August 12th, 2019 | Buyers

Real Estate In A Nutshell: The Home Inspection

Have you bought a home or are in the process, but not sure what happens after you sign on the dotted line?

You’re not the first one! We are here to teach you about what comes next, so you can handle the aftermath like a pro!

Last week, we discussed how to shop for homeowners insurance, what to consider when deciding on your insurance and what would best narrow your choices. If you missed this post, no worries, just click, Homeowners Insurance. Now, get ready to learn what to look for in a home inspection, cost of a home inspection and the home inspection process.

Why have a home inspection condition?

If you make your offer conditional on a home inspection, it’s protecting you, the Buyer. The condition is written in such a way that, if there’s something you don’t like about the inspection and don’t want to proceed with the purchase, then you can walk away from the deal and have your deposit returned.

When you make a conditional offer upon a Home Inspection

If you’re doing a home inspection it’s most likely because you have made your offer conditional upon a home inspection. You usually have about 3-5 business days to complete the inspection. The first thing you’re going to do is hire a reputable home inspector, your realtor can make a suggestion. Once that’s done,  your Realtor will schedule an appointment at a convenient time, within your 3-5 business days of your condition, for the home inspector to come to the property and inspect the property. You’re allowed to be present during the home inspection and your realtor will be there as well.

Exception: It’s not uncommon for a buyer to have a home inspection done on a property, prior to submitting an offer. This makes their offer look more competitive, especially if there are multiple offers. Reason being, if the inspection is done prior and the buyer is satisfied with the report, they will submit an offer to the seller, that is NOT conditional on a home inspection. For the seller, this means, one less reason for the buyer to walk away from the offer.

Home inspection costs

The cost of a home inspection is usually anywhere between $300 – $600 and that amount is paid by you at the end of the inspection. So, you have to make sure, you have that money available to pay up.

But what is a Home Inspection?

A home inspection gives you a general overview of the workings of the house in terms of what kind of condition the home is in, if there are any major or minor repairs needed and roughly how old certain items are in the home. With a home inspection some of the things you’ll want to make sure of is:

a) The house has good bones in terms of a good foundation.

b) If there is any knob and tube wiring or aluminum wire that will have to be replaced, especially if you’re buying an old home in Toronto.

c) Your furnace’s condition. The home inspector is going to be looking at your furnace and the condition that it’s in, how old it is and the life expectancy, as that can be another costly repair that you’ll need to do down the road.

d)  Your roof. Roofs can be costly to replace and they do have a span of usually about 15-20 years. Depending on how old the roof is, you may have to replace it right away or repair it or hopefully do nothing.

What else?

The home inspector is going to walk around the outside of the house too and the inspection takes about 2-3 hours.

Now, keep in mind that, although a home inspection is great and it will give you a good overview of what’s going on in the home, the home inspection will not reveal everything, as the home inspector clearly can’t look behind the walls. So, you have to also remember that, especially when you’re not buying a brand new house. There are bound to be some problems whether it’s a couple weeks from closing, a few months from closing, or down the road from closing. Therefore, make sure to always have a reserve fund saved up for any major repairs, or even minor repairs that may happen when you own a home.

That’s about it from us! We hope this has been informative, and make sure you come back next time where we are going to be discussing mortgages and the financing condition.

 

And of course if you have any questions, make sure to ask them in the comment section below!

If you missed any of our previous blog posts of the series, check them out here. We’ll see you back next week.