Why get a home inspection, and what it costs in Jacksonville

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Who this matters most to

If you are buying at the top of what you can afford — and most first-time buyers on a public-service salary are — the inspection matters more to you than it does to anybody else in the transaction. A buyer with plenty of cushion can absorb a surprise water heater. A buyer who is stretched cannot, and a five-thousand-dollar repair three months in is how good people end up in trouble.

So this is not a formality to be skipped to make an offer look stronger. It is the piece of due diligence with the highest return per dollar in the entire process.

The basics

What an inspection covers, and what it does not

A Florida home inspection is a visual, non-invasive review of the readily accessible parts of a house. Nothing is opened up or taken apart. What you get is a photographed, written record of condition on the day.

Expect the roof surface and structure, attic, insulation and ventilation, foundation and visible structure, exterior, drainage, windows and doors, the electrical panel and accessible wiring, plumbing supply and drains, water heater, HVAC and ductwork, built-in appliances and the garage.

It is not a code inspection, not an appraisal, not a warranty and not a guarantee that nothing will fail. It is one person's honest account of what could be seen.

Jacksonville specifically

What comes up on older Jacksonville houses

A great deal of the housing that first-time buyers can actually afford in this city was built between the 1940s and the 1970s. Riverside, Murray Hill, Springfield, Arlington, Lake Lucina, Cedar Hills, the Westside. Beautiful, solid houses, and they share a predictable list of findings.

• Roof age. The single biggest item. It is both a repair question and, more urgently, an insurance question.
• Electrical panels. Certain older panel brands are difficult or impossible to insure and some carriers decline outright. Ask what brand the panel is before you fall for the house.
• Cast iron drain lines, which corrode from the inside and are invisible until they are not. A sewer scope answers this for a couple of hundred dollars.
• Polybutylene supply lines, used widely in the late 1970s through the mid 1990s. Many insurers will not write a policy over them.
• Original single-pane windows and unattached water heaters, both minor on their own and both worth money in negotiation.
• Additions and enclosed carports done without permits. Extremely common. Check the permit history with the city before you assume that square footage is legal.
• Lead-based paint and asbestos considerations on pre-1978 homes. There is a federal disclosure requirement, and on an FHA file peeling paint becomes a repair item.

The two Florida reports

Wind mitigation and the 4-point

These two are not part of a standard home inspection unless you ask, and in Florida they are frequently the difference between a house you can afford and one you cannot.

There is more on how insurers actually use these, and what to do when a house is hard to insure, on my homeowners insurance guide.

Money

What it costs in this market

If money is tight, the priority order is: general inspection, wind mitigation, 4-point, sewer scope on an older house. Do not economise by skipping the inspection and keeping the add-ons.

After the report

Negotiating without losing the house

A thorough inspector on a sixty-year-old house will hand you a sixty-page report with fifty items in it. That is not a disaster and it is not a demand list. Handing all fifty to the seller is the fastest way to lose a house you wanted.

1. Safety and insurability first. Roof, panel, active leaks, structural movement, anything that makes the house unsafe or uninsurable.
2. Systems with a date on them second. HVAC, water heater, drain lines. These are bills, not defects.
3. Everything else third, and mostly leave it there.
4. Get one or two real quotes on the items you plan to raise. A number from a licensed contractor moves a seller. An adjective does not.
5. Ask for a credit rather than repairs where you sensibly can. A seller who is already moving out hires the cheapest contractor available. A credit lets you hire your own.

Choosing

Picking an inspector

• Verify the Florida licence yourself at DBPR. It is free and it takes a minute.
• Ask for a sample report on a house of similar age.
• Ask whether wind mitigation and the 4-point are included or extra.
• Ask how long they will be on site. Ninety minutes on a 2,000 square foot house is a walk-through.
• Go with them, and ask questions. You will learn more in two hours in that attic than in a year of reading.

A factual list of licensed companies serving this region is on my inspector directory. It is a list, not a recommendation.