Buying a Home: Get a Home Inspection
When buying a home, it is well worth it to get a home inspection. Indeed, you should make sure that your contract includes a provision for a home inspection. Even if you have to pay for it yourself. In some cases, though, in this buyer’s market, you might be able to convince the seller to spring for the home inspection. In any case, this is important, because you never know if a deal breaker may be present.
Gather Little by Little has offers some insight as to what should be looked at as part of your home inspection:
- Roofing: You want to make sure that things are in proper order. A leaky roof can lead to a host of problems related to water damage and other issues.
- Outside of the house: You want to make sure that all vents are properly covered. Additionally, a home inspection can catch problems with the driveway, with water drainage and with leaks and other problems.
- Inside the house: You want to make sure that stairs, floors and ceilings are all up to code. I once lived in a rented dwelling where the floorboards were rotting a bit. There was a “soft spot” in the hallway. Whoever finally bought that house would want that fixed.
- Structure: Structural problems are obviously Bad Things. A home inspection can catch these. If there is a structural problem, you should seriously reconsider buying that particular home.
- Systems: You want the electrical, heating/gas and plumbing systems checked. Issues with all of these systems can lead to costly repairs down the road. Same is true for air conditioning.
- Insulation: Have this checked to make sure everything is up to code.
Having a home inspection can cost between $250 and $500 on average. But the money it can save later can more than make up for it — especially if the inspector finds something wrong.
Tags: home inspection, buying a home, home mortgage loan, b=mortgage,
buyer’s market
