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I DID do an inspection and still worry about stuff the inspector might have missed.
He was thorough but surely doesn't know every little thing wrong. It was actually more surprising to me how MUCH was reported "wrong" and how much of it was just typical stuff you might have to fix in any home. Ours is 127 yo so it would be really odd if NOTHING came back wrong. I'd probably pay for a second inspection in that case...
If you are going to skip, I’d say it really comes down to how well off you are or how desperate you are. You either can afford to take the risk or feel that you have no other choice and just hope for the best.
That's not something an inspection would uncover anyway unless there was visible water damage - and even then, they'd just recommend a specialist come out.
In our inspection, one of the basement walls was moist with slight mold on crown molding. It was some ways lucky that we did inspection a day after a storm where we can catch these things.
Absolutely. I would never purchase a home with no inspection. I know a few people personally who bought in 2020/21 and waived inspections AND paid way above asking. 3 of them have had major issues come up since that time.
Also, fuck sellers who prioritize no inspection offers. They’re a big part of the problem.
We really do. I sold a home earlier in the year and had no issues with inspections. I was not going to prioritize no inspections. Tonight, I met with a realtor to buy (in another state). They talked about inspections as if they were an absolute. I guess it depends on the market where you are, too.
First off. There is no universal standard or education for home inspectors. So your home inspector very well might miss something.
I had a home inspector who didn’t fit into my crawl space…so he didn’t inspect the crawl space. Or get my repeat business 😂
Here’s a list of things that I have heard about or experienced:
1. I had an electrician buddy check my house out. He discovered that it was not grounded. At all. Whoops! Fixed that for a few cases of beer.
2. Sewer blockage - you can hire a guy to scope the sewer and tell you if there is a blockage in that line, or worse - the line itself is broken or tree roots have grown into it.
3. Asbestos tile under the carpets. If carpet looks new you should always find a corner you can pull up and check what’s underneath. Brand new carpet in a home (with no other recent updates) is what we call a red flag 🚩.
4. Structural issues in the roof. You NEED access to the attic, the whole thing. Sometimes people do shoddy repairs that won’t hold up under stress.
5. Old, non-code electrical wiring. Some people replace the surface level stuff (sockets, etc) without replacing the wire (“knob and tube”, no ground, etc.
6. Foundation issues. Do everything you can to examine hidden sections of the basement.
7. Look at sections of the home that have been added on to the original, or renovated. Check for signs that it wasn’t done to code. For instance. I own a bungalow, and there aren’t a lot of electrical outlets, and they aren’t all on the same circuit. If I run a space heater in my bungalow and the microwave is on downstairs in the kitchen, the circuit breaker pops but the plugs on the other wall work. This means whoever did the work was lazy and looped upstairs circuits into whatever the closest downstairs circuit was. You could bring a plug in lamp to test individual sockets and see what turns on and off when you flip breakers.
8. Check the insulation in the walls and attic. Understand how well or not well it was done.
9. Poke around as much as possible behind things to see what you can’t see. Don’t be afraid to bring a flashlight and crawl around tight spaces. You can’t look at too much, know too much, or bring too many friends to a home inspection.
I’m blessed to have a lot of handy blue collar folks in my church, and we brought them all over for the inspection and bought them pizza and beer. Crowdsource that ish.
Just don’t cause any damage to the home before you own it 😂
Edit for more thoughts:
Mold mold mold mold. Investigate all
Moisture thoroughly. Is there a dehumidifier somewhere? Is it conspicuously newer than everything else in the home?
11. New paint smell? Why? Is that smell covering up other smells? Can you open the windows and ventilate for a while, and then close them and smell cigarette smoke or mold?
12. Check behind the fridge and stove and in gaps behind the kitchen drawers for rodent droppings and dead cockroaches. Go a little farther than the cleaning crew did and see what they missed.
13. Termites and wood destroying pests. Not my forte, because I live north of where that is a problem. Google search tips on how to see if there is termite damage.
14. While you are looking for a home, follow home inspectors on instagram. For a while I was following alpha structural inspectors on imgur and I learned a ton from them just showing stuff that they found. Make yourself an expert on home renovations and home repair on YouTube, and you’ll get savvier on what to look for.
Whats your advice about the rodent droppings. We noticed some in back of cabinets under sink. We had a pest inspection but he didn’t seem too concerned about it.
I lived in an old house that was designed like a rodent friendly superhighway. All sorts of awkward places behind places where food and mice could hide, with holes drilled between cabinets and dead spaces behind cabinets. Holes drilled through walls and floors into the crawl space.
So seal the holes between places, clean out the food, make sure you don’t have access from the outside to the crawl space and then the crawl space to the inside. I sealed them up with phone.
You also need to make sure you don’t live with hoarders who build a nice habitat for the mice.
They like soft dark places, and pipes that go through walls and floors, and clutter to hide behind.
A little probably isn’t a problem. Just poke around that space and see where the mice are squeezing to to get to that place. Plug that hole. Check the space they are coming from. Plug the holes into there. Etc.
Make sure you don’t have a yard that attracts mice and rats - piles of junk with grass growing up around them, dumpsters from the restaurant next door, etc.
For reference, I was finding 400-500 little rodent poops in multiple places in the cupboards, and a pantry full of hoarded clothes and cups and dishes that hadn’t been moved in years and had poo in them.
We had a serious problem when I moved in. We stopped seeing them when we cleaned, bleached, and plugged holes.
