You open the inspection email and there they are, forty pages of photographs with red circles around parts of a house you did not know had names. If that made your stomach drop, you are reacting the way most buyers do. Buyers working with Irongate Inc., REALTORS® get the same report and the same jolt, and then we sit down together and translate it. An inspection report is not a verdict on the house you fell for in Kettering or Beavercreek. It is a condition summary, and once you know how to read one it becomes the most useful document in your entire purchase.
There is no passing score on a home inspection. Inspectors are trained to document what they observe, and a thorough inspector documents everything, including the cracked outlet cover in the basement and the downspout that dumps water two feet from the foundation. A long report often means you hired someone careful, not that you found a bad...