Skipping home inspections might seem like a smart move to strengthen your offer in a competitive market, but this short-sighted decision frequently returns to haunt homeowners years later. Jim and Laura dive deep into the concerning trend of inspection waivers and the painful consequences many homeowners now face when trying to sell properties they purchased without proper due diligence.
Through shocking real-life examples, they reveal how seemingly minor oversights transform into major financial burdens. There's the horrifying story of a flipped house where the renovator converted an exterior deck into bedrooms by simply laying carpet over deck boards that were making ground contact, creating perfect conditions for moisture damage and mold. Another cautionary tale involves unpermitted structural modifications where load-bearing walls were removed without proper engineering or authorization, leaving homeowners vulnerable to both safety concerns and potential legal complications.
The conversation highlights how moisture problems, when caught early, might cost hundreds to repair, but when left undetected for years, can require tens of thousands in remediation. For those who previously purchased without inspections and now plan to sell, the hosts offer practical advice: commission a pre-listing inspection to identify and address issues proactively rather than waiting for buyers to discover them. This transparency creates buyer confidence and demonstrates responsible stewardship of the property.
With approximately 70% of buyers who waived inspections reporting regret about their decision, the podcast makes a compelling case for why professional home inspections remain essential despite market pressures. Whether you're buying, selling, or simply maintaining your home, this episode delivers valuable insights into protecting your largest investment. Have you experienced inspection regrets? Share your story and subscribe for more real estate wisdom from Ohio's inspection experts.
To learn more about Habitation Investigation, the Three-time Winner of the Best Home Inspection Company in the Midwest Plus the Winner of Consumer Choice Award for Columbus Ohio visit Home Inspection Columbus Ohio - Habitation Investigation (homeinspectionsinohio.com)
NBC4 news segments: The importance of home inspections, and what to look for | NBC4 WCMH-TV
Advice from experts: Don’t skip the home inspection | NBC4 WCMH-TV
OSU student’s mysterious symptoms end up tied to apartment’s air quality | NBC4 WCMH-TV
How to save money by winterizing your home | NBC4 WCMH-TV
Continuing Education for Ohio Agents Scheduled classes
Continuing Education for Ohio Agents Course lis...
Episode Transcript
Welcome to the Standing Out in Ohio podcast,
where we discuss topics,upcoming events, news and
predictions with real estateprofessionals and entrepreneurs.
Listen and learn what makestheir companies and themselves
stand out and gain advantagesover the competition and gain
market share.
Subscribe for the latest newsand discussion on what it takes
(00:23):
to stand out from the crowd.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Now here's your host, Jim, for a home inspection in
Ohio.
Trusted licensed homeinspectors for your needs.
From radon to mold, towarranties For a great home
inspection, you really can't gowrong.
Visit HomeInspectionsInOhiocom.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Hey, welcome to the Stand Out in Ohio podcast, jim
and Laura again.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Hi everyone.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Laura, Jim, Do you remember, or was it?
They still do it now,unfortunately, but a couple
years ago they were waivinginspections like crazy.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
That still happened in Cincinnati, I was told
recently.
Not many houses down there, sothey're just waiving inspection
or get their offer accepted.
They make their offer stronger,which really yeah, and I know
something.
I mean they're saving $500,$500, $600 for all for their
inspections.
But what Save that to do therepair of the shit that you
(01:39):
didn't know was wrong in thefirst place?
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Well, and you have no clue how much those repairs are
going to be, because you know,if I've got a piece of crap
house, this is the perfect timefor me to offload it.
Say no, I'm not going to acceptany offers with inspections,
and then you just get out ofyour thing, wash your hands and
walk away, dude if you're a slowmower, that's good timing,
right, right, I didn.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
I never take care of it in my building.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Get rid of them now.
People are leaving.
Speaker 3 (02:06):
I'm going to sell them now.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
I'm going to sell them now, and then I'll buy some
other ones and trash them.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
We don't like those.
You've got to take care ofyourself.
You've got to at least keep itsafe.
I understand You're not goingto put a fancy drain account.
