Denver Real Estate and Home Inspections

Yesterday I met with a client to re-check whether or not repairs had actually been done as agreed to in the Inspection Resolution. Our inspector charged $75 to come back out and check, not a bad deal when most of the repairs were to the roof, and neither my buyer nor I were we willing to climb up on the roof ourselves.

When we arrived the homeowner let us in and gushed about how it was a good thing we had asked to have the roof repaired, and that if they hadn't sold their house they could have been in for a lot of water damage, because their roofer told them it had reached a dangerous state. The homeowner was horrified to think they had maintained their home to perfection, but hadn't even thought to look at the roof! This was a ten-year-old house that they had lived in for the last seven years.

Another inspection I attended last week revealed some foundation damage from a leak which would not have been apparent if the inspector hadn't checked the drywall on the basement wall inside. Just touching it showed it was soft, and he poked a hole through it just with his finger. This was a 100-year-old rowhouse that had been totally renovated and restored. The basement drywalling had been done about 10 years ago by the previous homeowner. The developer who bought all the rowhouses, five units, had no idea at all that there was a problem, strange, because he was a contractor.

Moral of the story? If you're a seller, have your own inspection done prior to listing so there won't be any surprises when the buyer has it inspected. If you're a buyer, never forgo the inspection. And if you're a homeowner, it wouldn't hurt to spend a few hundred bucks having your home inspected once every five years or so to see what's cropped up since you bought it.