http://www.HampdenCountyHomes.com When buying real estate you are going to want to do inspections... A quick recap, You got pre-approved, searched for a house, made an offer and got it accepted. Hi again, this is Don Thompson, you local real estate expert advisor. As part of your negotiations, one of the contingencies you’ve agreed to with the seller is the right to do inspections. Typically within the first 10 days to two weeks you have an opportunity to have any kind of professional inspector check out the property. Your rights under the contract are typically the opportunity to back out of the contract and get your deposit back if you are unhappy with anything the inspector finds. The seller will not be obligated to fix anything just because “the inspector said”. Now, from a practical standpoint, you can ask the sellers to make repairs or lower the price or maybe give you a credit, basically you’re re-negotiating the deal, but understand they are not obligated to do so, unless, you negotiated the repair and they agreed to it ahead of time as part of the offer process. Many of my clients will ask me how bad the inspections have to be to pass or fail. My response is “it depends”. I mean, Who actually decides whether an inspection passes or fails….the inspector? me, your realtor? or you, the buyer? … That’s right, You do. You decide whether an inspection passes or fails, you get to make a business decision after the inspections and the re-negotiations whether you want to continue with the process or you want to back out and look for another house. It’s ultimately your decision! So what kind of inspections do you do. Well, minimally, you will want to do a structural/ mechanical and termite inspections. The structural/mechanical is where a licensed inspector basically, gives your house a physical. He or she will poke and prod...open this...take the cover off of that, they’re looking for issues or signs of potential issues with the structure of the house... the roof, the walls, floors and foundation… the structure and then the mechanical portion deals with the heating, air conditioning, the electricity and the plumbing...the mechanical components of your house. The termite or wood boring inspection should be conducted by a licensed pest inspector, many times they’re also an exterminator. They’ll be checking for signs of infestation and/or damage to the structure caused by wood boring insects, like termites, carpenter ants or carpenter bees, powder post beetles and any other “wood boring” insect. These two should be the minimum. Some other inspections you might want to consider might be “radon”, asbestos, lead paint. The lead paint laws state that if a child under the age of 6 lives in a property, it must be lead safe. Lead based paint is too big a topic to discuss in this video but for houses built before 1978, the seller must disclose if they know whether the house has lead paint or not. And most sellers do not know.

If the house has a well, you will want to check the water for potability, is it drinkable, and maybe test the water for radon. If there is a septic system, you probably want that checked out… in Massachusetts, in fact, it’s a requirement that if the system hasn’t been inspected in the past two years and three years under certain circumstances, it must be inspected by law. During the inspection period, you check for anything and everything that you think is important to you. Also, if there is anything that you want to do to this property or with the property, that if you couldn’t do it...you wouldn’t buy it...it’s during the inspection period that you want to make sure you have all of your answers. Because you can still back out and get you deposit back.And just to say,the inspectors are there to give you their opinion of the property at that point in time they were there. They’re not clairvoyant... They do not have x-ray vision, they can’t see through walls and into inaccessible areas. At least, none of the ones that I know. So, to wrap this up, do your inspections, inspect whatever you what, whatever you can afford, because, although it is not insurance that nothing can go wrong with you house, inspections will give you a much better idea of what you are getting into.
Your expert real estate advisor should be able to point out some of the obvious issues with a house so that you’re not spending your hard earned cash on that “money pit” unless of course that’s what you want. And although I am not an inspector, I, personally, like to point out things that I see to my clients, that, if nothing else they now can ask their inspector to evaluate specifically.
So if you need assistance with your next home purchase... Please give me a call at 413-221-9981.. .
or send mean email at [email protected]
I’d be happy to advise and guide you to your next home.
Thanks for listening. Have a great day.