I am a first time home buyer who knows very little about my new home. I need a home inspection and my relative recommended Ted who is an independent home inspector and is unaffiliated with any realtor. He provided me with very honest comments and professional information during the inspection. Although he charged slightly higher than the market average, he spent about 3 hours to inspect my place, together with more than half a day to work on the report. The report is customized with very clear pictures of my place, detailed comments about each problem, both apparent and potential, as well as general information for home maintenance. The whole inspection experience served a highly educational purpose and I learnt a lot from Ted’s demonstration, explanation and guidance. He was very organized, easy to work with and is open to any question after he has completed the report. I highly recommend Ted to all home buyers!
- Approximate cost of services:
- $672.00
- Company Response
Hi Christina,
I'm truly gratified to learn of all the positive characteristics you a have attributed to my inspection service.
Home inspections have been reduced to fast turnarounds and for around $4-$550. Does this quick service represent the height of home buyer diligence? I don't imagine a service that has been designed to rush through an inspection for the sake of clearing the way to a quick closing is in a buyer's best interest and yet agents often promote various home inspectors as being really fast and cheep. The scope and duration of the average home inspection has been determined by successful agent referrals, yes every successful agent has a corral of successful home inspectors. Generally speaking, for a real estate agent to be successful, it is not always predicated on homebuyer best practices. If a home inspector creates too much trouble by their negative findings for agents to steer the buyer around. If the deal goes south, so do future inspection referrals.
If this sounds too preposterous to be true I've been to real estate agent training courses where they explicitly described how any inspector poisoning the sale in any way will find themselves on the black list and not just with that agent but the entire brokerage.Special note: I'm always amused when clients say I was there for a full 3, 5 or 7 hours when in fact I am on site for an hour before my clients arrival. They tend to count the hours they are there. I mention this because the more time spent investigating the more likely your inspector will make discoveries of any previous repairs, owner cover-ups or deferred maintenance leading to significant future repair/replacement. Any inspector who can hand you a completed inspection report (computer generated- as the name implies it is a superficial inventory of the home's components) in the industry average of a 4 hour turnaround may well be hastily rushing through your report and not making critical connections to subtle clues or evidence.
I'm very pleased that you were not dissuaded by your real estate agent to go with your agent's favorite inspector.
Happy trails...
Ted Gilmour