We really want to find a way to get the point across that we are going to speak with our clients, not at them and not around them. Our job is not to intimidate you, or scare you… Or tell you what house to buy, or what house not to buy. The reality is you can go buy whatever house you like, you can forgo the inspection process, or you can get a super-thorough inspection, and ignore everything in it. There are no rules that states that you need to fix your house up, or that a seller needs to fix it before you buy it. The entire purpose of a home inspection is for you to have a unbiased, third-party set of eyes look at the house to help you make sure you aren’t inheriting any problems, unknowingly. The keyword is unknowingly. You can obviously go out and buy whatever house you like; in whatever condition you like.
Quick story: we had a beer with a real estate agent several years back and the agent came very prepared, with a notepad and a bunch of great questions written down and the first thing he said was, “Well, if I was going to buy another house, I would just want to bring out an electrician, a plumber, structural, environmental, etc. probably like 11 to 13 different professionals...” And we said right, “Except that will cost you about $3500. So instead, you hire a home inspector, for $300-$500, and they will tell you that you need further investigation from two of those professionals, but you don’t need the other nine.”
To take this thought one step further, it’s important to also understand that when you bring those trades people and other professionals in after the home inspection, they of course, will go deeper than the home inspector did. It’s common knowledge that if you brought in an environmental expert in or a structural engineer in, that their analysis will go deeper and be more thorough than that of the home inspector, but that is also true for electricians, plumbers, and roofers. Those trades people are also the ones who will tell you what requirements will be needed when you make repairs, or renovations: in order to be brought up to the most current building code requirements. A home inspector should always defer current requirements to the people that do those things for a living.
The only time this is not the case is when you hire the first company on the Google ad words, who shows up in the big truck, with the big vehicle wrap, and scares you into thinking that you need a whole new HVAC system, or you need a whole new electrical system, when in reality, you may only need a small couple hundred dollar repair.