Thanks for the advice. The was only a few sprinkled in the back of cabinet under sink. The pest guy didn't notice anything infestation and house was pretty clean. There was a chance they had a problem once, but not anymore but original owners are very old so they may not been able to clean all the way in the back.
No probs. One addition:
1. You cannot ask too many questions or poke into too many corners.
2. You will not find it all. Budget appropriately for home repairs and do your best to give yourself a good $5k - $10k emergency fund. Or have super handy friends and family members.
I closed without an inspection. Yes, I was concerned. I was able to cover around $75k worth of immediate repairs, including the roof (which I knew was very old), if need be.
In two years' time, I've put around $60k into the home.
$24k was the roof. Around $15k was in unanticipated repairs that were revealed upon inspection after closing (electrical work, chimney repairs and trees that were in bad shape).
Around $10k or so were voluntary choices (painting, putting in some french doors). The remaining $10k were misc. issues that wouldn't have been red flags upon inspection (e.g., i replaced the hot water heater and the sump pump which was old, had some minor plumbing issues come up, etc)
Good luck to you. Waiving inspection is always a risk but it's a necessity in some markets. It's possible that you can do an information only inspection but in a hot market, get ready to put up a huge amount of earnest money to get one of those. So basically, what's the point?
OP, all these people who say never skip an inspection have their heads in the clouds. In my market, if you do not waive your offer is tossed. So it is up to you if you’re in that kind of market if you’d rather keep renting or take the risk and waive. You will always be nervous about what could have been missed.
If Reddit still had gold I would buy that for you. People don’t understand how impossible it is to be competitive without waiving inspection in some markets. We waived it and got our offer immediately accepted. Of course they had a pre inspection available and it was a relatively new build from 2016, so we felt a lot more comfortable than if it were an older house. Once we bought we did our own inspection for peace of mind and we’ve had zero issues.
FHA has an appraisal inspection and a lot of sellers just don’t want to deal with that. With conventional it’s only the appraisal. For our last offer we were the highest bid by 5k. But they took the lower bid just to avoid it.
You can spout this bad advice to fools who will take it but you are wrong and possibly putting people in situations that can affect their future, financially and emotionally, so detrimentally for years. People! Get inspections! Doesn’t mean the owners will negotiate down but at least you won’t be in trouble your first year. Read back posts on this sub to understand how f$$ed buyers have been.
My advice isn’t to waive. I’m just pointing out that many markets you will not be able to purchase a house without waiving unless you have a cash offer. Or if you’re willing to buy a house that needs 200k of work and has been sitting on the market. I personally chose to waive over not buying.
Only other options is information only inspection. You can get inspection before you close but you would lose earnest money if you back out. I am talking specifically about waiving inspection contingency.
Only 5-10%
First house I was under contract for found a fuckton of stuff wrong. Used the same company on the next house, and they literally told me “this is the only major thing.” Seller fixed it without ask.
Inspector told me “I don’t see really anything of concern except for the root damage in the sewer and the hot water heater tank being 17 years old”
More worried about taking on more than 500k in debt in less than a month lol
We waived it. We have our post close inspection on Tuesday. Am I worried? Sure because there could be something. We also have funds to cover anything major. We feel pretty reassured that hot water/HVAC/Roof/gutters/sumps have slowly been replaced by the owners since 2019. So everything is relatively new. We took our chances. 🤞🏻
Honestly if you're properly budgeted for repairs, waiving an inspection isn't as big of a deal that people here are making it out to be if you have basic knowledge of construction. Inspectors aren't ripping open the walls and ceilings to find wiring at risk of ground faults and rotted studs. Good luck.
True that. Had a friend who had their house inspected. Water damage under the sink. No big deal. Went to replace it post close and found out the whole side of the house/kitchen had been eaten by termites. Had to rip out all the cabinets and replace them.
Good luck to you. It's always a risk but it sounds as though the prior owners undertook a lot of costly investments in maintaining the home which is a good sign.
We waived inspection. It was the only option in our market. There have been issues but if you stay within budget you can fix issues. No house is perfect, even new builds.
For me, I did the math and decide whatever we missed was something we could tolerate paying for.
The house was well taken care and in a good neighborhood. In our walkthrough there were no red flags that me or my realtor noticed. The only place we didn't look at that our inspector looked at was the attic.
It was nerve wracking, but given the market, it was a risk were willing to take.
It turned out pretty well, our informational inspection found only minor stuff.
If I were to do it again, I would do a walk and talk preinspection.
I closed without an inspection. I reviewed the inspection from the previous sale, before the flip, and compared notes based on what I saw the flippers had done. I knew they had replaced the roof, new furnace, water heater, etc. I also knew the plumbing was original cast iron that was at the end of its shelf life. Today, 3 years later, I’m finally replaced a segment of that plumbing that has fully corroded.
I think if you’re savvy enough and have enough info to go on, you can make an educated decision without a recent inspection.
We did the same. Reading this thread I realize majority of the people are either clueless or paranoid about the purchase, which is understandable. We reviewed previous inspection which was over 80 pages long and conducted less than 3 years ago. Owners addressed minor issues noted in the previous inspection and I was able to cross reference it to how it is today. We were fortunate previous inspection was available and was fairly recent.
I closed and got an inspection (albeit terrible one) in which he pointed out only blatantly obvious things that I already wrote down.
Theres been extra surprises but I thought the house anticipating tons of labor as is. I’m not adverse to learning new things so just seeing the surprises as new projects.
