The Inspection and Appraisal
After you’ve found the right property and have had your offer accepted by the seller, how do you know that it’s safe to inhabit, or that there aren't some hidden problems there that the seller conveniently forgot to disclose to you?
A property inspection is an important procedure to spot many of the major problems in a property. Use it as a tool to help you ascertain whether or not the property has major issues that you’ll need to deal with, like a leaking roof, cracked water pipes, or structural problems in the foundation.
However, be aware of the inspector’s disclaimer. Inspectors don’t have x-ray vision and they are not perfect. They can generally pick up on major problems, but there may be things that they too can miss along the way. With older properties, it would be impossible to identify every single thing that is imperfect; the goal should be to identify the major items that would prevent you from safely and comfortably occupying the home.
A complete list of all Washington state inspectors with the additional pest-inspection certification is available through this link:
Pest-Certified Home Inspectors
I also have a great team of inspectors that I've used for years, and would be happy to provide you with some good recommendations for these professionals as well.
If you’re using a mortgage to buy a property, the bank will also be sending over an appraiser. Different appraisers have different methods for calculating a property’s worth. Generally, an appraiser will visit the home and look inside and outside to get a feel for the value. They will likely take measurements of the property and make their calculations based on comparable sales data and square footage costs. Coupled with neighborhood data, they should be able to come up with a good idea of whether or not the home is reasonably priced.
Insider’s Insight: Inspectors, appraisers, assessors and real estate agents have long debated over the criteria necessary to term a room a bedroom. Ask ten professionals and you will get slightly different answers from most of them. The general characteristics of a bedroom used by the appraisers I've spoken to are: the room should be self-contained (e.g. not open like a living room); the room should have a method of egress (e.g. window); and the room should have a source of heating. The parameters of each criteria, however, are rather vague. Does it count if a bedroom has a window way up high that would be very difficult to reach in an emergency? What about a very tiny room that meets all of the above criteria, but couldn't hold more than a bed? Or how about a room that has a portable electric heater bolted onto the wall? The ambiguity in the definition of terms in the real estate industry are most apparent when it comes to trying to define what a bedroom is.