What’s a home inspection? Do I need one for an apartment?
This came up today on wiredny, and here’s what I posted: When a bank issues a mortgage on a house, it’s generally subject to “inspection” — which means a professional engineer-type person comes out and pokes at the house, inspecting the walls, systems, etc. so the bank feels like its collateral is worth something.
These are generally not done for apartments, because developers aren’t usually going to give an inspector the access to roof, basement, plumbing systems etc that the inspector would have for a house — generally the bank just sends an “appraiser” to make sure the unit exists and that the measurements are acceptable.
Still, some seven-figure purchasers want more than just a walk-through.
So you could, theoretically, spend a few hundred bucks of your own on an inspector and have/him her poke at your tile and turn your oven on. (Generally, in New York, brokers do this as part of our job).
If you want an inspector, I think I’ve posted before that I would hire a member of nahi, the National Association of Home Inspectors, on the web at www.nahi.org.
And I would add that if you do hire an inspector, try to go along to the inspection with a Polaroid and some ribbons. You can use the Polaroid to take pictures of things the inspector says need fixing — and write on the photos immediately, instead of having a handful of digital photos of cracks that you look at three months later. Also — and I believe I owe this tip to The Virgin Homeowner — you can tie one ribbon around your gas shut-off valve and another around your water shut-off valve, so that in an emergency, you can find them quickly.