New Home Inspection Check List

- Free New home inspection checklists are a great tool to assist new home buyers. Buyers of new homes are frequently given the mistaken impression that the municipality has performed all the necessary and required new home inspections. Simple home inspection checklists sometimes allow new home buyers to find defects they might otherwise miss.

- For each 8-hour shift a municipal code inspector may have 5 hours on the road. The other three hours is spent on the phone, setting up schedules, reviewing plans, dealing with mountains of paperwork and other administrative tasks. If the inspector is given seven code inspections plus three new home inspections to perform in one day how much time does he or she have at each job site to go through his or her new home inspection checklist.

- Well there are many reasons. Budget cuts have cut back on the staffing at many municipal building departments. Where there was once a larger staff to inspect there is a smaller staff. Only a small segment of time is devoted to new home inspections
  Frequently after new home buyers move into the home they discover the reality – in the vast majority of cases municipalities only perform the minimal new home inspections they are required to perform.

- 10 inspections / 5 hours = 1/2 per inspection. If he or she can hit the hyperspace button to move between inspections. New home inspections are more difficult because when town inspectors get there they may not have paved roads and/or sidewalks. Subtract out time spent in traffic, filling out forms on jobs, waiting for people to answer doorbells, cleaning off dirty shoes before entering the home, discussing problems with those on the job and walking to and from the car, I think each municipal inspector is lucky they have any time at all left to actually fill out the new home inspection checklist.

If you wish for a thorough home inspection please touch to call (973) 812-5100.

- In many municipalities inspectors are assigned many more than ten inspections a day. Think of your town and how long it takes you to get from one place to another. Imagine how long it must take the inspectors to plot a route through town to each and every inspection and find ten different homes a day. New home inspections are sometimes on streets without signs and or house numbers. Now to toss a few monkey wrenches into the day such as fires and other disasters they are called on to provide expertise, plus a few crises such as the mayor calling to find out why so and so failed an inspection and how come so and so passed (yes it happens).

- While many or most municipal inspectors try their best to inspect new homes and renovated homes to the best of their ability, factors beyond their control make it difficult or impossible to provide the most thorough inspections they would like.

- While many Real estate agents think buyers do not have to worry because the town approved it, there is seldom the degree of inspection provided the buyer thinks. In New Jersey, most municipalities do not check to determine if permits were obtained for all the work performed on the home since it last changed hands. Some towns will check for open permits but that is about it. If a buyer wants to know if permits and municipal approvals were obtained for all work performed on the home it is the buyers’ job to do that research on their own.

- Buyers are cautioned if work was recently performed on a home such as newer kitchens, newer bathrooms or renovations they must check to determine if the real estate taxes were updated. A favorite trick is to completely renovate a home and put in on the market quickly before the real estate tax increase hits the books. Too often home buyers are then surprised by the new tax bill when they can least afford it.

- Home buyers who hire independent home inspectors are much better off because they get the undivided attention of a qualified and experienced home inspector for a couple of hours.

Free home inspection checklist for home buyers are available to help avoid surprises when they move in. Few patients would think to purchase books on surgery and try it out on themselves, why then buy a book or a home inspection checklist and try it out on the most expensive purchase they ever made is beyond me.

Home Inspections by Accurate Inspections, Inc.