Home Inspections

When our Raleigh Home Inspection firm office telephone rings, often the first question asked is "How much do you charge for a Home Inspection?". And a fair question it is...though I suspect that such a caller is really searching for the best deal rather than the lowest price...or maybe they should be. Let me suggest that a more appropriate question might be "How much is your Home Inspection worth? Until one understands what the potential worth of a Home Inspection might be, how can one decide whether or not any particular price is a good deal? We're all looking for good deals. But the cheapest price for a service isn't necessarily the best deal. In the instance of a Home Inspection, whether or not you get a good deal might not become known until it is literally too late for you...after you have hired a cheap, inexpensive Home Inspector and later realized that the Home Inspector and their Home Inspection report were sub-standard and deficient. And now, you're in no position to negotiate any repairs...you own the defects that weren't reported or made known to you. If you hire a cheap Home Inspector, you not only don't know what you'll get, you might not know what you got for some time to come.

Let us examine two points...

First, someone who inquires about cost as the primary factor has very likely assumed that all Home Inspectors are created equal and that they offer the same product...this is absolutely one of the most horrendous assumptions that you can make...it just isn't so. Experienced, professional Home Inspectors don't offer cheap "bargain basement" pricing because to do so would short-change their years of experience and dedication to the industry and to their previous clients. They know that some other inspectors, maybe "new" or inexperienced inspectors, or those that work part-time, or worse...those that are un-professional or just don't give the proverbial "rusty rat's hind end" about much of anything, might charge less but that the service they offer is also worth far less. And, it could be that the "cheap" Home Inspector may have to charge unrealistically low prices to attract any business at all. When an inquiring caller relates that "Inspector X will do the inspection for $175.00...", one has to assume that Inspector X knows what their service is worth...and it may not be worth your potential disappointment and heartache.

Secondly, let's do some basic math...let's assume that you are buying a $250,000 home. Real estate agents charge between 3 and 7 percent commission to help you find the home of your dreams....so you might pay between $7500 and $17,500 for their services...you'll pay upwards of $300 for an appraisal that the bank requires but that you may not ever even get to see...you'll probably pay a significant amount to the closing attorney and there will likely be hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in total closing costs...and then there's the Home Inspection. If an Inspection fee for that $250,000 house were, say...$400.00...then that would be 0.16 percent of the purchase price...that's a fair amount for a reasonably new home...if it were an older home and the fee were 500.00 then that would amount to 0.2 percent of the purchase price.

I have also heard it suggested that the total fees for a Home Inspection and all other types of pre-purchase due diligence type of inspections (termite inspection, Radon-In-Air testing, property survey, etc.) might be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of between one half and one mortgage payment...so by example, if the principle and interest mortgage payment were calculated to be say 1500.00 per month, and the total Home Inspection fee with radon in air testing were $650.00, then that amount would be less than one half of 1 mortgage payment. Depending on your financing, you might be on the hook for that payment amount every month for many years...year after year after year. Certainly you want to know the real physical condition of the property that you are buying...that knowledge is of extreme importance both to your peace of mind and to your financial well-being.

When pondering how much you should pay for a Home Inspection, you would do well to consider the relative value and all the professionalism, experience, and credentials of the Home Inspectors that you might be considering. After you've figured out what a Home Inspection is worth to you...and after you have narrowed down your choices to one or two professional inspectors...then go for the best deal.