The Real Buyer's Guide · Section Ten

The inspection is your biggest protection.

It is the one point in this whole process where a few hundred dollars can save you tens of thousands, or tell you to walk. Do not skip it, and do not skip going to it.

What an inspection is, and what it isn’t

A licensed inspector spends a few hours examining what they can see and reach, then writes up what they found. That’s valuable and it has limits worth understanding up front.

Nobody is going to hand you a house with no findings. A clean report on a thirty-year-old home usually means a shallow inspection, not a perfect house.

Choose your own inspector

I’m happy to give you names of people I think are thorough. You should also find one yourself and compare.

Here’s the honest reason. An inspector who writes hard reports occasionally kills deals, and agents notice which ones do. You want the inspector whose loyalty is to the report, and the only way to be certain of that is to hire them yourself. Ask any candidate how long they spend on a house that size, whether you can attend, and to see a sample report.

If an agent ever discourages you from a particular inspector because they’re “difficult,” that is the inspector you want.

Show up for the last half hour

This is the single most valuable thing in this section, and most buyers miss it entirely — they get a PDF two days later and try to interpret photographs of a crawl space.

A thorough inspection takes two to three hours. You don’t need to be there for all of it, and honestly you shouldn’t be — someone following the inspector around asking questions slows them down, and you’re paying for their attention on the house.

Ask the inspector when to arrive for the last half hour, and be there for that. By then they’ve found everything and they’ll walk you through it in person: what matters, what doesn’t, where the shutoffs are, how the furnace is doing, what they’d keep an eye on in five years. Bring your questions to that conversation.

A finding explained standing in front of it is worth ten lines of a report. Thirty minutes with the inspector is worth more than the report itself.

Any inspector worth hiring expects this and will tell you exactly when to come. If one would rather just email you the file, that tells you something.

Sort every finding into four buckets

A report is a long, flat list, and that’s why buyers either panic at all of it or wave it all away. Neither is right. Sort what comes back:

Everything else is cosmetic, and cosmetic is what Section Six called changeable. It is not a reason to walk, and it is usually not a reason to ask.

Specialist inspections worth paying for

The general inspection is a starting point. These are the add-ons I’d actually spend money on, depending on the house:

• Sewer scope — a camera down the line. On any older home this is the cheapest protection against the most unpleasant surprise in home ownership.
• Radon test. Radon is a colourless gas that accumulates indoors and testing is inexpensive. It is recommended for homes generally, and it is worth doing here. [VERIFY current Utah radon guidance and typical test cost]
• Structural engineer — only if the inspector flags movement. Then absolutely.
• Well and septic, if the property has them. Different tests, and neither is optional. See Section Six.
• Property history questions. Utah has a process governing properties affected by clandestine drug lab contamination, including decontamination requirements. If anything in the history or the disclosures raises it, ask directly and get the answer in writing. [VERIFY current Utah requirements and where the registry sits]

What to ask for, and what to absorb

The temptation after a report is to hand the seller the whole list. Don’t. A seller looking at forty items reads it as a renegotiation of the price they already agreed, and the conversation goes badly.

Ask for the safety items and the genuine defects. Absorb the maintenance. A twelve-year-old water heater is not something the seller broke — it’s the age of the house showing, and you knew the house had an age when you offered.

Three ways to structure the ask, roughly in order of how well they tend to work:

• A price reduction. Cleanest. You control the repair, the quality and the timing.
• A credit at closing. Similar effect, different mechanics, and there are limits depending on your loan.
• Seller repairs before closing. Sounds best and often isn’t — a seller who has already moved on buys the cheapest fix available. If you go this route, specify who does the work and ask for the receipt.

Sort your findings here

Fill this in as you read the report, or standing next to the inspector. Type into it on your phone — it saves on your own device.

Saved on this device only. Nothing here is sent anywhere, and clearing your browser data clears it too.

What to do next

• Book it immediately once you’re under contract. Your window to investigate is a deadline, not a suggestion.
• Hire the inspector yourself, and ask what time to arrive for the debrief.
• Add the specialists the house calls for — sewer scope on anything older, radon, well and septic where they apply.
• Sort before you react. Four buckets, then decide.
• Get real quotes on anything significant before you name a number to the seller.
• Call me while it’s happening, not after. Most of what looks alarming in a report isn’t, and the part that genuinely is often gets missed.