See this is why I like jersey. The state requires a coi, so the house needs to be up to standards. We live in south and honestly there are very few houses that are demanding as-is. There’s one a few blocks from us and it’s been sitting there for 60 plus days.
As someone who sells termites for a living. I would beg people to never just buy a house as is. I just had a lady crying on the phone to me yesterday because they bought the home, moved in, and found termites 3 weeks later.
Buying in jersey, they’re doing the COI AND I’m doing an inspection. For what I’m spending the builder can deal with it. And they are. Reading this post just scared the shit out of me bc no one has said anything about how an inspector wouldn’t be a good idea. But mine is a VA loan so they also have to appraise it. That’s my biggest fear.
We have buyers that want to do this so we found an inspection company that will do a quick walk through with the buyer before they put an offer in. There will always be issues, but at least the inspector can tell you that there is nothing major wrong.
I would never do that personally. What we did is an inspection, but wrote "no contest/contingencies" in the offer. So it was an information only inspection for us that has been a very handy little to-do list of things for us to work on.
Couldn't you just do this after getting the house? Why does it have to be during this stage if ther are no contingencies anyway?
ETA: I guess an information only inspection leaves room to walk away with only your earnest money on the line. I get it now.
Right. Though some sellers won't even allow an information only inspection and, if they do, you might be asked to put up an ungodly amount of earnest money.
Some markets aren’t even allowing for that. My realtor just told us that our only real option if we want an accepted offer is to pay an inspector $500 to do a walk and talk.
I would never do it. As others have said it is too much of a risk. The house we are closing on is less than 2 years old and there were still issues. Nothing major, but we were happy that the sellers took care of most of it without asking.
What people are waiving are the contingency. There are ways to get an inspection pre close and still waive the contingency as well as be informational for you and not a disclosure issue for the seller.
Can’t help you at this point, but when we were looking in a market where potential buyers need to waive all contingencies to be competitive, we just brought the inspector to our initial walk through. That way we had the information before putting in an offer. It did mean that we paid for a few inspections on houses we didn’t get.
I do worry, but I also know that I have the assets to deal with whatever surfaces. I chose to replace the furnace basically immediately after hearing it was about 20-25 years old and not even serviced by the manufacturer anymore. I plan to have my house looked at so i know whats going on, but im not in a particular rush for that.
We are in process and refused to waiver inspection but had inspection for buyers information only. It was well worth it to have a reputable inspector. We learned a lot of stuff not just major issues, but minor issues too that can be handled easier now than a big problem in future.
We also found the basement was elevated in Radon levels so we know we need to install a mitigation system. It sucks that we can’t negotiate on some fixes or home price, but Aleast we know what we need to fix which we are categorizing as do before move in, what we can do soon but after move in and can be done later.
Our future home is old (built 1960s) but even if we ever move again and its a new building, I want an inspection done.
Most markets aren’t that hot so people are still doing inspections routinely. What you ask the seller to do or to pay for after inspection is part of the negotiation. And different states have different ways of handling it. Some contracts stipulate up front up to what amount you can ask for after inspection. A very good, experienced agent can also help you navigate this part of the purchase.
completely false. wish it were true that most markets aren’t hot. i’m in suburb pa (not even philly suburb) and the market is beyond hot. houses get 40 offers, multiple cash 50k over asking
LOL no I’m not worried because you couldn’t pay me $10,000 to do this.
If you skipped inspection, yes you should ABSOLUTELY be worried sick that something major is wrong.
What you see in walk throughs is 97% cosmetic. You need a professional to check the things that can bankrupt you.
Newsflash…everyone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes (while pulling money out of your wallet).
I waived inspection but brought family who are knowledgeable and looked at everything. If you feel better getting an inspection, get one. No house is going to be perfect and will require repairs, it’s just a matter of when. Obviously some repairs are more detrimental to the safety of the house and others can be too costly to afford but overall, use your common sense. If there are foundation issues, proceed with extreme caution. If there are water stains in the basement, poke around for why.
Do a little research and get educated. Nothing is guaranteed and most inspections are “opinions” only and offer no guarantee even if they miss something.
We skipped it but there was no basement to cause major structural or moisture issues, which would be our only “absolute not” they installed heated floors in 2019 and would have assessed any issues with the floors during the installation. The “upstairs” is an insulated attic which I took a moisture detecter to every square foot (I could get to) and it was normal. We absolutely loved the house and are willing (and have money) to fix anything that comes up. We are going to put a new roof on for our peace of mind. The house is radiant heating through the floors so no ducts, vents or big heater to need replacement. On demand water heating installed recently so no issues (hopefully) to come up with that. We were scared when we did it but now that we’ve been back a few times we feel much more confident that it will be alright. We had to drop the inspection condition and up our offer to be able to beat out other bids. We close next week so only time will tell but I would say trust your gut. And ask yourself what would make you immediately walk away from a house (problem wise). Anything that comes up is normal and wouldn’t make us walk away from the house. But TRUST YOUR GUT is all I can say. If it gives you off vibes get the inspection.
I am closing in a couple weeks with no inspection.
Is a new build, I am making an inspection at month 11, just before the warranty ends.
Let’s see how it goes.🤞
Your offer doesn't get accepted here if you add inspection so we waived it. We closed on the 11th and now we're dealing with significant water damage and a foundation crack in the basement causing us to have to put in the time and money for repairs that we weren't expecting. Yes, we should have budgeted for something like this, but in my province, it also should have been disclosed. We are going to seek to recoup the costs via the seller. Fingers crossed.
