Misleading Information
Dear Kara Wahlgren, Based upon the information you have provided, it’s clear you have never purchased or owned a home. Your opinions are misinformed and grossly misleading. You mentioned how a seller’s inspection can reassure buyers. Areyou kidding? There is not a single buyer out there who trusts the real estate process, and they certainly don’t trust a home inspection that was prepared for them by the seller. Obviously, the seller is the one who makes thousands of dollars in the sale.
So let us assume you are going to buy a $200,000 home and the seller gives you a 3-5 page report, which is mostly white space and a few sentences. That’s really going to encourage you to buy, right? Many states are developing licensing standards, yet the bare bone truth is home inspectors are in dual agencies. This is because most referrals come from agents, while the money comes from the buyer. Somewhere in this misguided article you actually state, “providing a pre-inspection assures buyers that no major surprises are in store…” Anyone who has taken 30 minutes of their time to study the professional/ state standards for home inspectors learns the inspection is visual in nature. Every inspector’s contract includes the phrase or representation that the inspector is “not making assurances or representations.” The inspection is a simple analysis of what’s available to see. I once defended a well-known inspector who was sued for missing termites during his inspection. It didn't come out until the trial that the termite-infested attached garage was the seller’s “man cave.” The seller had stacked up boxes of car parts next to 5 or 6 foot tall rolling tool cabinets. Once those cabinets and car parts were removed, an inspector was able to tell that the area was termite infested. The damage was not visible until that point.
I know you think you are informing the public in this article, yet it is not expected for an inspector to find termites in an area covered with 5,000 pounds of car parts and tools.
Home inspectors do not find everything, but the educated and experienced ones find most things. There is no time or money saving reason to hire an inspector before you sell. All inspections are visual. Licensed inspectors in states like Illinois cannot identify mold, lead paint or other serious deficiencies that are environmental problems. Likewise, you won’t know where you stand with your sale by hiring an inspector before you sell. In North America, most inspections are referred by real estate agents. Many inspectors spend a lot of their waking hours trying to decide whether they should disclose in a way that advocates for the buyer or omit information based on their real estate agent’s referral.
If you want to inspect before the sale, call an independent tough guy or woman and find out what’s wrong. Help him or her move the furniture. Similarly, your misinformed opinion that a pre-sale inspection will “prevent repeat repairs” is naive and tries to present the inspector as some sort of superman in his or her ability to locate deficiencies in covered areas. Simply stated, the universe is subject to entropy. Everything is failing and will continue to fail at a faster rate. A genius inspector is no substitute for a qualified plumber who understands this law of nature. Your stuff is going to continue to fall apart, and there is no inspector who can “pin-point a problem and recommend a repair.” That should be done by the conscientious homeowner willing to spend up to ½ percent of the house’s value for maintenance and repair.
I strongly recommend that you do more research, and write an article about the benefits of maintaining your home rather than expecting an inspector who drives his opinions from visual standards to define problems he can’t see.