There are several things home inspectors point out to potential home buyers that should not come as a surprise during the home inspection. If home buyers took a little extra time to look for this stuff themselves, they could avoid a lot of nasty surprises.

1. Big Roof Problems

It’s tough to find subtle but important roof defects from the ground, but a 5th grader can identify significant, obvious issues. When you’re looking at houses, take a walk around the entire property from a distance, making sure you can see all of the roof slopes. Look for missing and obviously deteriorated shingles. If a roof surface doesn’t look uniform, you probably have a problem. The photos below show obvious defects that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

2. Big Chimney Problems

Masonry chimneys are expensive to fix. My advice for chimneys is the same as roofs; try to look at every chimney from every angle, and look for anything that looks irregular. It’ll probably be expensive to repair.

3. Look at decks up-close and from a distance.

Decks are expensive too. You can spot obvious rot by looking underneath a deck with a good flashlight.

You can identify sagging and frost-heaved decks by looking at them from a distance. These are front-page items on a home inspection report.

For more on deck inspections, check out How to inspect your own deck.

4. Wet Finished Basements

It’s not easy to keep basements dry, especially on old houses. If you have a finished basement, it’s important to look for signs of water intrusion. The most notorious area for water intrusion is the one directly by the front door. Look for stains on the walls, baseboard trim, and trust your nose. A dry basement will not smell moldy.

Subtle stains like those shown above can hide much larger issues. I don’t recommend pulling the carpet back during showings, but the photo below shows what can be hiding below carpet.

For more on this topic, check out How to Prevent Basement Water Intrusion.

5. Old Major Appliances

You usually don’t need a home inspector to tell you your water heater or HVAC appliances are at the end of their life. If you can locate the serial number on this equipment, you can use the website https://www.building-center.org/ to figure out the age of an appliance. And sometimes, the age of the appliance is clearly labeled.

For more on this topic, check out my blog post titled How to determine the age of major appliances.

Summary

When you’re touring houses with your agent, watch out for these items. They’re all fairly easy to see, as long as you know what to look for. For an in-depth review of these items plus a whole lot more, check out my 75-minute Continuing Education class for Minnesota real estate agents, titled Showing Red Flags. I made this class for real estate agents, but anyone can take it. This course has been approved by the Minnesota Commissioner of Commerce for 1.25 hours of Real Estate continuing education, course #1038011.