Laramie, Wyoming Real Estate: To Inspect....or Not?

After negotiations result in a contract to buy a home, a buyer has to decide.... to inspect or not inspect? The answer... is not straightforward.

It depends on the buyers and the actual property being purchased. Is the house 2 years old or one hundred? (Newer does not necessarily mean better...) Will the buyer be financially ruined if a costly problem emerges? Or are they willing to take their chances?

Some people feel perfectly fine foregoing inspections all together. They'll just roll with whatever comes their way. Some people like to give the property a good once over themselves. While others prefer nobody but people licensed in their field come in and check out the major systems - heating, air conditioning, plumbing, and electric. There are whole house inspectors as well, but in Wyoming you'd be wise to check their training and qualifications since our state has NO licensing requirement or standards - at all - to call yourself a home inspector.

Believe it or not, the main purpose of a home inspection is NOT to see that the buyer is provided with a perfect, flawless home. Instead, it is so the buyer can get an objective snapshot of that point in time of what they are actually buying.

From this snapshot, the buyer can then decide what conditions they can live with "as is" and what conditions they want to further negotiate about. Each buyer comes with a different set of skills and what one person asks to have fixed might be something another person doesn't care about or would rather do themselves.

So... I'm afraid the answer to the question "to inspect or not inspect" is not a definitive YES or NO but an unsettling, non-definitive ..... it depends!