3 Reasons to Get Your Brand New Home Inspected

We often talk with potential clients who wonder if they even need to have their brand new home inspected. I totally understand the temptation to skip it. You trust the project manager, the home builder has a good reputation, and everything seems to be on the up on up. There shouldn’t be anything with a new construction home. Right?

You really want to believe that anything significant would have been caught by the county inspector. The project manager assures you it passed the framing inspection, the HVAC,  Electrical, Plumbing, and Mechanical inspections, and the house was issued a certificate of occupancy.

The houses are built by humans though and humans make mistakes. The county inspectors are overworked, under paid, and have zero liability if they miss anything. Every contractor will blame issues on the contractor before him.

There is a strategy that involves waiting until the 11 month mark of owning the home. Most builder contracts include a 1 year warranty on the home. If you have a professional home inspector perform an inspection at the 11th mark, you can find any issues at that point. There is certainly merit to this plan.

That being said, if there are any significant issues that need to be addressed, then a pre purchase home inspection is your best chance to get them repaired by the builder. There is a lot of leverage in being able to tell the builder that you are not closing until they address the issue. Once you move in, you may find that you are not as much as a priority as when they were waiting for your bank to wire over the funds.

I highly recommend getting a pre-drywall inspection during the construction process, and then a final whole house inspection before you close. An 11 month inspection could be beneficial, but perhaps you could focus on the areas you wouldn’t have noticed issues in like the roof, attic and crawlspace. You will already now if the fridge doesn’t work, or if a breaker has been tripping for example.

While we have found countless defects on brand new homes, we’ve compiled 3 videos of some of the more alarming situations we’ve encountered. Check them out!