Currently in the market looking to purchase a property. Today real estate agent advised that another party offered on a property without a clause subject to building inspection, nor did they get one done.
I thought it was a no brainer to get one done given the magnitude of such a purchase.
Did you get one done?
To be fair, up to the supposed "other party" to not issue a building inspection/ report.
But I also just suspect the REA is lying, cos you'd have to be dumb not to spend $350 to professionally inspect a $1M purchase
To be fair, up to the supposed "other party" to not issue a building inspection/ report.
Wasnt even aware this was an option, though going form the rest of the comments, reports accuracy/coverage seem to differ WILDLY. So I prob personally wouldnt trust one unconditionally that was supplied by selling party anyway…
It's a free market economy - if you want to risk your $1M+ investment by not issuing a building report and being more competitive, you can do that.
What a REA can't do is lie about some supposed 3rd party who has bid $1.1M+, doesn't want a building report and will gift a Rolex to the REA. They'll still try it on occasion.
@Papa Huggies: i cant remember if i saw it on here or reddit but there was a comment the other day where an REA was trying to get commenter to offer extra, saying 'the older couple' that was also viewing the place had put in an offer…turned out the older couple were the commenter's parents lol
@Jimothy Wongingtons: I mean that's grey area cos they're not lying but depending on the state that may or may not be illegal - soft bidding.
Yes it is a no brainer.
but it also is a vague look-over. They'll miss things that require going under the house. Into the ceiling unless there's a huge access hole.
and, if they miss something, you can't blame them.
So yes get it
but at the same time, it's not the end of the world, as it won't catch everything.
maybe the other party is more experienced and knows what to look out for.
but it also is a vague look-over
Hell it shoudlnt be - my inspector when right through and listed tons of stuff (including stuff we havent fixed in 15 years lol). They should do a thorough inspection, though they cant always spot everything they can do a really good job at identifing problem properties.
Yeah, a family member got one done and it was basically useless. Missed lots of stuff.
yes i got one done too
$6600 later fixed things that weren't in it
I got one, and they dropped 15k off the price of the house due to undisclosed issues. Worth the 500 bucks
so u are buying a million dollar house (maybe even more) and cant be bothered spending a few k for a inspection…
ok….
let them have it, it's got issues
New build, yah nah,
Judging by the quality of modern houses, I'd say Yah (profanity) oath.
There’s a few TikTok inspectors. It would make me get an inspection on a new build for sure.
inspectors link ?
I think it's the opposite. Old builds have had their time for issues to develop and symptoms like water damage would be obvious. New builds, you have to be a builder to know what to look for.
so hiring a builder to inspect other builders builds? seems like they know how to win-win …
@capslock janitor: Yes, getting a second opinion from another expert in the same field is common. If I wanted a second opinion for a medical condition then I will be seeing another doctor not veterinarian.
re: new build - no 🤯 … you need to watch a few of these videos
Thanks for this. Entertaining and informative video.
@capslock janitor: Yeah exactly. Was telling my wife about it and said because it's Australian very relevant compared to say an American or UK one.
Also the language he uses too good!! Non compliant!
As good as that guy is if you want their new home inspection package.
Frame, Waterproofing, Fixing, Lock-up and Final prepare to pay 15k~
people like you shouldn't be trying to give out advice - pretty much every piece of advice your trying to give people here is completely wrong, but thats pretty much the internet these days.
horrible advice
Old build - yeah nah.
New build - would not purchase without one.
I cannot stress how incorrect this advice is. Jeez some people need to be held liable for the nonsense they spruik.
Normally only around $500-$600 in Perth
I did, but I didn't get any value for money out of it and I certainly would not bother again.
Maybe I'd call up a random builder that I vaguely knew through my kid's school and offer them $500 to cruise by and have a look, but a random building inspection company with inevitably fake five star google reviews? No way
From what I can tell all of them use one or two tick-a-box software packages. My final printout literally has at least double the number of pages of boilerplate caveats than it has actual information, and most of the information included is barely literate obvious stuff like "door sticks when closing".
The building report missed a number of significant and obvious issues, including a broken window(!) and the boundary fence literally about to fall down (both of which I was aware of before bidding, but still), while they added in random stuff like they were worried that the window sill was too close to the shower and might rot (it hasn't).
