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Comment by trevor-e | Hacker News Reader

>(It's one of the reasons why home inspectors are almost completely useless.)

I think this is more accurately "home inspectors recommended by the realtor". Home inspections are extremely useful, so long as they are working in your best interest.

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Yes but such a crap shoot. And you'll easily spend $500 paying for one. Best advice I ever got was to just hire a general contractor to do it for roughly the same price. They find way more stuff and generally know the codes better. I've had inspectors miss huge structural problems that destroyed me later.

You may hit a roadblock as the sales contract may require that any inspection be performed by a "licensed home inspector" not a general contractor. Its just another siphon in the residential real estate pipeline.

Many GCs are licensed home inspectors because they give free estimates all day so they may as well get paid for a few of them. A lot of people buy homes then immediately get work done and if you're not an obvious scumbag the fact that you've already conducted one transaction with the new owner will not hurt you.

That is just made part of the offer. Take it or leave it.

After my most recent (second) home purchase I vowed never to pay for an inspector again. They assume no liability for the things they miss making them effectively useless if you have even the most basic knowledge of home issues. In both cases major issues were missed, most recently the complete absence of any air return ducts, and an illegally installed furnace. I had to find these issues myself later when constant HVAC problems finally drove me to take some time and climb into the attic/basement to investigate. Upon confronting the inspector, I was shown the portion of the contract indicating they had no liability and told even experts miss things. Luckily I knew the right people to put some pressure on and got my ~$500 back, but ultimately lost thousands to have appropriate repairs done for the work they missed.

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