[walrus01]

The other thing you should absolutely never do, as a buyer, is use a home inspector recommended by either the seller's agent, the seller themselves, or even your own buyers agent. Choose one yourself.

Anything else and they have too much of an incentive to produce an inspection report that will result in a quickly closed sale.

[paradygm]

Disclosure: my spouse is a home inspector

It's a bit extreme outright dismiss an inspector just because they are recommended by your own agent (there is no reason whatsoever to even ask the selling agent for such advice). After all, you've hired them for their expertise and advice, and they see and know a lot more home inspectors than you. Of course, look at the recommended inspectors and do your own homework, like anything else. But if you can't trust your agent to recommend an inspection I question why you are working with them in the first place.

[smileysteve]

While the inspector recommended by your agent might be fine, there is an implied incentive/bias for the inspector to help close the sale;

The recommending agent is a marketing arm for the inspector; if the wrong deal falls apart because of the inspection, the inspector knows the agent isn't going to get their commission, whether or not that means they'll recommend them with as much fervor the next time can be largely dependent on how badly the agent needed the money that time.

But, by hiring without an agent referral; the inspector has no incentive to approve a house that shouldn't be approved; you're not going to be the new marketing arm. Indeed, absent a relationship with an agent, the inspector has an interest in inspecting as many properties for you as possible, and therefore finding as many deal breakers as possible.

[paradygm]

The flaw here is in thinking just because you find an inspector on your own that makes a difference in incentives. Who do you think the inspector has the most incentive to impress? The buyer whom they most likely will never see again or the agent who can potentially provide more and more clients?

[smileysteve]

This is my point in the last paragraph; you should ideally never let them meet.

[gamechangr]

My mother owns a residential real estate brokerage. She's siting next to me and thinks the previous post has misguided advise. She has been a broker for over 30 years.

She recommends that you always ask your agent for a home inspector recommendation.

"We pick the best home inspectors by the ones that performed the best in previous deals. We don't get $1 for recommendations. We wouldn't want to incase there was ever a problem down the road. Getting a high quality home inspector is much harder than it looks.".

[walrus01]

Respectfully, I would ask if your mother has ever worked in a residential real estate market as overheated and bubble-like such as the metro Vancouver BC area.

Shadow-flipping, assignments, double dealing have become the norm here.

https://www.google.com/search?q=vancouver+real+estate+corrup...

[gamechangr]

There are many many markets. Totally agree there.

I appreciate your point. But by the same token, you are extending a reality that might be in Vancouver to all of real estate markets.

This is one of the issue that I think makes Real Estate so complexed is that it's super easy to group it together as if 200 cities are one market.

I wouldn't even know if you could group large areas together (like all agents in.... 'The South" "The west coast" "The East Coast"...do it this way.)

[jermaustin1]

Seems like they would open themselves up to some sort of liability if that happens.