Once you’ve found a home that you love, it can be tempting to do whatever it takes to make sure your deal is accepted. For some homeowners, that means questioning what inspections are needed when buying a house.
Even though you might be advised to waive home inspection in favor of a “clean offer,” you should always decide to have a new home inspected. There are a lot of things that you might discover during the inspection that could completely change your decision.
Here are nine reasons that you shouldn’t waive a home inspection.
1. They’re Non-Invasive
If you’re not familiar with what a home inspection is, you might be envisioning someone coming in and tearing up the walls in the living room that you loved so much, or that brand new quartz countertop covered in dust.
Don’t worry — home inspections in this process are non-invasive.
Home inspectors are trained to catch anything that looks off without having to do an invasive investigation.
2. You Can Catch Any Safety Issues
The last thing you want to discover after you’ve purchased a new home is a safety issue with the house. You can avoid that realization with a home inspection.
Some safety issues would devalue the house, which could potentially hurt you if you decide to sell the house down the line. Others could be hazardous to your health while you live in the house.
You might not notice that there’s mold in the walls on your walkthrough of the house, but an inspector definitely will.
3. Avoid Costly Repairs
Similarly, if there’s anything that needs to be repaired in the house, an inspection will catch it before you sign on the dotted line.
It might be something small, like old weather stripping on the doors, or it could be something more important, like a deck that needs to be replaced. The seller should be the one on the hook for those large repairs, since the house is still their responsibility.
You might agree to smaller repairs as part of your agreement, but you want to avoid being forced to pay for the more expensive ones.
4. Plan For Future Expenses
It’s also possible that an inspection will turn up things that don’t need to be replaced immediately but might become an issue a few years down the road. In that case, you’ll be able to plan for that expense when it comes.
If you discover during the inspection that the air conditioning system is a few years away from a replacement, or that the twenty-year roof is fifteen years old, you can start saving for those expenses now. Then it won’t be too much of a strain on your finances when those repairs finally have to be made.
5. Find Problems That Aren’t Immediately Visible
Inspections aren’t just for things that you can see, like an old roof or a broken pool motor. They can also catch things that you wouldn’t necessarily see at first glance — or at all.
For example, if there’s lead paint anywhere in your potential new home, an inspection will catch that. Professional inspectors would be able to alert you to things like lead-based paint or even high levels of carbon dioxide in the air.
These are the kinds of serious problems that you wouldn’t necessarily catch on your own, but that would become a hazard and expense once you had the keys in your hand.
6. Make Sure Everything Is Up To Code
It’s not uncommon for homeowners to want to customize the place where they live. However, they might not exactly have neighborhood codes in mind when they’re working on home improvement.
The last thing that you want to do is buy a house where work was done without a permit. First of all, it might pose another safety issue. Since it wasn’t completed with the code in mind, there’s no guarantee that it meets safety standards.
There’s also a good chance that this could devalue the house that you’re about to buy. And once you sign on the dotted line, you would be liable for any of the illegal work that was done.
Avoid this situation by having an inspection done before you agree on a deal.
7. You Can Use It In Negotiations
Once an inspection has been completed, you can use the results in negotiations with the seller.
There’s no guarantee that the seller will automatically agree to all of the inspector’s recommendations for repairs, but you can ask for them to cover most of the more expensive repairs. As part of the deal, you may have to agree to pay for some of the smaller things that can be easily tackled.
If the seller refuses to budge, you can use the inspection as leverage to negotiate on the price. And, speaking of price…
8. It’s Inexpensive
Home inspections don’t cost a lot of money. At most, it will cost you a few hundred dollars for a thorough home inspection.
When you think about the thousands of dollars this inspection could save you in the long run, this is really a no-brainer. Would you rather pay $300 upfront to find any underlying issues with the house, or skip the $300 inspection and then have to pay for thousands of dollars in repairs within the first few years of owning your new home?
9. Gives You A Way To Back Out
What happens if the inspection turns up a lot of issues and the seller doesn’t seem to care? In that case, the inspection gives you an easy way to back out of the deal.
Let’s say that you submitted an offer that was only valid as long as the inspection came back satisfactory. If the house failed inspection and the seller can’t pay to fix the issues, you have the ability to walk away without losing your deposit.
Don’t resign yourself to buying a property that’s just going to drain your finances.
Learn To Never Waive Home Inspections
Hopefully, with this guide, you’ll know all the reasons why you should never choose to waive home inspection. If you’re close to making an offer on a house, keep this guide in mind when you make your offer.
Ready to make an offer now? Schedule an inspection with our certified home inspector!