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MOVE Worthy Podcast
Mastering Home Inspections: Essential Tips and Strategies for First-Time Buyers
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What if a detailed inspection could save you from buying a money pit? Our latest episode in the First-Time Home Buyer Series promises to equip you with the necessary knowledge to navigate the crucial due diligence period with confidence. We unpack the essential steps involved in the home inspection process, shedding light on both standard and lesser-known inspections like bed bug checks. We emphasize the importance of timing, ensuring you're prepared to tackle any issues that arise without delay. Additionally, we share insights into specialized inspections and provide a breakdown of associated costs, empowering you to make informed decisions during this vital stage of home buying.
But the journey doesn't stop at inspections. We tackle the complexities of negotiating repairs and securing insurance quotes, guiding you through the nuances of a real estate transaction. With a focus on flood insurance, we explore policy options and the significance of insurance quotes in determining home affordability. By understanding your rights and responsibilities, you can navigate potential deal-breakers and aim for a successful closing. Join us as we unravel these intricacies and set the stage for our next episode, where we'll cover appraisals and the final steps to closing.
MOVE Worthy Podcast with Lauren Jones & Jenny Lendle. Together we have the experience to MOVE you forward!
First-Time Home Buyer Inspections Overview
Speaker 1okay , we are back with episode number 15 of the move worthy podcast with jenny and lauren and we are still into this first time home buyerbuyer series . I'm calling it a series at this point because this is going to be number three , part three of a very important topic , a very massive , I guess , kind of topic .
Speaker 1A lot of information A lot of information , a lot of things to go through . We have talked about first-time homebuyers in general what to expect when showing properties , looking for houses , getting pre-approved , pre-qualified , what your fees might look like . We talked about getting accepted . We talked about giving deposits once you're under contract . I think we touched a little bit on inspections , but we're going to dive in right here at inspections and really talk about what that looks like . When you do an inspection , what to expect , how many inspections do you do ?
Speaker 2on a .
Speaker 1Yeah , all of the things . All of the things I mean obviously I think we touched on too not waiving inspections .
Speaker 2And the importance of that .
Speaker 1And the importance of that and what that looked like for buyers back in 20 and 21 who did that . Yes , I think we even touched on a case that we learned about the other day where the inspections were completely waived and at a certain point that buyer had no out cash sale not conditioned on appraisal , not conditioned on inspections . Where's your out as a buyer ? Right so I guess that's a whole other topic yeah , where's your protection ?
Speaker 1right yeah so every , every , every house you purchase , you should have an inspection period built into your contract . Your realtor will advise you on that um I typically do 12 to 14 days . That's what I do 12 to 15 days .
Speaker 2If it's a , if it's a four-week , close I'll , I'll do 12 days . If it's longer , I'll , I'll stretch it into 15 days . Um , but that for a first-time home buyer . That does it according to contract . It's called a due diligence period , yes , um , but that is the period where we would do all of the inspections , quote insurances , do any type of research . You know . If you have any questions about the property , you know , look to see if there are surveys on file . That type of stuff happens in your due diligence period and if it happens outside of the due diligence period , you're not protected , right . But as far as inspections , I mean , I almost always recommend a full home inspection with a termite as well as a video pipe inspection . Some buyers , which I have a first-time home buyer I'm working with right now wants a bed bug inspection .
Speaker 1I have never , never done it .
Speaker 2So I was like , okay , well , my first thought and you know , agents learn too my first thought was well , if it's , we're not purchasing any of the beds and there's no carpet in the house , so I'm not really sure . But she did a lot of research on this and the bed bugs can actually live inside the cracks of the walls , like between the baseboards and the sheetrock so yes , so .
Speaker 1I did become a thing . This is gonna become a thing . We're making it a thing right now .
Speaker 2No , so I did some digging . And um Lajani's pest control , they actually offer a free bed bug inspection . Wow , yes , okay , and when I called , she was not shocked not surprised , no yeah and I'm like , wait a minute , this happens .
Speaker 2And she was like , oh yes , ma'am , this happens . All the time I was like , wow , wow , okay , yeah . So , um , you know , as agents , we we absolutely take our clients' needs and concerns into consideration when we're talking about what inspections to do . You know we ask them what is this ? Do you have any concerns ? This is what I recommend , but if there's any concerns that you have , we can you know .
Speaker 1Definitely address that .
Speaker 2Definitely address that your home inspection inspections , kind of your overall inspection , and those can tend to shed lights on some things that maybe we didn't see that need further . That need further investigation inspect , inspections or investigations , so I always like to jump on scheduling my inspections right away me too , because if I do , have to get you know professionals out there to quote something , or have to get another inspection to go more in depth for an issue that a home inspector found right . We have time for that yes , um , I think it .