They called anything that looked a bit like fibro cement "possibly asbestos" even when the board was obviously pretty recent (eg unpainted cement sheet behind a new smart power meter).
They spent, at most, 40 minutes looking around the house, which I know because they called me to tell me they were coming and sent a text after they left.
Despite only a couple of plants being up against the house they ticked the box that said that an external inspection was not possible due to plants in the way.
Pest inspection was not included, and I didn't organise one as the stumps on the house were clearly going to need to be replaced anyhow and there was a pest treatment sticker in the fuse box.
So yeah. Did I get any value for money out of the tick a box exercise? No. Would I bother sending some random in future to fill in a tick a box questionnaire on some software that probably cost a mint but looked like a badly written Excel script export to PDF? No.
Real estate agents aren't fond of the building inspection clauses because they give you an easy out without penalty if the report says something like "paint chipped", and therefore lie through their teeth claiming that nobody else is getting one. In the end our real estate agent tried to insist that, at least, the clause should only mention "structural" issues, but we held our nerve and insisted that it had to be without qualification which… yeah, might have meant that we could have pulled out if the building inspector didn't like the colour of the paint.
Which, now I think about it, is about the best reason to get one. At least it gives you another week or so to opt out without penalty if you change your mind… And seriously, if you're already the high bidder, which seller is genuinely going to pass up a higher offer from someone who is obviously interested simply because a building inspection clause is a necessary condition of the deal.
I have gone 2 property purchases so far since 2017…
First one was like you mentioned found through Google. Saying the bathroom door was a bit slant because it was hard to close citing potential structure issue. When i moved in, i simply replaced the loose screws and thats it.
2nd property the inspector was referred by a friend who just bought few months before me and they were great even had thermal scanning results, moisture check on walls etc like that TikTok inspector guy (this was before i know about the tiktok inspector account). I asked them to check potential issues of building over easement and the inspector checked the land data and measured the distance (even took photo of the measuring tape) to confirm that my building is not over the easement.
That second guy is pretty good but how much did he charge?
$660
I had similar 50/50 experience. One inspector went out of his way to check everything. Another one was mostly interested in taking a nice photo of the house front for his Facebook page. Same price.
Tiktok inspector has a FB page called “site inspections”
He posts up informative videos and cites buildings standards on why things are defective.
Common defects he usually sees in his videos are defective roofing’s and bathrooms.
If something is wrong with the house the rea is going to push towards no building inspection.
If real estate agent tries to have the building and pest condition removed, it usually means that the property has building and/or pest issue(s). Have them done or pass on the property.
Seems like more and more people are skipping the inspection, or having it done by people who don't actually seem qualified (checkboxes).
minirant:
This is probably indicative of a hot buy-buy market. Not too dissimilar to the crypto boom we saw in 2020-21, when everyone was buying those Sh itCoins then the house kind of collapsed. I feel like the property market in the Capital Cities are overvalued anywhere from 50% to 300% (but a huge collapse like crypto is less likely).
Yea…no it doesn't.
Agents don't want the building and pest condition just like they don't want any condition, because there it's an easy 'out' for the buyer…it wastes the vendor's and the agents time as in MOST cases there aren't serious issues.
So funny reading OzBargain comments when people have no clue what they're talking about…good ole' OzBargain.
Correct.
Any clause is a threat to de-rail the campaign of a property if the sale does not proceed.
The buyer can bail for any reason.
I recently sold a property and would have taken $10-20k less for an unconditional offer vs. a conditional offer.
If you want a building inspection, expect to pay a premium if there's any kind of competition to buy the house.
Examples like this prove why I LOVE AUCTIONS. The bidding, usually, happens on auction day and it's all transparent. None of this BS mind games (during non-auction process) when agents influence you to think you will miss out if you do not do X, Y or Z.
Dummy bidders are hardly transparent.
Your comment demonstrates you are the one who doesn’t understand the auction process. You can’t seriously suggest that dummy bidders are non-existent.
Property ad: 500k
Online valuations: 600k
Auctioneer response to last bid of 700k? Passed in, thank you everyone for coming.
Auctions are a waste of time until the reserve is required to be published.