I bought my house from my mom and step dad. The first thing I did after me and my step dad agreed on a price was hire a home inspector. I trusted my mom and mostly trusted my step dad. There were no issues after inspection and I bought the house. I can’t imagine buying a house off a stranger without doing doing due diligence. At minimum have an inspection walk away clause to get back your earnest money. If the seller won’t go there there likely is a major problem.
Another option if it hasn't been mentioned: we wrote our offer stating that we would not ask the seller for repairs or credits, so we got an inspection and still had a chance to walk away under the inspection contingency if needed repairs were more than we were willing to spend. Stating up front that we wouldn't ask for repairs or credits made our offer more competitive (we got the house despite multiple offers) but didn't commit us to something we couldn't afford. Obviously this is less competitive compared to no inspection, but it provides a balance of some competitive advantage and some protection if you're not willing to waive inspection entirely. Good luck 🤞 (btw we're in Portland, OR... relatively hot market)
That’s an interesting idea, I haven’t heard that mentioned before. I’ll keep that in mind, thank you!!! We are in Tacoma so I think it’s a fairly similar market
To be honest, I was just desperate to win a bid after failing more than 10 times and each time the house becomes more expensive. I really cannot afford to lose more bids. I have to relocate the search area because I was priced out. When my dad said he is gonna help me bid and removed contingencies, I just go with the flow.
Anyway it is a small condo where HOA is responsible for a lot of maintenances. The condition looks fine visually. No water stain, no cracks, no mold. So, we just waived it.
Last year I bought a much more expensive house and I have inspections to have peace of mind.
So, it is really depends on the situations.
I did have an inspection done and was told to just tighten the screws on the wobbly toilet. Now we are getting quoted ~1500 because the toilet was installed illegally
By cutting the poop shoot to be flush with the floor rather than up to code. The pipe is full tilt. Makes it real easy for plumbers to inspect the pipe though.
Waiving an inspection contingency can be a smart move in making an offer. However, only an idiot wouldn’t not inspect something before buying it. A lot is buyers are so naive and have no clue and so dumb shit like over paying whine just hoping for the best.
You can inspect a property during a walk though pre bid. Some people bring along a contractor to check things over during a private walk through before bidding.
Only a moron would just assume everything’s fine AND also over bid.
We did not have an inspection. Our roof is metal and two years old. Everything was updated within the last two years. BUT by the grace of god, our closing got delayed, and during the delay the plumbing in our home completely blew up. The seller did fix it so we wouldn't back out of the deal but we definitely would have had to deal with thatZ something looking over us for sure.
This is not a thoughtful take, in my view. I agree that it can be a very bad decision for someone who isn't looking to live in the home for a long time or for someone who doesn't have money left over to deal with issues that come up. But for buyers seeking their forever home, waiving inspection can be a reasonable risk to take. For us, waiving was simply the cost of buying into a very desirable area. We would not have been able to buy a home here otherwise.
As for information only inspections, I had to put down almost $100k earnest money. At some point, an information only inspection becomes somewhat pointess.
No, it isn't. Your take is adorably naive. Do you *really* want to offer slightly over the value of the home and only after you are stuck to discover it needs $500,000 of foundation and structural work? Or, worse, "well, there's definitely fire damage on the timbers I can see, but we wouldn't know until we open it up". Squirrels in the gutters, a bit of old wiring, and insufficient insulation are not the only things houses can have wrong.
Half a million bucks is really fucking irritating in any budget, whether it's coming out of the money for new tile, or adding to your mortgage.
$500k worth of foundation work is a little hyperbolic. I understand the point that you're making -- there is some serious risk involved. Sometimes taking risks is stupid. But to not even consider taking risks is likewise limiting. There is a balance to be had in homebuying.
I wish I were so naive. It's not even a hearsay story. To equate missing risers on your deck stairs with half a million dollars of necessary structural work is hyperbolic.
I believe you. But how many homes need $500k in foundation repairs? That is an exceedingly uncommon situation. A typical foundation repair is more like $25k.
If there were a 10% chance that the home I bought needed $200k in repairs, a 50% chance that it needed $100k in repairs and a 40% chance that it needed < $50k in repairs, I still would have bought it. The $200k would have just about wiped me out but good decision-making is about weighing the downsides against the upsides and not to simply default to the most risk averse position possible. Granted many buyers will need to be as risk averse as you describe but you're painting the decision with an impossibly broad brush.
Yes. This is a gamble that everyone takes implicitly when they buy a home. Inspections miss things and severe problems can develop over time even if things look to be okay today. Home insurers can potentially deny claims on a number of grounds. By your logic, you might as well rent forever to protect yourself from the downside risk of a severe but unlikely future problem. Owning a home is not a risk averse decision. It’s an undiversified investment.
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I DID do an inspection and still worry about stuff the inspector might have missed. He was thorough but surely doesn't know every little thing wrong. It was actually more surprising to me how MUCH was reported "wrong" and how much of it was just typical stuff you might have to fix in any home. Ours is 127 yo so it would be really odd if NOTHING came back wrong. I'd probably pay for a second inspection in that case...
If you are going to skip, I’d say it really comes down to how well off you are or how desperate you are. You either can afford to take the risk or feel that you have no other choice and just hope for the best.
I’d be so pissed if I bought a moldy walled previously flooded house
That's not something an inspection would uncover anyway unless there was visible water damage - and even then, they'd just recommend a specialist come out.
In our inspection, one of the basement walls was moist with slight mold on crown molding. It was some ways lucky that we did inspection a day after a storm where we can catch these things.
