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by zippergz 1467 days ago
Most home inspectors are beholden to real estate agents. While it may seem like you are the client because you are paying them, at the end of the day it's the real estate agent they want to make happy, so they keep sending them business. That may mean not being too thorough, in order to not "kill the deal," or finding some stuff to request repair/credit for to show the buyer how hard the agent is working to earn their commission, but rarely does it mean fully working in the best interests of the buyer.
1 comments
criddell 1467 days ago
That's why I qualified with the word certain. I'd never use an inspector recommended by my agent and I'm not sure how to find a trustworthy inspector. In the past I've used a person recommended by somebody I trust.

What you said is true though and it became clear to me during the inspection. At the time my realtor told me my inspector was being ridiculous because he was documenting lots of things that weren't really problems but were recommendations and things to be watched.

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bombcar 1466 days ago
I don't even really consider "home inspector finds a fault that cancels the sale" to be a "thing" - I'm mainly hiring them to find all the likely things I'll need to work on going into the house.

And the quality varies incredibly because they're basically paid to rubber stamp things (and usually if they DO find something, it's already been disclosed or is quite obvious).

Some go to more trouble and I'd say that running a camera down the sewer line is a good indicator that they're doing this (and ALWAYS GET THIS DONE if the house hasn't been lived in recently, or just in general).

https://structuretech.com/all-blogs/ is an example of one that uses their blog to promote, and they mention "roof walk" and "sewer camera" as examples of their value-add. They also have an example report to look at (many, many reports end up with fifty pages of photographs and 'an expert should look at this' which is great for covering the inspector's arse but useless for the homeowner).

Inspectors that openly offer inspections for houses that are not being sold would be another one, they have to provide value.

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