The purchase of a home is one of the most exciting and nerve racking times for people. Once you get to inspection phase, there are certain things that a home inspector is looking for and other things they are not equiped to determine. Make sure that you are discussing recommendations of a good home inspector with your realtor. Also, find out what credentials the inspector has. Many times you will need to pay additional people to come out and look if there is something the inspector sees that might be wrong with, say, the furnace. Inspectors are only capable of making a general assesment and are not specialized in one specfic area.

Make sure when you attend the home inspection that you are taking many notes. You may want to video the inspection for future reference. I find that there is so much information that by asking a lot of questions during the process the inspector tends to get distracted and can miss important things. As you are going through the home if a question comes up, jot it down and then take the inspector back to that area and ask your questions after the complete job has been done. That way they won’t look the other way while a pipe is leaking and miss the thing entirely! (True story I had to make the guy turn the water back on because he swore he didn’t see it while he was discussing another issue with my client.)