I totally understand that.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
We've had rental properties.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
We get that you put the most expensive shit in.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
No, you can do inexpensive, cost-effective
repairs to it but you make surethat you do the repairs, you
make sure that it's safe, youmake sure that it's livable
control of moisture is thebiggest detriment to houses.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Moisture levels.
Yes, that's like that, don't bea problem, so anyway.
So when people waive in all theinspections, like five years
ago, right, yep, they reallystarted heavily waiving these
inspections, but now they wantto sell them.
Well, now they're in a partwhere now, like all right, we've
been here five years and theywant to sell because maybe
(03:00):
they're moved because of the jobthey went downsizing or
upsizing Because they've gotkids now and they've got kids
now that need a bigger place.
The reason doesn't matter.
But now that they are sellingthe housing and people are not
waiting to expect the businessto be born, all these problems,
unknown problem birds are comingdown the road.
(03:21):
Because I like them all, I didnot know it was a foundation
Right.
Even though that sucks for theowners, it sucks if they were
taken advantage of Pretty muchTaken advantage of by, maybe,
(03:42):
the sellers if they sell it new.
Not all sellers know, butyou'll never be able to do that.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
And not only that, though, but just waiting that
inspection makes no sense,because you're walking in and
you have no clue what you'reactually getting so here's one
thing I'm wondering, though, nowthey find these issues now over
(04:13):
.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Those agents told me I think there's a way that my
offer accepted so that I I think, yeah, I think that person will
have a legitimate case if thatis for doing that, even though
we don't need to pay the fees.
Well, they sign the things in away that it doesn't matter,
(04:34):
they don't have to go back, theycan just say well, I needed a
house.
You told us a way to do it.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
Well, not one attorney we talked to a couple
years ago said that what.
What he's seeing is that peopleare going well.
Yeah, I signed that, but Ididn't understand what I was
getting done.
I didn't understand how thatwas going to impact me down the
road.
Yeah, so people are looking atthat and they're going well.
(05:03):
The person who is supposed toadvise you and have your best
interest advised you to not havethe license professional the
license professional, and atthat point it becomes a problem
then, because now, five yearsdown the road, you're selling
your house and you're findingthat you've got a $20,000
foundation issue that you had noclue about and the new buyers
(05:27):
aren't going to buy it with a$20,000 foundation issue because
they have an inspection Right.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Yes, and there's one story I heard a couple times.
It's like, wow, they put myfive days in the inspection.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Oh yeah, those were Wait, wait.
So you did an inspection,probably about five years ago,
for a place that was justrecently flipped, okay, and you
were walking in one of thebedrooms and something didn't
quite feel right to you, so youstarted investigating.
My effector is Spidey-sense,your Spidey-sense.
(06:04):
What you found was that theyhad converted the deck into
bedrooms to make the houselarger, and they literally put
carpet on the deck floor.
Oh yeah, I can feel the deckfloor which were still touching
the ground so it was all wetthat was going to whip up to the
(06:27):
carpet and cause mold issuedown the road.
And that was a recent flip.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Oh yeah, they cast land on it deck on the outside
of the river.
I remember this primarily.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It was not going right outside.
It was outside.
It was in a place where it wasin the water.
It was in the water.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
It was recently flipped.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
You recently renovated a house Personally,
unless it's, you don't know.
If somebody flips a house, theywon't get it they have.
They're flipping houses forit's to flip the house for their
kids.
If not all of their kids aregood, they could be doing cheap
things for themselves and inthis place, right here,
(07:37):
theyements that are not finished.
The permits, all permitsoutside are still in effect, and
if you're a real estate agent,you're still going to have to
pay, so they'll get into asituation.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Well, like that one Right.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Right.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
Well, what about the one that we did in Delaware that
had been recently flipped andthey had taken the wall out to
the kitchen and the living roomhad not permitted it?
This was the one that wassagging.
This was the one that theclient ended up calling the
(08:35):
Delaware county auditor to askif anything had been permitted
and to find the information out,because she was concerned that
if they bought it they weregoing to be required to, you
know, like, reduce stuff and thedevil were counting on her
because of it.
So I don't know if they learnedit at the client or not.
I have no idea.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
I guess the whole of this story is you need to always
get it inspected Because youdon't know.
I mean, you don't pay for therepairs one way or another and
maybe you don't care how you doit, but you're aware of what's
possible, but you're morecautious.
