What to Actually Look For During a Home Inspection (So It Doesn't Bite You Later)

I have been burned by bad home inspections. More than once. The kind of burned where you're standing in your newly purchased house three months after closing, staring at a problem that should have been caught, doing the mental math on how much this is about to cost you, and seriously questioning your life choices.

So when I tell you to take your home inspection seriously, I'm not repeating some generic advice I read on a blog. I'm speaking from the specific, expensive, infuriating experience of learning this lesson the hard way.

Most Buyers Treat the Inspection Like a Formality

Here's what typically happens. You find a house you love. You make an offer. The offer gets accepted and you're riding high on excitement. Then your agent says “we need to get the inspection scheduled” and you say “sure, whatever, set it up.” The inspector comes, spends two to three hours walking through the house, hands you a 40 page report full of photos and technical language, and you skim it looking for anything that says “the house is going to fall down.”

If nothing says that, you move forward. You might ask the seller to fix a couple of things. Maybe you negotiate a small credit. And then you close and move in and cross your fingers.