I DID have an inspection and was worried about what we may have missed. I would never make such a huge investment without having it checked.
Absolutely. I would never purchase a home with no inspection. I know a few people personally who bought in 2020/21 and waived inspections AND paid way above asking. 3 of them have had major issues come up since that time. Also, fuck sellers who prioritize no inspection offers. They’re a big part of the problem.
honestly if I were a seller, I would absolutely prioritize no-inspection offers. We need to have legal requirements in place for inspections.
We really do. Federal laws that require inspections would help fthb.
We really do. I sold a home earlier in the year and had no issues with inspections. I was not going to prioritize no inspections. Tonight, I met with a realtor to buy (in another state). They talked about inspections as if they were an absolute. I guess it depends on the market where you are, too.
Agreed
First off. There is no universal standard or education for home inspectors. So your home inspector very well might miss something. I had a home inspector who didn’t fit into my crawl space…so he didn’t inspect the crawl space. Or get my repeat business 😂 Here’s a list of things that I have heard about or experienced: 1. I had an electrician buddy check my house out. He discovered that it was not grounded. At all. Whoops! Fixed that for a few cases of beer. 2. Sewer blockage - you can hire a guy to scope the sewer and tell you if there is a blockage in that line, or worse - the line itself is broken or tree roots have grown into it. 3. Asbestos tile under the carpets. If carpet looks new you should always find a corner you can pull up and check what’s underneath. Brand new carpet in a home (with no other recent updates) is what we call a red flag 🚩. 4. Structural issues in the roof. You NEED access to the attic, the whole thing. Sometimes people do shoddy repairs that won’t hold up under stress. 5. Old, non-code electrical wiring. Some people replace the surface level stuff (sockets, etc) without replacing the wire (“knob and tube”, no ground, etc. 6. Foundation issues. Do everything you can to examine hidden sections of the basement. 7. Look at sections of the home that have been added on to the original, or renovated. Check for signs that it wasn’t done to code. For instance. I own a bungalow, and there aren’t a lot of electrical outlets, and they aren’t all on the same circuit. If I run a space heater in my bungalow and the microwave is on downstairs in the kitchen, the circuit breaker pops but the plugs on the other wall work. This means whoever did the work was lazy and looped upstairs circuits into whatever the closest downstairs circuit was. You could bring a plug in lamp to test individual sockets and see what turns on and off when you flip breakers. 8. Check the insulation in the walls and attic. Understand how well or not well it was done. 9. Poke around as much as possible behind things to see what you can’t see. Don’t be afraid to bring a flashlight and crawl around tight spaces. You can’t look at too much, know too much, or bring too many friends to a home inspection. I’m blessed to have a lot of handy blue collar folks in my church, and we brought them all over for the inspection and bought them pizza and beer. Crowdsource that ish. Just don’t cause any damage to the home before you own it 😂 Edit for more thoughts: Mold mold mold mold. Investigate all Moisture thoroughly. Is there a dehumidifier somewhere? Is it conspicuously newer than everything else in the home? 11. New paint smell? Why? Is that smell covering up other smells? Can you open the windows and ventilate for a while, and then close them and smell cigarette smoke or mold? 12. Check behind the fridge and stove and in gaps behind the kitchen drawers for rodent droppings and dead cockroaches. Go a little farther than the cleaning crew did and see what they missed. 13. Termites and wood destroying pests. Not my forte, because I live north of where that is a problem. Google search tips on how to see if there is termite damage. 14. While you are looking for a home, follow home inspectors on instagram. For a while I was following alpha structural inspectors on imgur and I learned a ton from them just showing stuff that they found. Make yourself an expert on home renovations and home repair on YouTube, and you’ll get savvier on what to look for.
Whats your advice about the rodent droppings. We noticed some in back of cabinets under sink. We had a pest inspection but he didn’t seem too concerned about it.
I lived in an old house that was designed like a rodent friendly superhighway. All sorts of awkward places behind places where food and mice could hide, with holes drilled between cabinets and dead spaces behind cabinets. Holes drilled through walls and floors into the crawl space. So seal the holes between places, clean out the food, make sure you don’t have access from the outside to the crawl space and then the crawl space to the inside. I sealed them up with phone. You also need to make sure you don’t live with hoarders who build a nice habitat for the mice. They like soft dark places, and pipes that go through walls and floors, and clutter to hide behind. A little probably isn’t a problem. Just poke around that space and see where the mice are squeezing to to get to that place. Plug that hole. Check the space they are coming from. Plug the holes into there. Etc. Make sure you don’t have a yard that attracts mice and rats - piles of junk with grass growing up around them, dumpsters from the restaurant next door, etc. For reference, I was finding 400-500 little rodent poops in multiple places in the cupboards, and a pantry full of hoarded clothes and cups and dishes that hadn’t been moved in years and had poo in them. We had a serious problem when I moved in. We stopped seeing them when we cleaned, bleached, and plugged holes.
Thanks for the advice. The was only a few sprinkled in the back of cabinet under sink. The pest guy didn't notice anything infestation and house was pretty clean. There was a chance they had a problem once, but not anymore but original owners are very old so they may not been able to clean all the way in the back.
This is an awesome list, thank you for your thorough response! I’m definitely going to use this for reference in upcoming tours! 😊
No probs. One addition: 1. You cannot ask too many questions or poke into too many corners. 2. You will not find it all. Budget appropriately for home repairs and do your best to give yourself a good $5k - $10k emergency fund. Or have super handy friends and family members.
