Why Does a House Need a Home Inspection?
It seems that the process of buying a house is designed to make buyers and sellers want to avoid buying at all. Just when you think you have worked hard and saved enough money to foot the upfront bill of buying a home, realtor commissions, appraisals, closing costs, and inspections all accrue, and you find yourself digging in your cookie jar to come up with all the costly incidentals. Frustrating but true, all of these things are necessary in home buying, and a home inspection is of the utmost importance when you are about to make the purchase of a lifetime.
Why does a home,
especially a newly built home, need a home inspection? Several reasons! Waiting on the inspector elongates the closing process, and, although you should have expected it, the additional costs often take people by surprise. Too bad. If your loan guarantor, such as the Federal Housing Administration or Department of Veterans Affairs, does not require it, get one anyway, and consider hiring your own home inspection professional done in addition to the one sent by the guarantor.
The process, to begin, is a thorough check of the structure, construction, and mechanics of a home. If the home is being newly built, these are several points during the building that should be inspected before building can proceed. You may be only seeing dollar signs at this stressful time in your life, but it is meant to keep you from being inundated by costly issues after closing, when it is too late to back out.
Cracked foundations, ones that do not meet regulations, and even poorly done work by contractors are often found. It may be hard to accept these problems as valid when your dream home is at stake, but this process is here to protect you. If your guarantor requires a home inspection as insurance for your lender, it may not matter what you see through your rose colored glasses. A lender is not likely to take a risk on a poorly built home.
An inspector will also do a thorough check of all the home's appliances and estimate their remaining useful life, or he will require repairs or replacements to be made before he will pass the house. Again if it was your personal choice to seek the professional service, you can sometimes negotiate using the outcome, but if it is up to FHA or VA guarantors, repairs and replacements will need to be made before they will guarantee the loan for your lender of choice.
It is, in addition, just good information to have going into a major purchase. If it is revealed that the oven is on its last leg, you could probably deal with that, but if the sewer system or air conditioning unit are estimated to need replacement in one or two years, that adds monumental immediate investment to your budget. You should take an active part in a home inspection. Walk through with the person in charge of it, take notes, and ask questions. This is your potential home and investment, and you deserve to know details.
