Why should you get a home inspection?
by John Van Vleet, Only Choice Inspections.
If you’re at that point in your life when it’s time to become a first-time home buyer or you’re looking to trade up or down, a home inspection can help alleviate some of the mental anguish you might experience during a real estate transaction.
With the price of a house these days, the sheer volume of money involved would even make your seasoned veteran perspire. So what can you do to protect your investment? Firstly, you can make the conscious decision to employ the services of a local inspection firm like Only Choice Home Inspections, to help reduce your risk.
As the owner of Only Choice Home Inspections, I always provide my clients with full disclosure. This full disclosure requires me to inform my clients with this one simple fact – we as inspectors can only make observations from a visual standpoint and therefore we will fail in identifying every defect. Only Choice Home Inspections inspectors can see behind walls or under insulation with an infrared camera, which will help in the discovery of water leaks, mold, missing insulation and faulty wiring. We are prohibited from performing destructive testing like breaking open sheet rock wall and ceilings.
Now you might be saying, ‘What is the point of this process if these inspection firms cannot provide you with a guarantee?’ Here are the numbers that support what we as property inspectors do. A normal home inspection will cost of about $400. In almost every instance this small fee will be less than 0.1 per cent of the purchase price of the perspective property. A property inspection firm can normally reduce the risk of your financial investment by 50-75 %. If these figures were laid in front of a financial security advisor they would ensure you applied this risk reduction to every investment you made because the cost to risk reduction ratio is heavily in your favor.
As a consumer, you should also take into consideration that some property inspectors have abilities that other inspection firms and tradespeople lack. My inspection firm is a provider of testing and lab services in the areas of mold, water testing and lead. These services are available for additional fees and can provide further risk reduction. We also hold education and equipment for thermal imaging which is included with every inspection. These additional services are at the forefront in many markets around the continent. Abatement and remediation services can be costly, to say the least. Knowing that your inspector can provide you with an education on these matters can prove to be beneficial even if you decide not to move forward with purchase of these specialty inspections.
John Van Vleet
Only Choice Inspections
Phone: 760-822-0477
Email: [email protected]
Web: OnlyChoiceInspections.com