"William Brown" wrote in message
...
First, check that the inspector doesn't work for the realtor.

All home inspectors work for realtors. If they kill deals they don't get
called for work. They depend on realtors to give them business.

I'd like to see a home inspection service that advertises that it does not
ever take referrals from realtors, and provides some form of guarantee for
their work.

When I bought my first house the inspector found nothing of consequence.
When I sold it, the buyer's agent insisted on using her own inspector, and
he found $34,000 worth of alleged urgent life-threatening problems that
needed repairs. Funny though, he missed the leak under the bathroom sink
that I had already mentioned to the buyer and found one under another that
had just been repaired. He seemed to have gotten his sinks mixed up.

I had a contractor come in and estimate the actual costs of the repairs the
home inspector found, and it totalled about $3500 after he discounted most
of the findings as rubbish.

I gave the buyer $1500 at closing to cover what I was willing to cover, and
that was it. So far the house hasn't burned to the ground as the inspector
said it would because of all the "dangerous wiring" problems he found that
were the same as when I bought the house, and the same as every other
identical house in the development.

Otherwise, it's a big joke, and I'd rather use someone I know who isn't a
part of the real estate network, but who knows their stuff.

Probably most of the regulars here would do a more comprehensive job than
any licensed home inspector. I've seen them come around in nice clean white
shirts and ties to do the inspections. Let's face it, they aren't even
planning on getting dirty, what are they inspecting?

It's a big scam if you ask me, another parasitical industry that feeds off
the biggest one, the real estate industry. And my apologies to any honest
home inspectors out there, if there are any.