Home Inspectors: Friend or Foe?

Home Inspectors

Friend or foe…?

This is going to be more of a rant than an informative piece. Be warned.

Why do Realtors sometimes hate Home Inspectors? Why are sellers and buyers afraid of home inspection day? It’s easy. A home inspection can be like a wrecking ball aimed at the dreams of home buyers and a cutpurse to the seller and realtor’s wallets, especially if the home inspector conducting it lacks the tact and people skills required to do it the “right” way.

What do I mean “right” way? It’s easy. An Inspector that spits acid as he/she goes through a house isn’t helping anyone. An Inspector that has a “know it all” personality and is never wrong can be very difficult to communicate with, and communication is the number one most important part of a home inspection. A Home Inspector can know every tiny detail about a house, how it should be constructed and be great at finding every tiny issue in a home, but if the Inspector can’t pass on that information smoothly to everyone then the inspection was pointless. What is the point of a home inspection you ask? To LEARN about the home.

Is a Home Inspectors purpose to just flag a bunch of items that are WRONG with a home? The answer is most definitely no, however many of us in the home inspection business have lost our way and have simply become DEFECT police. Calling out a defect here, and another one over there, is the easy part of a home inspection. By calling out a bunch of defects in a home we can walk away feeling like we did a great job….. right??? Wrong. Our job is so much more than that.

If all Home Inspectors learned to change their mind set about what their job is then it would become a smooth and informative process every time. It’s simple. A Home Inspectors job is to communicate AS MUCH information pertaining to the property in question AS POSSIBLE.  Not just defects. Inspectors need to communicate things like: How old the boiler is, what type of heating system is in the home, how does it work, what kind of siding is on the home, what kind of maintenance does it need, where is the main water shutoff, how do I turn the light on in the basement etc. There is soooo much more to it than just saying “this is wrong and that is wrong and those are broken”.

The home inspection process should be more like going to school for a few hours to learn as much as possible about the home you’re having inspected. Yes, buyers can use the information they learn about the home to negotiate the sale price. Yes, buyers can turn around and run away because the home is not what they were expecting. Yes, sellers may get annoyed about the things that came up at the inspection. Maybe the seller should have had their home inspected first before putting it up for sale. Isn’t that a great idea?! After the inspection there should not be any fear or aggravation because knowledge is power, and if your inspector did his/her job correctly then you should be leaving feeling confident about what your next steps will be. See, isn’t that SIMPLE.

The reason I became a home inspector is because I believe that every home transaction should be an HONEST and fully DISCLOSED transaction. We help the world in this way, by passing knowledge and integrity from out home to yours.

Thanks for listening!

Will Dinsmore signing off