Updated 2024 by Andrew Mackintosh
Let’s talk about the terrible, terrible idea that is DIY home inspections. No. It’s a really terrible idea. But… I’m a qualified builder! I can do my own pre-purchase house inspection. Nope. You, my friend, are still underqualified. Even if you’re a master builder with plenty of experience, pre-purchase building inspections are a specialised skill – and the more experienced the building inspector, the better the result. You’re not saving the building inspection fee, you’re gambling hundreds of thousands of dollars for the sake of a couple of hundred dollars. Frankly, you’d get better odds at the Treasury.
Open Home Inspections are NOT Building Inspections
In these days of unlimited information, it is very tempting to perform your own home inspection, armed with a downloadable you found on a website. The theory is that once you are aware of what to look out for you can very easily and efficiently perform a pre-purchase inspection and do away with the need for expert advice. After all, leaking pipes and cracks in the foundations are easy to spot. Right?
Wrong! There are numerous self-help guides available which give you the basic know-how to allow you to walk through a home before you buy and pick out any noticeable concerns. These are AWESOME for open home inspections. You should absolutely arm yourself with an open home checklist. It will help you do an educated walkthrough. You’ll stop seeing a beautifully staged dream home and start seeing red flags. You’ll be, listening out for creaking floorboards and sniffing the air for the smell of damp. But often the most critical of defects are overlooked or, worse still, not even considered.
Oh, the things I’ve seen
I’ve been doing pre-purchase building inspections in Brisbane for 30+ years. When I visit a property, the way I look at it is a bit different to how you, as a layperson may look at it. The red flags I see aren’t the very OBVIOUS cracks and stains which may be nothing, or may be everything. It’s the energy that’s been put into “styling” certain areas. It’s the investment in unnecessary cosmetic improvements that won’t give the seller much ROI. It’s, in short, evidence that the seller is trying to hide something. It’s not the obvious issues that will cost buyers in the long run, it’s the subtle ones.
Hidden Flood Damage
I recently inspected a home in Sandgate on Brisbane’s north side. The house was in reasonable condition. The colour scheme was a little outdated, so I knew that the seller hadn’t invested in this relatively cheap improvement that brings good ROI on the sale day. But, downstairs, was a different story. The seller had gone to great lengths to paint and style what was, in reality not much more than a garage, rumpus and laundry. To the layperson, it looked like an attempt at making the downstairs area “livable”. Perhaps a child had drawn on the downstairs walls. Perhaps they ran out of time to paint the rest of the house. A little further investigation found the backyard shed was full of sandbags. Digging deeper, there was evidence that internal walls had been replaced. The new paint, wasn’t to create a “happy play room” for kids. It was all part of the seller’s attempt to disguise extensive flood damage. The issue with DIY building inspections is that some sellers will go to great lengths to hide building flaws.
Dangerous Deceptions
I once inspected a post-war home on stumps in the Logan area. The property had been a low-cost rental for more than a decade. The seller had updated the bathroom and kitchen (with very low quality building materials) and painted the property (in some cases painting straight over wall stickers and poorly patched holes). The property had clear signs of long-term neglect – to the trained eye. The paint disguised what must have been very stained ceilings due to holes in the roof. The kitchen renovations included “dodgy plumbing work” with old pipes simply ‘filled with concrete” rather than being properly removed. But, perhaps the most terrifying “cover up” was, in the crawl space under the bathroom and adjoing bedroom, I noticed that the hardwood floor boards looked…new. But, they weren’t. The seller had re-tiled the bathroom and then attached a thin timber layer under the original floor boards, to hide the wood rot. Instead of going to the significant expense of replacing the whole floor, the seller had chosen to disguise the rot as cheaply as possible. It was hard for me, a veteran inspector with 30+ years experience, to spot the deception – the seller had worked hard to hide it. It would be impossible for the untrained eye. The result? There was a very high risk that the first time the new owners filled the bathtub, the whole floor could fall through. The buyer had two small children. The whole situation was terrifying.
Please, I beg you, hire a qualified professional
This is why you need to employ the services of a professional home inspector. They bring with them years of experience, and can carefully look at the areas of a home that sellers strategically try to cover up.
Most importantly, professional inspectors have knowledge of building construction and tools to allow them to inspect a home in areas you cannot see. Your family member who is pretty good with a set of tools, or a friend who dabbles in the odd building job may have more of an idea of what can go wrong than the average person, however, there is more to an inspection than just what we see.
