First time home buyer tip #20

ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS get a professional inspection done on a house on which you have made an offer to buy AND make sure the completion of the sale is contingent upon a reasonable outcome of any inspection. (Meaning that if the house has way more problems then you realized or perhaps one very serious problem that would cost more to fix than it’s worth, you can cancel the contract and get your earnest money back.)

The inspector is not only trained to spot potential (or existing) problems (that’s the obvious part), he’s given access to parts of the house that you may not have had the opportunity to inspect yourself. He gets to crawl around on the roof, the crawl space, the foundation, the furnace, test out the electrical outlets and so on. Depending on the size of the house it can take 2-3 hours to complete the inspection.

And yes, you need to pay for the inspection yourself. That’s because you want to hire the inspector because he is working for YOU and you alone.

I love helping first time home buyers so if you have any questions or would like help viewing an available home please don’t hesitate to contact me at 303.887.1883 or beth@bethskinner.com.

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