(09:17):
A bunch of people, maybe aseller, will say I mean, you got
discounts.
A seller would say it's a goodthing, but they didn't get a
discount.
They got a discount on thehouse.
They worked that way.
Or a few years later, all of asudden, the problem gets worse.
(09:38):
We have to go to school.
In that case it's a differentcourse.
Now it's a positive quality.
Or later, a few years later, is.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
We had a call once from a little lady who had a
basement company from now andtold her that she needed those
games in her prospects.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Kevlar strips.
Kevlar strips.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Her prospects was fine, but when they put the
Kevlar strips they startedscrewing up her crawl space and
she was trying to find somebodyto help figure out what was
going on.
So we referred her to anothercompany and we took her out.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
But here's an idea.
Speaker 4 (10:59):
Hers was an art situation.
But here's an idea If you wentfive years ago or four years ago
and you bought your housewithout an inspection and you're
looking to sell it now, don'twait for your buyer to do an
inspection, that you findsomething.
Have somebody come down do amaintenance inspection for you,
(11:20):
give you that list of thingsthat need fixed so that you know
what's going on and you can getit taken care of.
Because once a company comesout to inspect it, if it's done
right, we don't care if we didit or how much it costs or
anything along this line.
We just care that it was doneright and it's functional and
(11:42):
that it works.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
You don't need to fix everything.
I think there's plenty of them,right, but maybe they'll fix
down road if you like it.
It's not going to force, but wegot a couple of here three
things like I asked you a lot.
You can get a dollar, right.
You can leave that report outthe fire to see if we're going
to see how they'll fix it.
So if you sold your house, youwould receive a public comment
(12:05):
on the fixed it, warranty,information or whatever I mean
that buyer.
They're going to have a reallygood feeling that you care and
you could care your house.
But here's the receipts andstuff that I would fix when we
sold our house.
Yeah, we had a person do aninspection on the house, but
(12:25):
their offer was an informationalinspection, we're going to have
anything, no request fromanybody, and we're like, okay,
all right, and we knew our house.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
We took care of it.
We took care of our house.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
It had some age-related things.
It was built in the at least.
Yeah, that was that paper thatwe found.
But at least you know whatyou're doing.
Take care of it.
Take care of it.
(13:03):
Yeah, that sounds like a sellerwho is using SQL for the last
couple of years, or still notdone.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah perfect.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
You might have a big deal about that, so I think
that's it for this one.
But yeah, inspection waving iscoming home to the rooms for
those who waved the inspections.
I got again getting inspection.
Now we can catch bombs early.
It's a real tiny moisture,usually fixed in the beginning.
(13:37):
A lot worse in five, ten years.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Well, like that roof that we were talking about
earlier and that roof in theattic, and the guy hasn't fixed
it.
He hasn't fixed it.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
The commercial building yeah the commercial
building.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
That's just progressively gotten worse
because he just band-aids it.
He doesn't do it right, he's aslumlord.
You don't want that.
If you want to sell your housenow, you need to make sure that
you're taking care of stuff,because people aren't just
jumping the gun anymore.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
but it's not like it was well, all the stories came
from, all the bad, all theregrets yeah it was like 70
percent of the people bought thewave.
The wave is talking regret nothaving an inspection right, or
maybe they they regret buyingthat place, which tells me
there's issues.
There's issues, yeah, therecould be other issues, but they
regret they grab.
Finally, first place there's aproblem, there's issues popping
(14:31):
up because that they wish, theywould probably wish they'd be
guided better.
Right like that.
Nobody wants less information,no you always really love to be
clueless, which is not a goodstate to.
I'd really love to be clueless,which is not a good state to be
in.
All right, everybody, thank you, bye.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Bye-bye.
You've been listening to theStanding Out in Ohio podcast.
Be sure to subscribe on Spotifyor Google Podcasts to get new,
fresh episodes.
For more, please follow us onInstagram, twitter and Facebook,
or visit the website of thebest Ohio home inspection
company athomeinspectionsinohiocom or
(15:10):
jimtroffcom.
That's J-I-M-T-R-O-T-H andclick on podcast.
Until next time, learn and godo stuff.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.