How a home inspection can bring you peace of mind

What is the purpose of a home inspection? A home inspection, which, in the case of a home-selling situation, is when a buyer pays for a professional, neutral third party to come in and inspect a home. This inspection points out to the buyer any problems or potential problems with the house, which empowers the buyer to make a more informed decision on whether to buy the house or not or what negotiations to make with the seller. Home inspections can also be done for homeowners who simply want a better understanding of their home, whether or not they’re intending to sell. 

A home inspection can be scary because we often would rather live in ignorance than face problems a house might have. After all, repairs can be costly and inconvenient. But remember: it’s worse to not know what is wrong than to know what is wrong.

What do we mean by that? For example: say there is a house you want to buy, but you know that it has some roof damage that you know you’ll have to address. While inconvenient, it’s much better that you know this problem than to buy the house, move in, and find out on a rainy day that there is leakage.

To take it further: say you get a home inspection for this house, and the inspector discovers some foundational issues. You have room in your budget to do work on the roof, but not on the foundational as well, which is more severe. 

While it is a huge disappointment that this house is no longer the house of your dreams, this is a way better outcome than discovering this later when you’ve already bought the house! So, in short, fear what you don’t know, not what you do.