Private treaty
Property ad: 500k
online valuations 600k
the real estate says someone else is keen and offered $600k and some more, and without the need of a building and pest report… now the balls in your court, let me know your best offer by COB or its sold
house remains on the market 4 weeks later.
Had an offer in subject to inspection, the agent was saying to drop the inspection clause or the vendor will go with a slightly lower unconditional offer.
We declined not wanting to take the risk. Next day it was marked as sold. So I guess they weren't lying. Now we'll never know if we saved ourselves buying a termite riddled house.
The place we ended up buying had no problems with a building inspection as the house was solid. Just needed to go unconditional on finance as it was going to auction in a few weeks.
@JIMB0: The problem is building inspections are too open ended, they are a bit of a get out of jail free card for the buyer. If I was selling I'd definitely take a slightly lower unconditional offer
WTF auctions are the height of mind games. People can and do change their price on the fly to "win". It's a well studied psychology and no small wonder why they are a popular practice.
Also once you buy at auction there is no getting out. So you have to do your pest/building inspections and due diligence on every property you want to enter into an auction for, before you even find out the price. That is far less transparent than an upfront negotiation which leaves you out of pocket nothing as you enter the price discovery phase.
So you think Vendor Bids are a transparent process? You know the ones that get sprung on you by surprise after the auction starts? Good grief!
Auctions you can't do building or pest inspections
Just need to do it prior auction date.
We did two and didn’t end up winning them :(
Often it can be pretty hard to organize. If you find the place 2 weeks out from auction, almost impossible. Although I've never bought a house via auction in a market that wasn't warm to hot.
If the agent is trying to convince you to put an offer in not subject to building inspection there's a good chance something is wrong with the property. On the other hand people do use the minor things on the report to try bargain down the price.
Unless you're paying land value or are confident inspecting it yourself I wouldn't risk it. The place could be riddled with termites and they're trying to offload it onto a sucker.
yes and no.. a seller/REA would always favour an unconditional contract as there's less wriggle room to back out - subject to inspection / subject to finance clauses. do your due diligence but given same price an unconditional offer will always trump a conditional one
No but my experience is enough to compensate. After selling my last place, I watched 2 different inspections. One just walked around thumping walls. The other checked everything - every appliance, cupboard, moisture, roof, eaves etc.
If you have no clue about houses, by all means get one. But be sure to find out precisely what they check and what kind of report they provide. A good inspection should take at least 3 hours.
Wandering around with them is good advice. If they're doing a half arsed job at least you'll know about it. We had a really good one for our place, he went everywhere and took about 200 photos along the way but I know of so many other people who had inspections that missed really obvious things.
A good friend of mine is a building inspector. He and many other building inspectors won't allow the customer to walk around with them. It's hard for them to concentrate and do a thorough job if the customer is contstantly asking questions and shadowing them. It's actually in some of their terms and conditions.
I spoke to him today and he just completed a complicated 4 bedroom house. Including write up it took him 7 hours. He only got paid $350 for it as it was through a company called before you bid, where they take their cut.
He is incredibly thorough, to the point that he doens't make that much money off it because it takes a lot of time. Some inspectors just fly through and do a terrible job.
Always do a Building and pest, it's a drop in the Ocean compared to paying mega bucks if there's issues with the house later down the track
building inspections done by your bog standard building inspectors arnt worth the money they are printed on.
"couldn't access roof didnt check"
"couldn't access under the house didnt check"
"couldn't access roof cavity didnt check"
"didnt comment on electrical as not an electrician"
"didnt comment on plumbing as not a plumber"
so what did you check……
the only building inspector ive seen who actually picks up defects is that tictok bloke
My sentiments exactly. Looking at a crack on the wall and telling me it's 2mm wide doesn't mean anything. I saw it on first inspection. The actual things you need them to check, they aren't willing or competent in doing. What's the point
The tiktok inspector is awesome! His videos are great to watch and learn
I ended up spending like $3-4k on building inspections for multiple properties before we were able to purchase our home, I can understand the emotional rollercoaster of every single inspection.
I would always like to see an inspection, though our last buy we relied on one supplied by the vendor - but performed by a known local inspector and the house was visibly in great condition.
I might skip one if the place was very old/derelict requiring complete renovation. In that case, the report will just be a smorgasbord of lists of issues.
