Home Inspection Request Form
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A visual inspection and written report on major components and systems:
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Types of Home Inspections:
1. Re-Sales (seller-buyer transaction) 2. New Home:
We will need a completed request form and the MLS/PLANO to schedule an inspection
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Why a Home Inspection?
Given the cost of buying or building a home in this day and age a home inspection is well worth the cost. For pennies on the dollar compared to the cost of a house you can have a trained professional inspect the house you plan to buy.
Should I Price Shop?
In our opinion, "No". To be honest, you will be able to find another home inspections company in Maricopa county who will charge you less to do your inspection. But, as with most everything else in life, with Home Inspections you tend to get what you pay for. There’s a reason one Home Inspector in Maricopa county charges more than another. You’re paying the inspector for his/her time. The old adage "time is money" applies to the home inspection field too. Charging less for an inspection equates to less time spent on the inspection. Is that what you want on such a large, costly and important purchase? Again, in our opinion, it is well worth the extra money (usually $25 to $75) you might pay to have us perform your inspection over a company that provides ‘discounted’ fees. On average we spend in the neighborhood of 5 to 6 hours on each re-sale or new home final walk through inspection (inspection, walk through and report writing). Though we charge slightly more for our services than some inspectors, our fees are comparable to industry averages (most inspections are in the $300 to $350 range).
Here are some questions to ask that ‘discounted’ inspector:
Given the cost of buying or building a home in this day and age a home inspection is well worth the cost. For pennies on the dollar compared to the cost of a house you can have a trained professional inspect the house you plan to buy.
Should I Price Shop?
In our opinion, "No". To be honest, you will be able to find another home inspections company in Maricopa county who will charge you less to do your inspection. But, as with most everything else in life, with Home Inspections you tend to get what you pay for. There’s a reason one Home Inspector in Maricopa county charges more than another. You’re paying the inspector for his/her time. The old adage "time is money" applies to the home inspection field too. Charging less for an inspection equates to less time spent on the inspection. Is that what you want on such a large, costly and important purchase? Again, in our opinion, it is well worth the extra money (usually $25 to $75) you might pay to have us perform your inspection over a company that provides ‘discounted’ fees. On average we spend in the neighborhood of 5 to 6 hours on each re-sale or new home final walk through inspection (inspection, walk through and report writing). Though we charge slightly more for our services than some inspectors, our fees are comparable to industry averages (most inspections are in the $300 to $350 range).
Here are some questions to ask that ‘discounted’ inspector:
- How long have they been in business? We’ve been in business since 2003 and have performed thousands of Phoenix home inspections.
- How long will the actual inspection take? Our ‘rule of thumb’ is a minimum of 1-1/2 to 2 hours (small home or condo) and about 1 hour per 1,000 square feet. Longer for older homes or homes with pools.
- How long will the inspector spend with you after the inspection walking you around the house, answering questions and going over their findings? For us it’s as long as it takes but our average walk through is 30-40 minutes.
- Will they enter the attic (if applicable) or only view it from the access hatch? We do our absolute best to enter and fully inspect the attic.
- Will they walk on the roof or will they only inspect it from the ground or a ladder? We believe the best way to inspect a roof is to get up there and really check it out (if accessible, not easily damaged [clay tile], allowed by homeowner/builder and weather conditions permit).
- How long will they spend writing the report? This varies with the size of the house and how many issues we find but generally we spend about 2 hours writing up our findings.
- Will the report be all ‘canned’ comments that are written for every house they inspect and every issue they find? We spend the extra time trying to customize each report to that particular house and what we found during the inspection.
- What kind of report will you receive and when will you receive it? We provide an email version of the entire report (summary, detailed report and photos) within 24 hours of the inspection.
- Will the report include pictures and do they charge extra for pictures? All of our reports include digital, color pictures and there is no additional charge for them. We provide a separate picture file with 3x5 image files, not just thumbnails.