On Wed, 06 Feb 2013 18:50:42 -0800, Oren wrote:

On Wed, 6 Feb 2013 05:47:18 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

On Feb 5, 8:04*pm, Oren wrote:
On Tue, 05 Feb 2013 18:40:59 -0500, Mitt Romley
wrote:



Before I signed on my home, I had real inspections performed by an
electrician, a plumber, HVAC guy, residential building contractor, and
an engineer from the local architectural firm. Yes, it cost me a couple
grand but it was worth it.

I bought my house "as is". Cost me nothing or the seller.

While I wouldn't go to the extreme outlined above, hiring
a home inspector usually pays off. They charge you $500,
but they usually find enough stuff so that you can go back
to the seller to recover that $500 or more. If you yourself
see things wrong that the inspector doesn;t, you can point
those out to the inspector while he's doing the inspection
and get them into the report too. Having it in the inspection
report there is less chance the seller is going to balk, then
if you personally tell them an item needs correcting.

In the above example, unless the house was a mess,
you probably would not get back the money to pay for
all those experts.... I'd call in those only if I had reason
to believe there were issues, eg old house with cobbled
together DIY wiring.

I've always use an inspector, even paid to allow the buyer to pick his
own. As a seller I pick mine. This present house was special, so I
bought it "as is". Seller cut $25,000 off the asking price. It was a
you do nothing deal. Well, I did ask her fix the pool filler valve
that was causing the pool to overflow.

Why would you pay for the buyer's inspector?

The inspectors for my last two houses were pretty useless. The last
one wrote down some really silly **** (burned out light bulbs). It's
probably still worth the couple hundred bucks to have another set of
eyes on the property before purchase. I'd even hire one if I were to
buy "as-is".

Once I had a house being measured by the local "tax man". He used a
measuring tape on the side of the house, measuring the foot print, in
case it changed for tax purposes. The house sat on the "hill", a
former Mohawk Indian trail near the Saranac Lake. When the guy walked
down the side of the house, a drop in elevation , he added 20' to the
size of my home.

Of courses I had to show the error of his ways.

What would you expect from a government employee?