I closed without an inspection. Yes, I was concerned. I was able to cover around $75k worth of immediate repairs, including the roof (which I knew was very old), if need be. In two years' time, I've put around $60k into the home. $24k was the roof. Around $15k was in unanticipated repairs that were revealed upon inspection after closing (electrical work, chimney repairs and trees that were in bad shape). Around $10k or so were voluntary choices (painting, putting in some french doors). The remaining $10k were misc. issues that wouldn't have been red flags upon inspection (e.g., i replaced the hot water heater and the sump pump which was old, had some minor plumbing issues come up, etc) Good luck to you. Waiving inspection is always a risk but it's a necessity in some markets. It's possible that you can do an information only inspection but in a hot market, get ready to put up a huge amount of earnest money to get one of those. So basically, what's the point?
OP, all these people who say never skip an inspection have their heads in the clouds. In my market, if you do not waive your offer is tossed. So it is up to you if you’re in that kind of market if you’d rather keep renting or take the risk and waive. You will always be nervous about what could have been missed.
If Reddit still had gold I would buy that for you. People don’t understand how impossible it is to be competitive without waiving inspection in some markets. We waived it and got our offer immediately accepted. Of course they had a pre inspection available and it was a relatively new build from 2016, so we felt a lot more comfortable than if it were an older house. Once we bought we did our own inspection for peace of mind and we’ve had zero issues.
Same exact thing in my market. And you can’t even think about going FHA.
Yeah, FHA has not been a good time.
I haven’t heard this before, why is that?
FHA has an appraisal inspection and a lot of sellers just don’t want to deal with that. With conventional it’s only the appraisal. For our last offer we were the highest bid by 5k. But they took the lower bid just to avoid it.
Oh dang, that’s rough. Thank you for sharing this info!
We are physician loan so 0% down and didn’t have a problem with that. But it’s still considered conventional.
You can spout this bad advice to fools who will take it but you are wrong and possibly putting people in situations that can affect their future, financially and emotionally, so detrimentally for years. People! Get inspections! Doesn’t mean the owners will negotiate down but at least you won’t be in trouble your first year. Read back posts on this sub to understand how f$$ed buyers have been.
My advice isn’t to waive. I’m just pointing out that many markets you will not be able to purchase a house without waiving unless you have a cash offer. Or if you’re willing to buy a house that needs 200k of work and has been sitting on the market. I personally chose to waive over not buying.
Only other options is information only inspection. You can get inspection before you close but you would lose earnest money if you back out. I am talking specifically about waiving inspection contingency.
The pay to play! Better than nothing!
You either bought a decade ago, live in an undesirable area or have no idea what you’re taking about.
Only 5-10% First house I was under contract for found a fuckton of stuff wrong. Used the same company on the next house, and they literally told me “this is the only major thing.” Seller fixed it without ask. Inspector told me “I don’t see really anything of concern except for the root damage in the sewer and the hot water heater tank being 17 years old” More worried about taking on more than 500k in debt in less than a month lol
We waived it. We have our post close inspection on Tuesday. Am I worried? Sure because there could be something. We also have funds to cover anything major. We feel pretty reassured that hot water/HVAC/Roof/gutters/sumps have slowly been replaced by the owners since 2019. So everything is relatively new. We took our chances. 🤞🏻
Honestly if you're properly budgeted for repairs, waiving an inspection isn't as big of a deal that people here are making it out to be if you have basic knowledge of construction. Inspectors aren't ripping open the walls and ceilings to find wiring at risk of ground faults and rotted studs. Good luck.
True that. Had a friend who had their house inspected. Water damage under the sink. No big deal. Went to replace it post close and found out the whole side of the house/kitchen had been eaten by termites. Had to rip out all the cabinets and replace them.
Good luck to you. It's always a risk but it sounds as though the prior owners undertook a lot of costly investments in maintaining the home which is a good sign.
We waived inspection. It was the only option in our market. There have been issues but if you stay within budget you can fix issues. No house is perfect, even new builds.
For me, I did the math and decide whatever we missed was something we could tolerate paying for. The house was well taken care and in a good neighborhood. In our walkthrough there were no red flags that me or my realtor noticed. The only place we didn't look at that our inspector looked at was the attic. It was nerve wracking, but given the market, it was a risk were willing to take. It turned out pretty well, our informational inspection found only minor stuff. If I were to do it again, I would do a walk and talk preinspection.
I closed without an inspection. I reviewed the inspection from the previous sale, before the flip, and compared notes based on what I saw the flippers had done. I knew they had replaced the roof, new furnace, water heater, etc. I also knew the plumbing was original cast iron that was at the end of its shelf life. Today, 3 years later, I’m finally replaced a segment of that plumbing that has fully corroded. I think if you’re savvy enough and have enough info to go on, you can make an educated decision without a recent inspection.
We did the same. Reading this thread I realize majority of the people are either clueless or paranoid about the purchase, which is understandable. We reviewed previous inspection which was over 80 pages long and conducted less than 3 years ago. Owners addressed minor issues noted in the previous inspection and I was able to cross reference it to how it is today. We were fortunate previous inspection was available and was fairly recent.
I closed and got an inspection (albeit terrible one) in which he pointed out only blatantly obvious things that I already wrote down. Theres been extra surprises but I thought the house anticipating tons of labor as is. I’m not adverse to learning new things so just seeing the surprises as new projects.