Speaker 1That's one of my pet peeves . It drives me crazy when I have to wait three or four days after an acceptance to for someone to schedule an inspection on my listing . Yeah , because as soon as everyone signs and says accepted , and maybe even sometimes when I don't even have it in front of my face , but everyone's agreed , kind of scheduling . I'm texting my inspector hey , what do you have for the next week and a half ?
Speaker 1yeah and then I'm getting that done right away . Yeah , some of the other inspections I just want wanna touch on because we've done them throughout the past and they are available . I actually had one done on my chimney the other day . If their house has a fireplace , there are options for a chimney inspection Pool .
Speaker 2I've had a stucco inspection .
Speaker 1I've had a stucco inspection , a pool inspection . Those are extra things that definitely are out there , definitely available . We have people who do those but , yes , when definitely bed bug is a first time . But there's other ones that , yes , we've heard of in the past . Yes , there's people out there who do them AC inspections , roof inspections . Well , video plumbing covers your plumbing , and then your general home inspector is going to also check for plumbing issues too .
Speaker 2And they're also going to check roofs and AC . They're also going to look exactly . But they may say this doesn't look right , or I think you should contact a professional .
Speaker 1Yes , I agree , I agree . So cost for inspections . So cost for inspections . Maybe we touched on that the other day . Termite inspections roughly $125 these days .
Speaker 2Video plumbing around the $250 mark . Yes , I think it depends on square footage obviously too , and maybe location , depending on where that person is coming from . Detached structure there's a detached structure with plumbing . That's an additional cost sometimes .
Speaker 1And then your general home is roughly Between $300,000 and $400,000 . $300,000 and $400,000 ?
Speaker 2Yeah , just depending on the inspector . You know some things that first-time homebuyers don't know and a lot of first-time homebuyers are using federal-backed funding . They require WDI ours , which is a wood destroying inspection certificate and you know agents good agents will know that that's something . But that's also an additional charge on some .
Speaker 1Some inspectors charge like 125 dollars for a WDI are well , that's what , so that when I say termite inspection , I'm referring to that WDIR . It's $125 . Yes , yes .
Speaker 2Most home inspectors do include termite inspection , but they don't provide a WDIR without that extra expense because it's a huge report .
Speaker 1Right and it's um . There's a guarantee on that report , I think for 30 days or whatnot . Those inspectors are held to a certain guarantee If something is found within 30 days , and I've had someone recall one of those um years back on a house in lakeview oh yeah we had a termite inspector inspect . It said everything was good within 30 days of them , like closing and moving in . It was found that there was live termites . The inspector , missed it so he treated the house for free .
Speaker 2Like there are guarantees that go along with those , and I think that's another reason why they're probably so expensive yeah , yeah , it's like another , you know , an extra insurance yes , you know , yes , definitely but there , yeah , there's so many spectrums of inspections and I think it just goes with whoever's purchasing the home , whatever their concerns are what the general home inspection may show , and it can go from there right .
Speaker 1so what do you do once you find all these issues or not right ? As a buyer , you have an option to ask for repairs for anything that was found in the house . You can ask for a dollar figure if you want to take care of those repairs post-closing , or you can accept it in its condition and move forward and okay with all the things . Now there's a laundry list of things that are going to show up on that report .
Speaker 2I think that's the most overwhelming for first-time homebuyers . When they see a 60 to 80 page report they're like oh my god . But I think it's important for agents to guide their first-time homebuyers to not get worked up because these reports are overwhelming . But not all things in these reports are bad . Some are just telling the buyer hey , this is what you have For your information , this is for your information , this is something that needs to be maintained . Yes , this is a problem . Right , you know there's different parts of the report and I like how some inspectors they'll summarize and they'll categorize it . So , like the green things are just for knowledge . The yellow things are deficiencies but don't necessarily have to be addressed . The red things are hazardous , hazardous right .
Speaker 2You know that really should be addressed ASAP .
Speaker 1And a lot of the inspectors are going off code today .
Speaker 2Yes , for sure so each year , when the code's changed .
Speaker 1They have a new list of things that have changed . So if your house was built in the 80s , it was built to code in the 80s so there's going to be things that are different from the code in 2025 .
