The Home Inspection: What It Is and Why It Matters to You

If you’re buying a home, one of the most important steps in the process is the home inspection. And yet, it’s also one of the most misunderstood, right up there with why your neighbor’s car without a muffler and the stereo blaring needs to warm up for 45 minutes at 5 a.m. every single morning, including Sunday.

Today I want to walk you through what a home inspection is, what it covers, and how to use the results wisely.

A home inspection is a visual examination of a home’s major systems and components, performed by a certified inspector. Think of the inspector as a good mechanic giving your future home a bumper-to-bumper look-over, except instead of checking your fluids and belts, they’re checking your rafters, foundations, plumbing and circuit breakers. The inspection typically takes two to four hours, and at the end you’ll receive a detailed written report including photos that describe everything the inspector observed. It’s a lot of reading, but trust me, it’s more useful than the owner’s manual for your riding mower that you’ve never once opened. It is important that you understand the findings are opinions of the inspector and their critical findings should always be followed up by with a licensed builder, plumber, or heating and cooling professional.

Here’s something important to understand: NO HOME IS PERFECT. I’ve been managing real estate offices across Clare County for years, and I can tell you I have never, not once, seen an inspection report come back completely clean. Even brand-new construction homes have findings. The goal of the inspection isn’t to find a reason to walk away from the deal. It’s to help you understand exactly what you’re buying so there are no unpleasant surprises after closing. Nobody wants to move the last box in on a Saturday and discover the furnace has been running on pure stubbornness and a prayer and the attic is full of bats and mice.

As a buyer, I strongly encourage you to attend the inspection in person if at all possible. This is your chance to learn about the home from someone whose only job is to give you an honest, objective assessment. No feelings hurt, no sales pitch, just the facts. Tag along, ask questions, and find out which items are minor maintenance issues versus which ones are more significant concerns. A good inspector will talk to you like a neighbor explaining what’s wrong with your truck, not like someone reading from a legal document.

One more thing on finding an inspector: choose your own. Don’t let your real estate agent hand you a name and call it a day. Ask your coworkers, your neighbors, the folks you trust. Find out who they used, how the experience went, and most importantly, whether they would hire that inspector again. Check online reviews too. A good inspector is worth their weight in gold, and the right one is out there. You just have to do a little asking around, which if you’ve lived in Clare County for more than a week, you already know how to do.

Once you have the report, you and your agent can decide how to proceed. You might ask the seller to make certain repairs, request a price reduction to account for the issues, ask for a credit at closing, or simply accept the home as-is if the findings are minor. In some cases, serious structural or safety issues might give you reason to reconsider the purchase altogether, and that’s okay. That’s exactly what the inspection is there for.

The cost of a home inspection is typically a few hundred dollars and often based on the home’s square footage. For a little perspective, that’s less than a weekend of poor decisions at the casino in Mount Pleasant, and the return on investment is considerably better. Think of it as due diligence on one of the biggest purchases of your life, not the homework you avoided in high school.

Don’t skip the inspection. Out here in Clare County, we’re practical people. We check the oil before a long drive, we don’t plant tomatoes before Memorial Day, and we don’t buy a house without knowing what we’re getting into.

It’s one of the best investments you can make in the home-buying process.

Daniel Dwyer-Snyder is an Associate Broker with CENTURY 21 Signature Realty in Clare. He can be reached at 989-321-9927.