Inspecting areas of the home not accessible to the average home buyer
A home inspection checklist will certainly include elements of a home that you may not have considered being important to inspect. These can include everything from the electrics to the plumbing, cooling systems and even airflow in and around the foundations of the home. While a building inspector can’t “rip off the walls and take a look”, we can spot the red flags that there may be something that needs further investigation. We can advise you to call in a plumbing inspector or sparky to check on a potential issue. Only a professional will be granted permission from a homeowner to view parts of the property where the red flags hide. Unless you have been trained, or have had previous experience inspecting a property, you could very well overlook the little things; and often it is the little things that are going to cause the biggest headaches.
DIY home inspections can be dangerous
There is no denying that a home inspection can be risky and rather dangerous. Climbing onto the roof to inspect the chimney, tiles, gutters – entering the ceiling crawlspace, inspecting homes with suspect wiring – it’s a dangerous job if I do say so myself. Without the proper safety equipment, you could be presented with any number of unexpected hazards. There really is no reason to risk your health or that of a builder friend who offers to help out, when you can hire a professional building inspector from within the local Brisbane area.
Legal and compliance issues
Every legal or regulatory risk you take undermines you if a problem arises. Perhaps it will just be with your bank. Maybe your insurance company. Or perhaps you will need to purse compensation from the seller at QCAT or through the court system. DIY home inspections leave you without a legal leg to stand on. You’re done. Do you know what the legal requirements are for ceiling heights? For balustrade spacing on a second floor? Do you understand the laws around fence lines? Building over sewers? Fire safety compliance? Retaining wall construction? A gap in your knowledge in any one of these areas could cost you tens of thousands of dollars – or worse, it could cost your family’s safety.
DIY home inspections are not unbiased or independent
When looking to buy a home there is always emotion attached to the decision making process. Inspecting a property yourself can be challenging as it is easy for you to overlook a concern or downplay it to convince yourself that it will be okay. And if you have fallen head over heels for a house you really want to buy, you may get swept up in the atmosphere the homeowners create with fresh vases of flowers and strategically placed furniture. All these little touches are designed to ensure you do not see what is really there.
What you need is an unbiased, independent home inspection; one that is performed by a team that has no vested interest in the property other than to reveal the facts.
Don’t take a risk on your investment.
- Even builders aren’t building inspectors. While your building inspector should be a qualified builder, it’s a different skill set.
- If you perform a DIY home inspection, you will have zero legal redress if the seller has acted maliciously.
- Your bank may also choose to deny funding and the purchase may fail to go unconditional.
- You may miss a single detail that costs tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix.
- You have ZERO option to renegotiate the purchase price based on the state of the property.
The Building Inspection Report is your buyer’s handbook
A DIY home inspection is risky. Even if you know what to look for, your own inspection is never going to be as thorough or as complete as a professional. When you partner with Action Property Inspections, you’ll not only have peace of mind that nothing will be left unturned but at the completion of the inspection you will be presented with a detailed report. This document explains exactly what was found, the degree to which it is a concern and even an idea of the cost to make repairs. In addition to photos taken as evidence, this insight into future expenses is priceless. It will help you make a more thorough analysis of the property and determine whether it really is a dream home and one you can spend money on overtime to further improve, or unfortunately a property that is going to cost more than it is worth.
A professional home inspector can process what they see and clearly understand what is presented to them in a more efficient manner because of their depth of experience. There could be recurring problems common for a particular style of home or a particular neighborhood. With local council knowledge, a professional inspector may be aware of homes in flood-prone areas and therefore keep a keen eye out for additional elements.
It is also important to be aware that in addition to a building inspection, a pest inspection should be undertaken. Action Property Inspections can put you in touch with an experienced team who will not only be able to clearly identify the presence of pests, but give you a heads up if there are areas of the property where pests once were or have easy access to. All this is invaluable information.
Don’t take a risk and do your own home inspection. Don’t even rely on a qualified builder friend or someone who knows the ins and outs of a property. Even the most well-meaning person can overlook key defects. Contact an experienced building inspection company and organise for an independent thorough and accurate pre-purchase home inspection today. Avoid any future potential problems and find out now, before you buy, exactly what you are investing your money in.