The reason the agent wants you to skip it is they are trying to get as many buyers on the same stage of offers as possible. If three or four buyers are all at the offer stage, the competition for a property operates like an auction, and the vendor can be certain nobody held back, leaving money on the table.
This is the best outcome for a seller.
For a buyer, you need to decide if the property is special to you and you want to play that game.
The reason the agent wants you to skip it is they are trying to get as many buyers on the same stage of offers as possible.
Exactly this.
Also, if they’re all unconditional, the vendor is able to easily compare them. If some have conditions (building inspections, finance, etc.) the vendor has to weigh up the $ amount alongside the risks associated with the conditions (time delay, inspection/finance falling through and having to start seeking offers again)
Do research to find a good and competent inspector, they put no liability clauses in their contracts so if you get a sh!t inspector you are SOL
When a house is very popular and is getting multiple offers, some buyers will provide the most attractive offer by omitting the building&pest inspection, finance clause, cooling off period, etc. This is not really risky if the house obviously needs some work anyway and the buyer is quite experienced at evaluating houses. They are probably already planning an extensive renovation in their head.
Ideally you would only want to pay for something that you can't do yourself. What would that be?
Just did a quick search. Loads of stuff on DIY inspection.
Here is a thought, why not the seller organize recent building inspection for the buyers, thus report available on buyer request for free rather than to have multiple buyers organize their own, seems redundant. Of course in some case buyer still to choose to do their own.
Well if the report came back poor are you going to hand it out to buyers?
ACT sellers do.
Before you bid kinda does this, usually organised by the agent. It's available at a fraction of the cost but the auction winner pays extra after the auction.
hit and miss though. I've had 1 details and 1 very not detailed report
Where's the "Yes, but shouldn't have" option?
TLDR; They've got you over a barrel. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't, and "it's only $800 on a hundreds of thousands Investment" so you just suck it up.
Next time I buy, I'll probably still get one done but I'll make sure to be present to make sure they do their job properly instead of walking around the building for 10 minutes and then pissing off which is probably the reality of what happened..
Bought 2 residences in my life, paid for Building Inspection on both, 2 different Inspectors, both "recommended" by friends/associates, and both reports were, IMHO, a complete waste of time and money.
In both cases, if inspectors looked into the roofspace at all, they might have lifted the manhole with a broomstick and shone a torch through the hole for a split second.
As in both cases, shortly after moving in I found glaring (albeit fairly minor) issues that were entirely missing from the report, clearly visible solely from the vantage of a head poking through the manhole.
Both reports did find other, even more obvious, issues that I was aware of by my own capability to use my eyes during the Open Inspection and my own minimal knowledge of how to build stuff, mostly learned from playing with Lego or something I guess.
Both reports read like form letters. Each section was largely generic, clearly pre-written, with perhaps a word adjustment here or there and even less frequently perhaps an additional sentence following the generic text. If it took more than 10 minutes to prepare, I'd be astounded!
The most valuable piece of info gleaned from 2 reports was that it was preferable to have a concrete path around the building to help minimise subsidence with clay soils.
Both reports have a hefty page of legalese that pretty much says, "legally this report is worthless, even if it's obvious and we missed it, we're still not liable for anything".
No - because it was a new build
Yeah, I wouldn't get for new build. For old build, termite inspection would the most important lol
Building inspectors.
Charge for a service that literally has zero repercussions if you stuff it up or miss something entirely.
Bit of a joke tbh.
The contracts are full of non-liability clauses.
I bought my first property in 2020 (property built in ~2017) and I didn't get an inspection done, which I regret. The property ended up having a few (at the time, what I considered to be 'major') issues, which thankfully I managed to get the builder to fix under warranty (albeit with a lot of back-and-forth headache), and any remaining issues not covered by the warranty didn't cost me too much to fix (3-4 grand total out of pocket).
On the other hand though: I've since heard quite a few stories about people getting building inspections done where major issues weren't picked up. There are no assurances with the building inspections: If a major issue is missed/not-checked, the inspectors are not liable - which highlights the importance of not hiring the absolute cheapest inspector. Either way though, there's always a risk that something will be missed, and you'll have no recourse on that.
