It is always the case that your home is the most important and most expensive purchase you will ever make. However, unlike the other purchases that buyers make with a guarantee attached to it, your home often comes WITHOUT a money-back guarantee or even a return policy. This is true even if you are not satisfied with your purchase. So once you buy a home, you are on your own in its maintenance, repair, problems, and bills payment. And THIS is the reason why you have to know as much about your potential home as you possibly can before you sign under that dotted line and close that deal.

What Do Home Inspectors Do?

Everybody is ready to believe that the best way to understand a home’s condition, habitability, and safety is through a home inspector, and they are right in believing so. A properly trained and professional home inspector will review a house and all its systems. He will look at how one component of the house might affect the operability or lifespan of another. And in doing this, he is able to give you a more or less accurate picture that no amount of sales talk can cover up.

The home inspector will go through the property and perform a comprehensive and objective visual inspection of all its aspects. He will assess the condition of the house and of all its systems. In doing that, he helps in determining the components that are not performing properly as well as items that are beyond their useful life or are unsafe.

A home inspector’s specialty is identifying problems and areas that need repair. However, a home inspector’s job is not merely restricted to problem identification. His functions may include areas where critical repairs may be needed and where there may have been problems in the past. The purpose of a home inspector’s report is to provide you, the client, with a better understanding of property conditions, as observed at the time of the inspection.

What is the Scope of the Inspection?

The home inspector can only provide a visual inspection. He does this by looking at the home’s various systems, including both the interior and exterior components. If he cannot gain access to certain difficult to reach areas, then they will not be included in his assessment. But the usual places that a home inspector checks include exterior components, such as roofing, flashing, chimneys, gutters, downsprouts, wall surfaces, the foundation, and the grading around it.

Interior systems that a home inspector will check include electrical, heating, air conditioning, ventilation, plumbing, insulation, flooring, ceiling and wall finishes, windows and doors. Fireplaces and wood stoves are not the areas of the home inspector. Only WETT (Wood Energy Technology Training) specialists are qualified to inspect those areas.

A home inspector does not appraise your home. Neither is he able to exact quotes for repairs or point out the noncompliance with building code requirements.

There is a lot of free information available to you about buying, selling or investing in real estate. For complete information about the real estate market including current homes for sale, property values and more please visit the most complete website online dedicated to everything real estate. So please feel free to contact me with any of your mortgage questions and I will me more than glad to answer your queries. Call me on my cell at 317-514-9998 or email me at indyhome4u@ameritech.net.