up in a home inspection is to do nothing understand that it's a use house you're buying you don't need to negotiate everything affection and you just understand that you can have some work to do once you've taken possession of the home you are buying a used house there is no expectation for this home to be perfect it's okay to get a home inspection report with a lot of recommendations from the home inspector that's what the home inspectors are getting paid to do it doesn't mean it's a bad house and be prepared for that I hire a good home inspector and they're surely gonna have a huge list of stuff that they recommend on every used home it's okay but as far as what you should do with the findings from the home inspection or whether you should ask the seller to fix stuff take money off the price of the house do nothing it's a really good idea to talk to your real estate agent about this this is what you were paying them for this is how they're earning their commission don't ask your home inspector what you should do with the findings because we're not gonna answer that question that falls totally outside the realm of what we do that that is completely real estate negotiations so ask ask your agent about all of that so that's a low down on a home inspection now there's other things other types of services that you may want to have done at the same time as the home inspection and you may be able to get them done by your home inspector not all home inspection companies offer these types of things but it's a good idea to talk your inspector about it number one is gonna be radon radon testing is huge in Minnesota if you sign a purchase agreement on a home you're gonna have to read over this document it's like a two-page document that's put out by the Minnesota Department of Health explaining the hazards with radon you should also talk to your home inspector about having a sewer inspection done now I used to tell people it's a good idea to have a sewer inspection if you're buying an old home and you got old drain lines from the house to the street but I've changed my tune over the years I no longer tell people that I tell people now it's a good idea to have a sewer inspection if you're buying a home you know I don't make any mention about the age of it and that's because we partnered up with a sewer guy who has found so many problems on homes to the point where if I were buying really any age of home I wouldn't consider buying it without a sewer inspection first a lot of home inspectors are at the point where they now offer that along with their home inspections I don't know any home inspectors here in Minnesota who are actually doing the sewer inspections a lot of them will just coordinate and get you a better price if if you're working with their regular Superguy so it's something to think about another one his chimney inspections if you're buying a home with a wood-burning fireplace with a masonry chimney and you're planning to use it it's a good idea to have a chimney inspection but the NFPA the National Fire Protection Agency recommends having a level two shooting the inspection done anytime you're buying a home level two it means you've got a specialist permit out there with a camera on the end of them of on the end of a pole they've got a fiber-optic camera or a wireless camera and they're going to scan the entire inside of that chimney flue to make sure that everything is safe and all the joints look good and that it's safe for a fire so that's another thing to consider it another thing to think about is a stucco inspection if you're buying a newer stucco home and when I say new where I'm thinking maybe about 1990 and anything newer than that find a new or stucco home it's a good idea to have a stucco inspection done now this is intrusive this involves putting holes in the stucco and having a moisture probes stuck into there to figure out the condition of the sheet theater or not but if you have water intrusion on those it can be extremely expensive so by then or stucco home it's a good idea to have specialized stucco inspection and if you have any special concerns about environmental hazards such as asbestos led formaldehyde mold things like that talk to your home inspector about them a lot of home inspectors are going to point that stuff out when they see it but all of these different environmental hazards are specifically excluded from home inspection standards of practice home inspection SOPs are there to protect the home inspector know they're there written sewers - don't get me wrong it tries to make tries to make the home inspection profession a little bit more a uniform it lays out the standards of what home home inspectors do but really it does provide a lot of protection to the home inspector so all of these environmental things are excluded from our standard of practice so if you have concerns about those talk to your home inspector about them then they will either talk you out of doing testing because they don't feel it's a concern or they might offer that type of testing for an additional fee or they might refer you to somebody who could do that testing for you lastly how do you find a good home inspector well there's a few different ways number one if you trust your real estate agent and I sure hope you do ask your real estate agent who does a great job who's the best home inspector you know who does a fantastic inspection a lot of agents will give you three names and basically that's because they don't want to get sued someone has told them if you just give out one name it doesn't look good so you should always give out three so I know a lot of real estate agents will give you three names of home inspectors if you'd like to research home inspectors yourself my advice would be to go online and look for reviews see who gets highly rated look for look for somebody with a lot of five-star reviews something I enjoy doing too is I'd like to look at the one-star reviews I always go down what's the worst reviews people god why did they get bad reviews but most importantly what did the owner have to say about these one-star reviews well as the owner just like firing back and yeah well you're a gherkin and I hate your ugly face and things like that I wouldn't want to do business with those people but if it sounds like a very reason response it tells me a lot about the owner so that that's something I like doing but finally go on the home inspectors of website once you think you know who your own inspectors going to be go on their website and take a look at a sample home inspection report that's probably the most important part of deciding on home factor is to look at their sample reports read it does it make sense do you know what they're talking about is a written in plain English is there a lot of photos and illustrations to help make clear what they're talking about or is it chock full of recommendations for further inspections now if you read a home inspection report they've got a dozen recommendations for further evaluation by a licensed fill in the blank then I guess my question would be what are you paying the home inspector for isn't that what they're supposed to be doing evaluate the stuff recommendations for further inspections should be done sparingly so that's my advice on how to find a good home inspector and I think that wraps it up that was the last topic I had to cover here for this little miniature home inspections crash course for new homebuyers thank you so much for watching

Channel: Structure Tech Home Inspections

Views: 20,548

Rating: 4.9444447 out of 5

Keywords: first-time home buyers, home inspections, class

Id: j-SJ9G1K8bo

Length: 12min 59sec (779 seconds)

Published: Mon May 06 2019