Pre-purchase Inspections:  Thorough inspections, thoughtful analysis of observations, detailed reports addressing not only my observations, but likely implications of the more significant ones. Similar inspection can be done pre-listing, post-purchase (e.g. if you’ve waived your inspection contingency), for general maintenance planning, etc.
Residential: Single family homes, townhomes, condos, duplexes and multiple dwellings
Commercial and Institutional properties up to 30,000 Sq. Ft., including office, retail, mixed-use, light industrial and institutional (e.g. churches). This is a thorough residential-style inspection. I do not conduct Phase One environmental assessments and other services often performed in connection with commercial property inspections.

Radon Testing (with home inspection only)

Moisture Testing of Stucco Exteriors

Troubleshooting Consultations, Including Wet Basement Consults (and “not yet wet, let’s keep it that way” consults)

Defective Workmanship / Defective Construction Inspections

Storm and Accidental Damage Inspections

Pre-offer Consults: Note: the following relates primarily to the red-hot sellers’ market from spring 2020 through spring 2022, though there are still occasional situations where a pre-offer consult may be worthwhile - it just shouldn’t be confused with a full pre-purchase inspection performed within an inspection contingency on a property under contract.

Considering waiving your inspection contingency in a multiple offer situation, to make your offer more attractive to the seller?  This has been an occasional strategy in hot seller’s markets since at least the late 1990s, but has become more common since the spring of 2020, especially for starter homes. I don’t encourage this, because I’ve heard enough tales of woe from clients about an excessive number of costly surprises on their previous home purchase. However, recent market conditions are understandably steering some buyers toward this tactic for many starter and next-tier homes, and even some upper bracket homes. I believe the best uses of pre-offer consults are 1) to help choose among two or three properties you are considering making an offer on, and 2) to potentially avoid paying for a full inspection of a property that a brief consult might reveal to have an excessive array of repair needs, and also to avoid investing a few days or more in that process when you could be searching for another, better, property.

However, if you are considering making an offer that includes waiving your inspection contingency, a pre-offer consult can substantially narrow the unknowns and greatly reduce the risk of being surprised after closing with multiple major problems. I’ll be able to tell you quite a bit in a 30-60 minute showing appointment (schedule permitting, I’ll arrive 15-30 minutes early to do the exterior, stretching the time I have to more than just the length of the showing appointment; I’ll work with a 15 minute showing appointment if that’s all that can be arranged, but this is much riskier). This isn’t a home inspection, but rather what an experienced eye can discover in a short period of time. I generally won’t use a ladder to walk the roof, open access panels for attics, crawl spaces, electrical panels or furnaces, or test windows and electrical outlets, but I am often able to alert clients to likely concerns about these items or areas just by looking at them as readily visible and drawing inferences based on the age of the house and other factors. The pre-offer consult is best done with client present, but findings can be communicated by phone or in a brief email.  Wouldn’t you like to have a macro-level heads up about most of the potential major expenses you might be facing in the first few years of ownership?  To be clear, this can minimize the unknowns for you going in, but won’t reduce your risk as much as a home inspection. It won’t include a thorough, carefully written report with photos like the ones I provide with my inspections, intended to potentially be useful as a negotiating tool. I can’t promise short-notice availability every day, but will make every effort to fit this consult in quickly, in advance of an offer deadline. Up to 45 minute consult: $200 (this normally means working with a 30 minute showing appointment, allowing for starting on the exterior 15 minutes early), payable in advance by PayPal (I may waive the advance payment requirement for those who will be attending in person and with whom I have a prior relationship). $25 for each additional quarter-hour or part thereof. An additional distance charge may be applied outside St. Paul and adjacent cities. Full liability waiver required.

ABOUT OUTCOMES: Waiving the inspection contingency doesn’t ALWAYS work out badly. I’ve done some post-closing inspections for people who wanted to know what issues they should be anticipating, especially short-term. Most of these turned out to be typical to above average properties that very few clients would have walked away from after a PRE-purchase inspection, at least in the COVID market. But there was generally at least one fairly serious short-term concern that the client wasn’t aware of, most notably a chimney at risk of falling (my sampling of post-closing inspections is small, and may be skewed). On the flip side, cautionary tales include several properties I’ve inspected for first-time buyers in the last two years that turned up a staggering array of concerns. On top of multiple things like windows, roofs, decks and furnaces in need of replacement, poor insulation, dilapidated garages and some structural concerns, these houses had space utilization issues like poorly laid out kitchens large enough that it seemed like it should be easy to re-design them into more functional workspaces, but where, as it turned out, it really wouldn’t work so well to move the sink or refrigerator to what initially looked like a better spot. Or that had spaces large enough to add a bedroom or two, but with egress deficits, stairway or bathroom access or headroom issues that would have been very costly or completely impractical to address (my clients were under the impression that these would be relatively easy scenarios for adding a bedroom or two to increase equity). In one of these cases, one of the deeper money-pit properties I’ve encountered, I didn’t know until after the fact that my clients’ inspection contingency had been waived by their agent in submitting the offer. Apparently my clients weren’t fully aware of that either, or at least the implications of it, at the time of the inspection, which was before closing, as if under an inspection contingency. There was a difference of opinion about whether the clients had given fully informed consent to waive the contingency (I, of course, had no way of knowing whose “truth” was more valid). Ultimately, my clients were able to walk away and have their earnest money returned. A cautionary tale for agents and buyers alike. They found a much better house two months later.