After weeks of searching, you found your “Dream Home”. The home is beautiful and designed in your favorite style, the views are just what you have always dreamed of, the school district is one of the top rated in the nation, and the property is the perfect distance from work and all of the other activities that you enjoy doing. There is only one glaring issue…. The home inspector completed the inspection report, you clicked the link and read that the home inspector found issues with your “Dream Home”.

Buying a house can be a stressful process and it might even feel like you’re being pulled in several different directions. The realtor wants to sell you a house because that is what you hired them to do. The home inspector wants to find every defect in your house because that is what you hired them to do. You want to find the best house with the least amount of issues for the least amount of money.

Sometimes the issues that are found in the home inspection report can be scary. Talking to your home inspector can help you understand if the issues that were found are abnormal or pretty common. Since issues were found in the “Dream Home” that we mentioned earlier, we want to know how scared you should be, and if should you back out of the sale?

The answer is… “It Depends”.

To be clear, there is no such thing as a perfect house; Architects make mistakes, Engineers make mistakes, contractors make mistakes, previous owners make mistakes, and life happens. There are so many issues that are found in every house and most of them are considered to be common. There are also serious issues like structural issues that happen to a house and surprisingly those issues are rather common too. The one question you should be asking yourself is; “How much will it cost to be safe?”

If the electrical outlets next to your sink aren’t protected by a ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) you could be electrocuted, but it might cost you $30 or less in parts to be safe. If the railings on your deck are loose it might cost you a couple hundred-dollars to be safe, but that is better than falling off your deck. If high levels of radon gas are accumulating inside your house a couple thousand-dollar mitigation system will make you safe, and that is much better than lung cancer.

The issues listed above are all very common issues and are relatively inexpensive to repair. There are hundreds, if not thousands of these types of issues that a home inspector will find and then describe in their reports.

There are however larger issues that might stop the sale of the home dead in its tracks. Cracked foundations that are slipping, a sagging roof with bowed walls, or other major issues related to poor engineering or construction practices could result in costs that are so prohibitively expensive that demolition may be the only option to make the house safe.

Now for the curve ball, what is it that you want? This “Dream Home” we described at the start, is it already built, or is that your vision for the land that is currently occupied by a dilapidated house? Are you going to live in that dilapidated house for 2 years while you align the building permits and contractors to build your “Dream Home”?

The point of this article is that home inspectors don’t want to scare you when we write up our reports, and even if there are issues found with your home, you may be perfectly comfortable with those issues either because they are common to every house and safe, or because you have a bigger plan of remodeling, repairing or flipping the house.

Your home inspector is one of the best resources you have at your disposal, so don’t be afraid to reach out and ask them questions about their report or the home that you’re about to buy. Buying a home doesn’t have to be stressful as long as you have the right people who want to help you.

Thank you for reading our article. If you have any questions about residential home inspections, please send us a message. If you would like Two Moose Home Inspections to inspect your property, feel free to schedule an inspection.