But yeah, if I could turn back time I would have got one anyway.
Yes, saved me from purchasing a cowboy renovation. The whole bathroom was a mess to the point I would have to rip it out & start again but I would not have picked up on it myself.
Place I actually purchased was a failed mortgage bank auction, so it was unconditional from the start, but got it at about 20% below its estimated market value at the time so I figured if there were any major hidden problems I had the margin to get it fixed.
I had also purchased my own moisture meter at that point.
It's nice for peace of mind but inspectors can vary. I've had one who basically gave me 3 pages of "Is X, Y, Z ok? Yes". I've also had one who had a comprehensive 20 page document of pictures and descriptions of problems or potential problems. Both were around $400-500
Partner put an offer on a place with a 5k defect limit. Inspector picked up over 10k worth of faults so she backed out.
Took 4 more months for the property to sell so she lucked out there. REA wasn't very happy about it lol.
It's kinda like taking a car to a mechanic prior to purchasing it. Caveat emptor.
The trouble is it comes with a bunch of Caveats. When we had an inspection done by the Archicentre the guy missed a bunch of bad faults. When we tried to take it up with the organisation they pointed out all the disclaimers in their reports and fobbed us off. A friend did similar and the inspector missed that the extension to their house had no stumps.
If you have a builder you trust them talk to them about what is important and what isn’t.
Lmao, just run not walk away. REA has tried to be tactical but has basically all but confirmed for free that something is wrong with the property.
One word: termites. Won't bother if it's an apartment though.
We found a good building inspector as someone else had used him for a house we were interested in, and we got a copy of the report which was impressively detailed. We missed out on that one, and then dodged a bullet with the next house we were interested in because he picked up massive issues with rising damp and probable failed waterproofing in the bathroom.
With the house we bought, he picked up some issues with the roof which we were able to take into account when setting our maximum for the auction.
They won't pick up everything, but I think you'd be mad not to get an inspection. The trick is finding someone decent.
Yep 100%. But, building inspectors, and their inspections can vary massively. Do some reviews, ask around for someone who isn’t a cowboy, or just will have a quick look.
We had a bloke through and he missed a lot unfortunately. Nothing major but enough to be a pain in the arse as we would have offered less.
This biggest issue would be things like termites, water damage, and mould but even then those things can be remedied, it’s more so that it could be very expensive.
I had my offer accepted out of several interested buyers for my first home I was looking to buy; but subsequently pulled out and walked away entirely after the building inspection report came back less than stellar..
Absolute no brainer that saved me a lifetime of headache and countless extra debt in repairs/renovations that I would likely still be drowning in today if I had ignored it.
Thanks for all the tips and advice. We definitely have this property a miss.
I did, and glad. The place we were going to buy was full of termites.
I didn't but it really depends on the type of structure you're buying. For me it wasn't worth it as it's just a solid double-bricked townhouse wedged between two other townhouses with a flat roof.
In my case it was just a matter of checking strata notes to see if there were any problems with other townhouses as well as with common areas. I just made sure to hire a property lawyer to ensure the contract all checked out.
I was told by my solicitor dont bother with building inspection for apartment and refer to strata report instead. Buy yeah for house is a must get.
The only thing I'll get is termite inspection. Every house (including your own) will have issues with it. As others have mentioned, majority of building inspectors just state the obvious and cover everything else with disclaimers against liability.
Lol. Classic tactic to avoid buyers finding faults.
Don't fall for fomo and purchase something you'll regret.
few decades ago i have done it and the report came out with so many clauses which says that building inspector isn't responsible for omission and errors and inaccessible area .. .which basically under the property and above ceiling inside roof cavity…. ~
So it is more of mental satisfaction, i would do it again as well even though i know the report will be full of escape gate for inspector …. however if inspector do find even something cosmetic which they did in my case then it would open a gate for you to negotiate another 1k to 10k … lol … !
not sure how much it cost now a days but it used to be standard $500 .. !
You don't need a clause, you have a few days to get it done during cool off
Cool off isn't free (in Vic anyway)
Oh! That sucks!
in nsw, If you use your cooling-off rights and withdraw from the contract during the 5-business day period(cooling off), you will have to pay the vendor 0.25 percent of the purchase price.
Scumbag REAs lol