What is a home inspection
and what happens after it?
A home inspection is a licensed inspector's visual examination of a house's systems and structure. What the report says is usually the start of a conversation about repairs or a credit, not a verdict on the house.
- A home inspection is a professional visual examination of a property's systems and structure, including the roof, foundation, heating and cooling, plumbing and electrical, carried out by a licensed inspector
- The buyer typically uses what the report finds to ask for repairs or a credit, or to invoke the inspection contingency
- Visual is the operative word: what sits behind a finished wall or below the ground is a separate specialist's call, which is why septic, well, radon and sewer scopes are booked as their own appointments
Term. Written by The JK Realty Group.
A home inspection is a professional visual examination of a house: the roof, the foundation, the heating and cooling, the plumbing and the electrical. A licensed inspector walks the property and writes up what they find. In South Jersey a buyer usually schedules one shortly after going under contract, and the report that comes back is used to ask the seller for repairs or for a credit, or to step back under the inspection contingency.
Say an inspector on a house around $350,000 flags an aging water heater and some lifted shingles. The buyer does not have to take the house exactly as it is, and the seller does not have to fix everything on the list. A common landing spot is a credit at closing, where the buyer takes the money and handles the work on their own schedule instead of the seller arranging a repair in the days before settlement. Those numbers are an illustration, not an offer or a quote, and a seller can always decline.
Visual is the word doing most of the work in that definition. An inspector reports what can be seen and reached on the day. What sits behind a finished wall or below the ground is somebody else's call, which is why septic, well, radon and sewer scopes get booked as their own appointments when a house calls for one.
What to ask, and who answers it: your inspector is the one who explains what a finding means and how urgent it is. Your agent can tell you how a repair request tends to land with a particular seller, and whether a credit or a repair is the better ask. How the inspection contingency itself works is a question for your attorney.
Our take
An inspection report reads like a list of problems, but most of it is maintenance any house of that age would have. If you are buying in South Jersey, ask your inspector which items are urgent before deciding what to ask the seller for.
Have a question about the process? Let's talk.
The figures in the example are illustrative, not an offer or a quote. What a specific finding means for a specific house is a question for your inspector. General information, not advice about any specific property. The JK Realty Group, brokered with OMNI Real Estate Professionals. Equal Housing Opportunity. See our Terms of Use for how we source and credit these posts.