Don't be a Dick

I had a close friend- let’s call him Dick, to protect his privacy- who went through an all-too-common experience. You might even know someone with a similar story.  Dick bought a new house from a reputable builder, and did not have it inspected by a third-party home inspector- it was new, after all. Dick put $10,000 down that he had worked hard to save up for several years. Dick trusted the builder’s work, and everything looked good to him. He was aware of the 12-month warranty, and he even found a few small things that he asked the builder to have corrected. During that first year he was contacted by a home inspection company or two, but Dick decided not to waste the $450 or whatever on a home inspection he did not need. The 12-month warranty period ended without any issues. Life was good.

Fast-forward 8 years, and suddenly life was changing. Dick’s employer got purchased by another company. His location was getting closed, and everyone was worried about losing their job. Dick was offered a choice: he could keep his job with a small raise, but he would have to move to another city several hours away. Otherwise, Dick would lose his job. Dick considered his options, but the job market had become very tight in the last few years, and Dick could not find anything suitable if he were to remain in place. Dick decided to move to the new location, which would entail selling his house. Dick hired a real estate agent, and they told Dick that home prices had gone up quite a bit since he bought his home. They estimated that Dick would be able to walk away from the sale with about $15,000 after closing expenses, so he would have enough to buy a new house where he needed to move to. Dick’s house still looked pretty new, and Dick get an offer pretty quickly. He worked with an agent in his future home town, and put an offer on a house that he really liked. Things were working out perfectly!

  The buyer for Dick’s house hired a home inspector, and that’s when things went south. The inspector found two bathroom exhaust fans that were terminated in the attic. The roof vents were installed, but nobody went back to make the final connections. For six years all of that moisture from the bathrooms had been getting dumped in the attic, which was now covered in mold. Some of the roof trusses were decaying, and needed repaired, and some insulation needed to be replaced as well. Bids for repair and mold remediation came in around $12,000. The inspector also discovered siding that was decaying because installation details were not executed correctly. Dick inquired regarding the manufacturer’s warranty, and was told that the warranty was void because the product was not installed according to the manufacturer’s specifications. Repair estimates from different siding contractors ranged from $4500-$6000. When the dust settled, not only did Dick not make a profit when he sold his house, but he had to actually come out of pocket almost ten thousand dollars just to complete the sale. Dick was not able to buy a house when he moved, because his future down payment was eaten up by repairs. To add insult to injury, his buyer heard “mold” and backed out of the sale. Dick had to pay contractors with credit cards, so now Dick was paying interest on those repairs. When he put his repaired house back on the market, things got harder. He got another offer, but when this buyer’s inspector noted the mold remediation in the attic, the buyers insisted on a price reduction. Dick was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Time was running out on his move, and he could no longer afford his house if he did not sell it. Dick definitely could not make two house payments. Things looked worse than bleak. Now, in hindsight, the cost of that home inspection Dick could have had 8 years ago, before the builder’s warranty ran out, sounded like a bargain. If only Dick could have gone back in time, and made a different decision. It took him nearly 10 years to recover from that financial setback.

This is a real scenario that we see all the time- major repairs caused by a couple of minor oversights that could have been easily corrected if only caught early. When something is wrong with a house, whether that be a defect in workmanship or deferred maintenance, time is not your friend. Problems with a building never get better over time; they only get worse.

People are human; we all make mistakes. When mistakes are made on a new home build, they can become costly to those unfortunate people who have to clean up the mess later.

At Hoosier Guy, when we inspect a home, we have well over 700 common defects that we are looking for in addition to many more that are less common. Our inspector always hopes to find that perfect home with nothing wrong with it, but we haven’t seen one yet. We would love to help you out by finding the issues you should know about, before they become financially devastating, or worse. Call us today for more details.