Arizona Home Inspection

A good home inspection is a thorough review process that checks for many potential problems with the home and provides you with a comprehensive report. It is very important to purchase the report! As the home buyer, it is your responsibility to locate and purchase a home inspection service, arranging the time and details for the inspection through the inspection company.

The larger the defect found during the inspection process, the more it could cost to repair. Defects found before purchasing the home can give you good reason to reduce your asking price or ask the seller to perform the repairs as part of the purchase price. Otherwise, if you purchase the home and find out about the problems long after the sale has completed, the repairs are yours to make.

Always hire your own home inspector, and be careful when going with an inspector recommended by your realtor. Your realtor may recommend three inspection companies for you to consider. Understand that the realtor may or may not be looking out for your best interest, they are after all making a commission from your sale. Finding your own inspector through an internet search and/or referral from a neutral third party will avoid any conflicts of interest and give you extra peace of mind.

The most expensive repairs are when the structure of the home is damaged. This includes uneven floors or walls, and can be evident inside or outside the home. When these types of structural problems have become serious enough, the entire home may become unstable and will need to be rebuilt.

After structural problems, the other serious problems include plumbing (the house may need to be torn on to address leaks underneath the foundation), or electrical issues which are often very difficult and costly to troubleshoot and repair.

It may be easy to think that, when a serious problem is found with a home you are looking to purchase, the seller is trying to push out a lemon. In reality, most sellers simply don't know about these problems before they decide to take the home to market. Most sellers do not front the cost of hiring a home inspection company prior to the sale. Sometimes finding a problem with a home will be beneficial both to yourself and to the selling party.

It may also be surprising for you to learn that a home inspection company should be hired when purchasing a newly built home. Most people associate home inspections with pre-owned homes only, ignoring problems that a builder may have overlooked. Some warning signs of a newly built home: Cracking concrete slabs, moldy lumber, framing that was done incorrectly.

The new home construction process can be rushed when dealing with tight deadlines and construction crews that are overworked. If you do not get a third party inspection before closing on the new home, you may be stuck with detect that are difficult to fix. These same defects would have been much easier to notice and correct during the construction process.