If you are trying to sell your house, the person who wants to buy it will likely request a home inspector. The home inspector will look at every detail of your house and it will feel as if your home has been invaded. The home inspector will be there for hours. They will turn on faucets, look into closets, and walk through every inch of your hard. You, in the meantime, have to accommodate the home inspector in order to make the sale of your house go through. If you are able to survive the stressful ordeal of having a home inspector come through your house, the payoff is large. You will likely sell your house. The process itself, however, can be hard to get through.
A vast majority of homes are inspected be a home inspector or a professional engineer before a sale is made final. The inspectors are often hired by the homebuyer in order to check out the investment they are about to make. The National Association of Realtors highly recommends that buyers have inspections done and because of that advice, most buyers hire a home inspector of some kind. For sellers, on the other hand, the process of preparing the home for the inspection can be rather stressful. Sellers likely have an emotional attachment to the home and it is hard to have someone go through it with a fine tooth comb and tell you every tiny little thing that is wrong with the home.
When you reach a purchase agreement with your buyer, you likely understand that there will be a contingency clause included in the agreement. This clause allows the buyer to hire a home inspector to examine the home for any major problems. If any problems are found and the buyer is not happy, the agreement can be canceled. Once the initial purchase agreement is signed, the inspection usually occurs within a few days. The home inspector will go through the whole house in 2-3 hours time and check out every tiny detail. The inspector will look at the structural and mechanical health of the home, but he or she might also check for insects, radon gas, or other items.
You can expect that the home inspector that comes into your house is someone who has been trained to do inspections. If you get a professional engineer, you know that person has a high level of training, even more so than an average home inspector. Once the inspection is complete, the inspector will report the findings to the buyer. Some of the reports might show that something in the home needs immediate attention while other reports may show only minor items that may or may not be of concern to the buyer.