Speaker 1Doesn't mean it's wrong Doesn't mean it's wrong . Doesn't doesn't mean it's hazardous , while some of them are , I'm sure , but this is one that stuck out as a new agent and even still , when we inspect houses that are 80s , 90s , is everything vents into the attic ? Nothing vents outside of the attic , it seems so . That pops up in reports and everyone's like oh no , I want this to vent through the roof . Like okay , well , that's gonna take a roofer cutting a hole in the roof , extending vents through the roof , like sometimes these things are not necessarily easy no to do no , and at that time , when those houses were built , that was okay , but it's not okay today .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's not okay , I feel like when I first started . That came up every single inspection we did yeah and I just finally got to a point and I said every house on this street is like that yes , yeah , you start to learn the ages of the houses and you start to set your clients up for hey , I know this is going to come back on the inspection just letting you know this was a very normal practice for , um , for this age , for this age home .
Speaker 1Yes , yeah , yeah I know there was another one . I mean , gfis are a big one and those are easy fixes . I mean for someone to go in and change some , change some GFIs . I think even when I go to lift houses I'll do a walkthrough and I'm like , hey , just to prepare you , they're gonna call this out , they're gonna call that out . If you would like to go ahead and get those changed , you can . If you'd like to wait for the inspection , you can , can ? I think those run like $30 a pop , yeah . Another one that really drives me crazy is the arc fault breakers .
Speaker 1So I sold them At the time I sold it was 50 years old . It's older now , obviously , but at the time my first house that we sold was like 50 years old . Yeah , Didn't have a lot of grounding in the outlets . The buyer wanted these arc fault breakers . Well , what happens in a 50 year old home is anytime anything happens those breakers trip , yeah .
Speaker 1So while you would like to get it up to code and to match everything else , then you have these breakers tripping all the time right , I mean we changed them because that's what they wanted , but I would I would not have put them in my own house to have to completely constantly go back and forth and fix those .
Speaker 2Right , yeah , again , that was another thing that was conducive to the age of the house .
Speaker 1Right .
Speaker 2You know , I would be totally shocked if a seller was just like okay , yeah , let me do all of this for you .
Speaker 1And those are expensive . Those are very expensive . The arc fault breakers are expensive and when you're talking , a whole house worth of arc fault breakers , that gets pricey .
Speaker 2I think it's important for buyers to know that , while you might like the biggest and best and most up-to-date things , if it's not faulting you can't Right . I mean you can . You can , but you can't expect a seller to be like hey , sure , yeah , you want this , I'll go ahead and rewire this whole panel just because you want that ? Yes , that doesn't happen often .
Speaker 1And what we're really looking for is double-tapped wires , fire hazards , things that are really really important , and I've let my buyers know . I've let my sellers know . I've let my sellers know hey , you can expect this . Hey , let's go through this list together . Tell me what you have concerns about and let me we can talk through this we can get advice from professionals before we go in and make that repair request list mm-hmm and so , time wise , you do your inspection within your inspection period , yep .
Negotiating Repairs and Insurance Quotes
Speaker 1Then you make your repair request .
Speaker 2Mm-hmm .
Speaker 1Then that seller has 72 hours to respond .
Speaker 2And in that time the seller can do their own research as to what something would cost . You know , because if a buyer is asking for a credit for all of these repairs , they have the right to go get that estimated . You know , if they're willing to give a credit , they have a right to go get that estimated . You know , if they're willing to give a credit , they have a right to get their own estimate and they have a right to say , hey , no , it's only going to cost this , we're willing to credit you , but we're only crediting you this much right correct they have that option for sure and then , once the seller tells you what they're willing to do or not , then the buyer has 72 hours to decide whether they're okay with it .
Speaker 2Yep .
Speaker 1I always say if there's something that really is important to you , we can try to kind of go back and renegotiate that , or you walk away .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1I mean , those are your options at that point and it's okay to walk away .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 1If it's something that really bothers you and you're not sure and moving into a house that has this problem , you're afraid to fix it or don't want to fix it , that's totally fine . People back out of contracts all the time due to inspections , and that is your right not to get into something that you think is going to be burdensome down the road .
Speaker 2Right .
Speaker 1And then a seller has a right not to do anything either .
Speaker 2Absolutely they do . And then a seller has a right not to do anything either .
Speaker 1Absolutely , they do make sure that . I tell everyone that it's not a time for you to renegotiate price unless there's a major issue . It's not a time for you to ask for all these things unreasonably , because the seller has rights as well they can say no , they can offer a credit . Um , and they , they might be totally fine with you backing out yeah , so you have to . It's a , it's a give and take .
Speaker 2I always like to say it is a win-win once you get to that closing table for sure don't want it to be a bad situation and I like to , you know , explain to my clients from get-go , from from the point that we're making an offer , that you know , if you're making a very low offer or you're asking for a huge seller credit , to expect less in the inspection period . You know what I mean . So if you already went in $10,000 under asking and you're asking for another $8,000 in seller assistance and they gave that to you , don't expect much in the inspection Right . We could certainly ask , but prepare yourself for if there's issues with the house , I either have to make a decision to walk away or accept it .