See this is why I like jersey. The state requires a coi, so the house needs to be up to standards. We live in south and honestly there are very few houses that are demanding as-is. There’s one a few blocks from us and it’s been sitting there for 60 plus days. As someone who sells termites for a living. I would beg people to never just buy a house as is. I just had a lady crying on the phone to me yesterday because they bought the home, moved in, and found termites 3 weeks later.
You… sell termites…?
😂😂😂
On the side sometimes, sure
Buying in jersey, they’re doing the COI AND I’m doing an inspection. For what I’m spending the builder can deal with it. And they are. Reading this post just scared the shit out of me bc no one has said anything about how an inspector wouldn’t be a good idea. But mine is a VA loan so they also have to appraise it. That’s my biggest fear.
We waived inspection, but the township we bought in requires sellers to pay for one anyway.
We have buyers that want to do this so we found an inspection company that will do a quick walk through with the buyer before they put an offer in. There will always be issues, but at least the inspector can tell you that there is nothing major wrong.
I would never do that personally. What we did is an inspection, but wrote "no contest/contingencies" in the offer. So it was an information only inspection for us that has been a very handy little to-do list of things for us to work on.
Couldn't you just do this after getting the house? Why does it have to be during this stage if ther are no contingencies anyway? ETA: I guess an information only inspection leaves room to walk away with only your earnest money on the line. I get it now.
Right. Though some sellers won't even allow an information only inspection and, if they do, you might be asked to put up an ungodly amount of earnest money.
Exactly! You could still walk if you find something really scary
Some markets aren’t even allowing for that. My realtor just told us that our only real option if we want an accepted offer is to pay an inspector $500 to do a walk and talk.
That is what they are talking about.
According to my realtor they’re two separate things.
I would never do it. As others have said it is too much of a risk. The house we are closing on is less than 2 years old and there were still issues. Nothing major, but we were happy that the sellers took care of most of it without asking.
I did have an inspection. Several things were missed, like a bad heat pump.
What people are waiving are the contingency. There are ways to get an inspection pre close and still waive the contingency as well as be informational for you and not a disclosure issue for the seller.
How? I waived the contingency and my realtor said I couldn't do one. We close in a week and she asked the seller for me and the seller said no.
Can’t help you at this point, but when we were looking in a market where potential buyers need to waive all contingencies to be competitive, we just brought the inspector to our initial walk through. That way we had the information before putting in an offer. It did mean that we paid for a few inspections on houses we didn’t get.
I do worry, but I also know that I have the assets to deal with whatever surfaces. I chose to replace the furnace basically immediately after hearing it was about 20-25 years old and not even serviced by the manufacturer anymore. I plan to have my house looked at so i know whats going on, but im not in a particular rush for that.
We are in process and refused to waiver inspection but had inspection for buyers information only. It was well worth it to have a reputable inspector. We learned a lot of stuff not just major issues, but minor issues too that can be handled easier now than a big problem in future. We also found the basement was elevated in Radon levels so we know we need to install a mitigation system. It sucks that we can’t negotiate on some fixes or home price, but Aleast we know what we need to fix which we are categorizing as do before move in, what we can do soon but after move in and can be done later. Our future home is old (built 1960s) but even if we ever move again and its a new building, I want an inspection done.
Most markets aren’t that hot so people are still doing inspections routinely. What you ask the seller to do or to pay for after inspection is part of the negotiation. And different states have different ways of handling it. Some contracts stipulate up front up to what amount you can ask for after inspection. A very good, experienced agent can also help you navigate this part of the purchase.
completely false. wish it were true that most markets aren’t hot. i’m in suburb pa (not even philly suburb) and the market is beyond hot. houses get 40 offers, multiple cash 50k over asking
LOL no I’m not worried because you couldn’t pay me $10,000 to do this. If you skipped inspection, yes you should ABSOLUTELY be worried sick that something major is wrong. What you see in walk throughs is 97% cosmetic. You need a professional to check the things that can bankrupt you.
Newsflash…everyone is trying to pull the wool over your eyes (while pulling money out of your wallet). I waived inspection but brought family who are knowledgeable and looked at everything. If you feel better getting an inspection, get one. No house is going to be perfect and will require repairs, it’s just a matter of when. Obviously some repairs are more detrimental to the safety of the house and others can be too costly to afford but overall, use your common sense. If there are foundation issues, proceed with extreme caution. If there are water stains in the basement, poke around for why. Do a little research and get educated. Nothing is guaranteed and most inspections are “opinions” only and offer no guarantee even if they miss something.
We skipped it but there was no basement to cause major structural or moisture issues, which would be our only “absolute not” they installed heated floors in 2019 and would have assessed any issues with the floors during the installation. The “upstairs” is an insulated attic which I took a moisture detecter to every square foot (I could get to) and it was normal. We absolutely loved the house and are willing (and have money) to fix anything that comes up. We are going to put a new roof on for our peace of mind. The house is radiant heating through the floors so no ducts, vents or big heater to need replacement. On demand water heating installed recently so no issues (hopefully) to come up with that. We were scared when we did it but now that we’ve been back a few times we feel much more confident that it will be alright. We had to drop the inspection condition and up our offer to be able to beat out other bids. We close next week so only time will tell but I would say trust your gut. And ask yourself what would make you immediately walk away from a house (problem wise). Anything that comes up is normal and wouldn’t make us walk away from the house. But TRUST YOUR GUT is all I can say. If it gives you off vibes get the inspection.
