Its a common misconception that if a home is new, the home will be free of defects and a home inspection is just a waste of money. In fact, that couldn't be farther from the truth. As a former residential construction manager, I know the pressures of a residential tract housing project. Construction managers have a large number of homes to construct, under an impossible schedule, and with a limited budget. All of which must be orchestrated with a construction force, which is inundated with today's low cost and less skilled labor.
Recently I inspected a 6000 sqft home in corona, which was listed at 1.3 million dollars and to the untrained eye was a beautiful home. My client asked me to inspect the home prior to the close of escrow. Which is a rare request, and I could tell right off, that this client was an educated and seasoned buyer. The home was built by Toll Brothers Homes and was part of an ongoing custom home tract, located in the South West Corona area. I had never inspected a Toll Brother home, at least not to my knowledge, and I was excited to get my hands on the house.
The superintendent was to meet me at the site between 9am and 10am, of course he was not there, and I mean no where on the job site. Which brings up a great point. No supervision was on site, which is not only an OSHA violation, but also a bad way to ensure that a multimillion dollar project is being built correctly. In fact, these days, due to the poor new home sales market, home builders have laid off many of their managers and a lot of superintendents are now overseeing 2 to 5 multi-million dollar jobs at a time and may not be able to be on site on a day to day basis. In addition, a lot of trades pay their employees piece work, which means that the faster the employee finishes, the more money he makes, which leaves quality behind. These types of issues plague the residential home building market and have a real adverse affect on the quality of homes being built. Which is why its more important now than ever before to have an inspection prior to the close of escrow.
Okay, so I get a key from the sales person at the construction office and I informed her that I was here from CRI Inspections and that I was here on behalf of the buyer to inspect 1111 John Doe Drive. I asked her if they had closed escrow on the property yet and she responded, "It doesn't matter what I find, the house is going to close anyways". Wow, I thought her remark was pretty brazen, especially for a sales person. She represent Toll Brothers as not caring about whats wrong with the home, because the home is going to close regardless. This really illustrates why its important to have someone who is skilled and on your side review the residence before you close escrow. Once you close escrow on the house, you become a middle to low priority to the builder and are put in line. In addition, your asking the builder to come in your home after you've already moved in. This means damaging your new floors, walls, and putting your life on hold. If you make repair requests before the check is cashed and fixing your "whatever" hinges on a half a million dollars, guess what, its going to get fixed and fixed now.
OK, so I get access to the home and I find a wide variety of issues that range from life safety to functionality issues. For example; none of the heating systems were functional, the exterior balcony drained back into the home, there were exposed live electrical connections, electrical circuits were installed improperly, the attic had numerous pieces of insulation missing, and so on and so on. All in all, I found about $12K to 13K worth in damages and repairs, repairs that no normal home owner would have event noticed and would have been a nightmare to repair after you already moved in.