Speaker 1Is it a deal breaker ?
Speaker 2Yeah , that's what I ask , yes .
Speaker 1Like is this going to cause you not to buy the house ? If so , we need to ask for it .
Speaker 2We need to ask for it .
Speaker 1We need to let them know .
Speaker 2This is very important right , and how do we work through that right ? Yeah , deal breakers mm-hmm for sure .
Speaker 1What's actually gonna stop you from buying this house ?
Speaker 2yeah , so that was inspections . You want to just touch a little bit on the other things in the due diligence and just wrap up due diligence . Yeah , insurance quotes yes these have become so important in a real estate transaction . Insurance rates have killed deals tripled in some instances , tripled in some instances and they've killed deals , yes .
Speaker 1So this is extremely important do not get through your due diligence period without having insurance quoted right and if your agent isn't doing it for you or your lender isn't doing it for you , you need to be doing it yes , for sure I like to do as soon as someone is in love with a house , or even if they're thinking I'll do a flood right away right .
Speaker 1If someone , if they , if they're in love with it and they want to write an offer , I'm like , all right , let's get some quotes , let's find out what this is really going to look like . Homeowners flood A lot of times if it's in a flood zone or even if it's not in a flood zone the agents will have a policy in place that can be assumed . I'm making sure I'm letting people know what the full risk premium is .
Speaker 2Yes .
Speaker 1Because if we get there , I don't want anybody to be surprised .
Speaker 2So for buyers that don't know what that is and most first-time homebuyers don't flood policies right now are still on the lower end if they had existing policies , but every year they go up 18% until they hit their full risk premium . So what that means for somebody that's purchasing a home while you may be able to assume the current policy that's in place at $829 a year , you need to know that eventually it could be $5,000 a year , right ? So if your agent's not providing you that information , or your lender's not providing you with that information , you need to find out what that full risk premium is , because that's imperative , yes , for your future .
Speaker 1My personal house , our full risk is about 5,000 . One of my listings that I have right now full risk is about 5,000 . And the difference between an AE zone and an X zone an X zone only means that it's not required by your lender doesn't mean it's cheap at this time . It doesn't mean it's cheap . No , because some of those are higher than ae zones most of them are in the ae policy .
Speaker 1Ae zone means that or a H and or a 99 there's a lot of different ones in this area . Yeah , means that your mortgage company is going to require that you always carry flood insurance . Yes , so no matter what , you're paying that , and you're paying that Means that your mortgage company is going to require that you always carry flood insurance .
Speaker 2Yes .
Speaker 1So , no matter what , you're paying that and you're paying that additional 18% each month I mean sorry , each year , but in an X zone where it's not required , those policies are still high . I have one in an X zone Right now . They pay , I think , $700-ish , but the full risk on that one's $4,000 .
Speaker 2Yeah , I have one too right now a listing . Yeah , that's .
Speaker 1I think their premium is 700 and something right now , but their full risk is 54 yeah , and while I would never advise anyone to not carry flood insurance in south anywhere at this point yeah , I mean not even just south louisiana anywhere at this point there's flooding everywhere . I would never advise someone that .
Flood Insurance Policy Options and Tips
Speaker 1But if you are in an X zone , that is your right to decide , but you have to understand the risk that comes with that .
Speaker 2Another thing that's good about an X flood policy is you aren't while you're not required to have it for your mortgage , you're also not required to cover $250,000 for the building and $100,000 for contents . You can choose to carry whatever amount of coverage you want , which dramatically decreases your premiums . And another thing I learned this week is if you're in an ex zone and you do carry , you choose to carry 80 percent of the the purchase price of the home . If you were to file a claim , it can .
Speaker 1It can be paid out as cash value oh wow , I didn't know that yes okay , yeah , I think there's a lot of things to insurance , uh , that I don't know and obviously I'm not an insurance agent . But I think things are changing too . And we're learning more because we're having to get more creative with our clients , with our sales . Yeah , all right . Well , that was inspections , due diligence yeah , inspections .
Speaker 2Due diligence in general yes , and everything that falls in there , yes everything that falls in there .
Speaker 1Yes , everything that falls in there . Um , next we will get on with this series to part four . We'll get through appraisals and hopefully to the closing . Yeah , um , so that was part three in a series of first time home buyer chats , buyer chats , fireside chats right um , and we are the move worthy podcast with myself , jenny lindley and lauren jones , and together we have the experience to move you forward .
