I would not want a superficial inspection. Our last one took several hours and we received a 72 page report. It had photos and descriptions of all the systems, and things that were rated “green” (good), yellow and red. It was a comprehensive report on the entire house, from top to bottom.
We could use the report to negotiate with the seller, or if the market is hot enough that they don’t need to negotiate, at least we’d know what we were in for if we went ahead. We did go ahead and make sure we were comfortable budgeting for anticipated repairs and that the selling price reflected that.
If your home inspection is “superficial”, find a different home inspector. A home inspection report should be extremely detailed. If the home isn’t new, you should expect to see several things being flagged of varying severity, ranging from maintenance to recommendation to repair. Even if the repairs are not major, you can often negotiate with seller to either fix or give a discount on selling price.
However, most important is to protect you from the major issues. Some types of issues can cost tens of thousands to repair. I certainly wouldn’t assume that the seller left everything in ideal condition throughout the lifetime of home.
The only situations I can think of where an inspection would not be desirable are (1) if you or someone you know has comparable skill to an inspector and are willing to perform the inspection, which should include things like viewing roof or (2) if the seller offers benefits for skipping inspection that are valued more than the increased risk.
We did not get a home inspection when helping my daughter and SIL look for a home to buy for several reasons: my husband is an experienced, licensed contractor and was able to identify numerous issues that helped in the negotiation process. He can either do the work himself or farm it out to one of many subcontractors that he uses on a regular basis. The house is located in a highly competitive area. Homes often sell before even hitting the market. They lucked out in finding this one and going in with no inspection put them at the front of the line. Finally, the home is old and in bad shape. They knew going in that it would be completely gutted and remodeled (which is happening to many houses in their neighborhood).
They bought it in 2020 in the mid $3’s and remodeled it during the shutdown. They will sell it this summer after they finish building their new home (via my DH), and likely get in the mid $8’s to low $9’s. The house across the street was demolished and rebuilt and recently sold for $1.7
Not a bad gamble on no inspection. In most other cases however, I would get an inspection.
I keep telling my husband that he should become a home inspector once he fully retires from being a builder. He is one of the most meticulous people I know and is a building code savant.
Get an inspection done. We know a family who bought a home about 15 years old…and because if the crazy market thought a no contingency offer would get them the house. And it did. They also thought not much could be wrong with a house only 15 years old. They have already replaced the HVAC system, and the stove and dishwasher. They had to do some plumbing work because they found that the only reason there were no leaks from one bathroom is that it was likely it wasn’t used. Several wall outlets also needed to be replaced, as they didn’t work.
This is all on top of an above asking price offer.
We bought our first house in August. We had very specific needs and had been looking for two years. This was the first house we found that met our needs and was in our price range. We ended up not doing the inspection and had to go over asking. But we got it.
We did get the inspection done a couple days after closing just so we’d know if there were any big issues. Thankfully, there weren’t. We also bought a 13 month home warranty.
Just a suggestion if you do want to do the inspection and you are in a competitive area. Our realtor said she sometimes submits offers with the inspection contingency, but adds that the buyers won’t ask for anything if the repairs needed are less than $5k. That way the seller can be confident they won’t get a list of a bunch of small repairs.
We are very savvy house hunters. We know way more than an average house owner about what could go wrong with a house. We watched our House1 being built step by step, so no inspection.
However, when we were buying House2, a pre-owned house, we hired an inspector. Why? She owns all of the equipment like gas leak meter, moisture sensor, etc. which would cost us more to buy than her inspection fee. And she was super thorough. BTW, last time I checked, in our state, a buyer wound be totally out of luck if the defect could have been uncovered by a reasonable skilled person, even if it was concealed by the seller.
I know!!! But where they are, 80% of the market for first timers have at least one exterior of stucco. Not just problematic, but hideous They have one exterior wall left to be re-resided and thankfully it is less square footage. What a mess.
That sucks! Yeah, one of the main problems is you can’t just repair a small area, you have to do the whole side. And water gets in easily and damages it.
You should always get an inspection if you are able to in the market you’re purchasing in.
However, we’ve bought 6 houses and sold 5. If I’m selling a house and looking at multiple offers, I’m always picking the one that waives the inspection if the price is similar enough. We’ve personally waived an inspection once and had buyers waive it twice. All of the sales turned out fine and there wasn’t anything seriously wrong with the houses. But inspections are a pain and occasionally you get a crazy buyer who wants every single thing on the 50 page inspection report fixed and it is not worth my time as a seller in a hot market.
That said, if there are not multiple offers then definitely get an inspection!
Wow - where I live properties are sitting. It’s a buyer’s market.
The thing with losing due to inspection - you’ll never know if you dodged a bullet and personally, that’s not a chance I’d be willing to take. I’m risk averse - but I’d want to know it’s good vs. potentially buying a money pit. Just my risk averse nature.
Good luck - I’m sure you’ll find something. Not sure where you are but I wish our market was that hot. I think ours is cold…warm at best.
WIth so much craziness and uncertainty out there, I suspect other markets, if not now, will cool down too.
Ours is so crazy hot, they go fast and always over asking. Realtors calling, texting, mailing, ds26 has a realtor friend who has so many buyers and needs sellers.
Northeast NJ, a little west of manhattan. I saw an article recently that my town is one of the hottest in the county for some reason. Unfortunately most people I know don’t want to leave the area, so doesn’t mean much. My friend who’s house is behind us just had an assessment by a realtor (another friend’s ex, big jerk but good in real estate), $1,000,000+, way more than what they paid less than 10 years ago (but they did put a lot of work in, outside is still pretty ugly stucco). They’re just not ready to make a move, they both grew up here as well.
… Hubby a contractor… Lol. For the rest of us we need an inspection.
They have one exterior wall left to be re-resided and thankfully it is less square footage. What a mess.