Defects You May Overlook When Buying A House

You love the house, but conventional wisdom will lead you to identifying defects that you do not want to overlook in your excitement about buying your house. Buying a house is one of the most important personal and financial decisions you'll make.

Your home and its location will help define you and your family and will be the focal point for most of the activities of your lives for years to come.

Here are five strategies to identify defects that could be overlooked in the purchase of a house:

1. First, review the Inspect America Engineering website:

[www.inspectamerica.com]

This site is a wealth of information for you to understand when buying a house. One of the best features of this website is their extensive checklist for home inspections. You can print off all the pages and place in a binder for you to identify house defects.

2. Rely upon the expertise of a qualified licensed professional engineer (P.E) home inspector.

There are businesses out there offering their services for home inspections, but you should hire one with the P.E. certification.

3. Attend the inspection so that you understand all aspects of what to watch for. This is more helpful than reading a report.

4. Be sure to get a full written report from the inspector telling you, in detail, what is wrong, why it's wrong, and what must be done to correct the identified defects. That checklist described in the #1 strategy is just to orient you. You will need an actual report, not a checklist when it comes to having real information to create that total picture of the house's condition.

5. That detailed report from the licensed professional engineer will establish a professional relationship with that engineer so that you can go back to the engineer with further questions, advice, and direction.

Buying a house that you carefully select and have inspected is the best proactive step any homebuyer can take. Identifying defects, especially the hidden ones, can eliminate much of the uncertainty of your future in that house.

In order to help you remain an informed home buyer here is a list of some of the house defects that can be overlooked:

a) structural additions and renovations - that were most likely installed by the previous home owner

b) defective furnace heat exchangers

c) extensive water damage or leaks that can lead to structural damage

d) electrical concerns that do not meet current standards

e) irregularities in the: roof framing, exterior wall framing, interior framing, cracks in the foundation wall

f) proper grading of land around the home - to divert water away from the home to prevent the water from entering the home

There is nothing like peace of mind when it comes to making big decisions about which house to buy.