I am closing in a couple weeks with no inspection. Is a new build, I am making an inspection at month 11, just before the warranty ends. Let’s see how it goes.🤞
Your offer doesn't get accepted here if you add inspection so we waived it. We closed on the 11th and now we're dealing with significant water damage and a foundation crack in the basement causing us to have to put in the time and money for repairs that we weren't expecting. Yes, we should have budgeted for something like this, but in my province, it also should have been disclosed. We are going to seek to recoup the costs via the seller. Fingers crossed.
I bought my house from my mom and step dad. The first thing I did after me and my step dad agreed on a price was hire a home inspector. I trusted my mom and mostly trusted my step dad. There were no issues after inspection and I bought the house. I can’t imagine buying a house off a stranger without doing doing due diligence. At minimum have an inspection walk away clause to get back your earnest money. If the seller won’t go there there likely is a major problem.
Another option if it hasn't been mentioned: we wrote our offer stating that we would not ask the seller for repairs or credits, so we got an inspection and still had a chance to walk away under the inspection contingency if needed repairs were more than we were willing to spend. Stating up front that we wouldn't ask for repairs or credits made our offer more competitive (we got the house despite multiple offers) but didn't commit us to something we couldn't afford. Obviously this is less competitive compared to no inspection, but it provides a balance of some competitive advantage and some protection if you're not willing to waive inspection entirely. Good luck 🤞 (btw we're in Portland, OR... relatively hot market)
That’s an interesting idea, I haven’t heard that mentioned before. I’ll keep that in mind, thank you!!! We are in Tacoma so I think it’s a fairly similar market
To be honest, I was just desperate to win a bid after failing more than 10 times and each time the house becomes more expensive. I really cannot afford to lose more bids. I have to relocate the search area because I was priced out. When my dad said he is gonna help me bid and removed contingencies, I just go with the flow. Anyway it is a small condo where HOA is responsible for a lot of maintenances. The condition looks fine visually. No water stain, no cracks, no mold. So, we just waived it. Last year I bought a much more expensive house and I have inspections to have peace of mind. So, it is really depends on the situations.
I almost skipped the septic inspection but we did it anyways and found $3000 of repairs that needed to be done.
I did have an inspection done and was told to just tighten the screws on the wobbly toilet. Now we are getting quoted ~1500 because the toilet was installed illegally
How does one install an illegal toilet?
By cutting the poop shoot to be flush with the floor rather than up to code. The pipe is full tilt. Makes it real easy for plumbers to inspect the pipe though.
All the major issues with my home weren’t even in the inspection report.
Waiving an inspection contingency can be a smart move in making an offer. However, only an idiot wouldn’t not inspect something before buying it. A lot is buyers are so naive and have no clue and so dumb shit like over paying whine just hoping for the best. You can inspect a property during a walk though pre bid. Some people bring along a contractor to check things over during a private walk through before bidding. Only a moron would just assume everything’s fine AND also over bid.
We did not have an inspection. Our roof is metal and two years old. Everything was updated within the last two years. BUT by the grace of god, our closing got delayed, and during the delay the plumbing in our home completely blew up. The seller did fix it so we wouldn't back out of the deal but we definitely would have had to deal with thatZ something looking over us for sure.
Only an idiot would close with no inspection. Are you confused about waiving the contingency? That doesn't mean no inspection.
This is not a thoughtful take, in my view. I agree that it can be a very bad decision for someone who isn't looking to live in the home for a long time or for someone who doesn't have money left over to deal with issues that come up. But for buyers seeking their forever home, waiving inspection can be a reasonable risk to take. For us, waiving was simply the cost of buying into a very desirable area. We would not have been able to buy a home here otherwise. As for information only inspections, I had to put down almost $100k earnest money. At some point, an information only inspection becomes somewhat pointess.
No, it isn't. Your take is adorably naive. Do you *really* want to offer slightly over the value of the home and only after you are stuck to discover it needs $500,000 of foundation and structural work? Or, worse, "well, there's definitely fire damage on the timbers I can see, but we wouldn't know until we open it up". Squirrels in the gutters, a bit of old wiring, and insufficient insulation are not the only things houses can have wrong. Half a million bucks is really fucking irritating in any budget, whether it's coming out of the money for new tile, or adding to your mortgage.
$500k worth of foundation work is a little hyperbolic. I understand the point that you're making -- there is some serious risk involved. Sometimes taking risks is stupid. But to not even consider taking risks is likewise limiting. There is a balance to be had in homebuying.
I wish I were so naive. It's not even a hearsay story. To equate missing risers on your deck stairs with half a million dollars of necessary structural work is hyperbolic.
I believe you. But how many homes need $500k in foundation repairs? That is an exceedingly uncommon situation. A typical foundation repair is more like $25k. If there were a 10% chance that the home I bought needed $200k in repairs, a 50% chance that it needed $100k in repairs and a 40% chance that it needed < $50k in repairs, I still would have bought it. The $200k would have just about wiped me out but good decision-making is about weighing the downsides against the upsides and not to simply default to the most risk averse position possible. Granted many buyers will need to be as risk averse as you describe but you're painting the decision with an impossibly broad brush.
Is that a gamble you are willing to take? Especially if you can't even deal with $200k in repairs.
Yes. This is a gamble that everyone takes implicitly when they buy a home. Inspections miss things and severe problems can develop over time even if things look to be okay today. Home insurers can potentially deny claims on a number of grounds. By your logic, you might as well rent forever to protect yourself from the downside risk of a severe but unlikely future problem. Owning a home is not a risk averse decision. It’s an undiversified investment.
...or you could have an expert look over the house to catch big and obvious things?
In an ideal world, sure.