A short video interview (Andrew Lam with Roger Warner of All Points Inspection Service) explaining home inspections: why buyers should get one even if not required for a loan, what inspectors examine (from roof to foundation), the team approach (often 2–3 people) and typical duration (~1.5 hours), buyer participation (encouraged), and how to handle repair requests (health/safety prioritized; many findings are 'honey-do' items).
Chapters
Today we're talking about home inspections. Why should you get one? Who pays for it? And what do you do with everything that shows up on the report? Hey, thanks for joining us today. This is Andrew Lam, team leader of the Lam team at Re Max Gold here in Northern California. Today we're talking about home inspections, but before we get to that, we want to direct your attention to a couple of links on the blog. If you're a home buyer or looking for a just a new place to live, feel free to click the Search All Homes link. That will take you to basically a backstage pass of our mls. It'll show you every home available within our area. And if you are looking to know what your home could sell for in today's market, click the free Home Value Report link and that will let you know exactly what homes in your area are selling for as well as what yours could sell for today in today's market. Hey everyone. Today we're talking about home inspections, why you need them and kind of everything involved. Today have with us Roger Warner, owner of All Points Inspection Service. And we're going to get into some questions. So Roger, thanks for being with us. You bet. And a question we frequently get is, you know, why do I need a home inspection? It's not required to get a loan. So why should anyone get a home inspection?
Well, a home is regarded as the biggest purchase someone will ever make in their life. And when you're talking about that kind of money and normally somebody's putting their family into this home, you want to know that you have a safe, stable home that's not going to nickel and dime you to death once you do get into it. Make sure there's no high dollar surprises once you get moved in.
Yeah, and that's the big key, just making sure that you're not having any of those surprises. You don't want to buy a money pit, and it's rare these days. But you can't rely on the seller's disclosures. The sellers are required by law to tell you what they know to be a defect with the home, but you can't rely on that, especially if the seller never actually lived in the home. It was an investment property or, you know, maybe it's going through probate. The person who actually lived there as the seller isn't there anymore.
Right.
All of those reasons. And if you were ever to take the seller to court, the judge would want you to pay for your own inspection. If you saw something on the seller's inspection report, or maybe they ordered an Inspection. And what has come up was not on their inspection report. The judge is going to ask, well, why didn't you pay for your own inspection? And I've seen cases thrown out of court because they relied on the seller's inspection and didn't get their own. Right, very true. That's why. But what exactly is involved in a home inspection?
Well, for our company, we inspect everything we can physically get to, from the tip top of the roof through the attic down to the foundation. And again, we're looking for major defects, anything that might lead to major defects, and health and safety concerns along the way. We're looking at all the components of the house, and that all gets reported on. And the clients all get a report with that.
Yeah. And I've seen you guys bring more than just one person, sometimes two or three people out. Another certified inspector and a trainee, right? Yeah.
We have a team approach. We always have two. Sometimes we'll have three on an inspection. And that just not only does it kind of speed the process along for the people that are sitting there waiting for us to be done, but it also gives us an extra set or two of eyes. And that's always a good thing.
Yeah. How long is the typical inspection for.
Us with the team approach? It's about an hour and a half or so.
Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. I've seen some kind of one man shows take about three hours sometimes on a large home, it's a long time. Yes. Especially if the buyer wants to be there and kind of get a walkthrough. Then they're just standing around for a while. Is it okay for the buyer, the person who paid for the inspection, to come along and maybe on the tail end just so they can kind of see what you see?
Yeah, absolutely. We encourage it. We want the buyer to be there. We want to show them the property that they're interested in, and we want them to see it through our eyes with the motion not involved, but just with our specialized. I shouldn't say specialized, maybe trained eye. And if they see the home through our eyes, oftentimes that really gives them peace of mind.
Okay. And another question we get quite a bit is, okay, there's all of these items on the home inspection report because you guys do look at everything and document it. Can I have a seller pay for all of that?
Yeah, we get that question a lot, too. And typically I say, look, health and safety items is a reasonable thing to request for a repair or consideration for repair. But the rest of it is usually kind of a honey do list. You know, the Saturday projects, once you get moved in, you kind of know what. What you're looking at. Yeah, it's rare that we have major fines, you know, major structural problems, but they're out there. And that's why you have a home inspection.
Yeah, exactly. And I always recommend that if you're getting a home inspection, you get a pest inspection as well. That checks out different things. So you guys can check out kind of the major systems of the home. Heating and air, electrical, plumbing, all of that. The roof, attic. But the pest inspection specifically looks for structural pests, Structural issues with the home, like water damage, termites, you know, those types of big things.
Absolutely.
But definitely we can request repairs for all of the major things found on any report. So.
Yeah.
Roger, thank you very much for being here.
My pleasure.
Same here. So thanks again for joining us on our video blog today. If you have any questions or concerns about home inspections or anything regarding real estate, definitely feel free to reach out to us, give us a call, shoot us a line, and we'll be in touch.
