What I actually look at during an inspection

The first inspection report a buyer reads is frightening, because it is thirty pages of findings presented without any sense of which ones matter. Every item looks equally serious on paper. Almost none of them are.

What I am reading for is a short list. The age and condition of the roof, the heating and cooling and the water heater, because those are the costs that arrive first and hurt most. Any evidence of water where water should not be, which is the single most expensive category of problem in a house. Anything structural. And anything that suggests a repair was done to sell rather than to last.

That last one is where having built changes what I see. There is a version of a renovation that is done properly and a version that is done to photograph well, and from the finished surface they can look identical. The difference shows up at inspection if somebody knows where to look, and at resale if nobody did.

The practical effect is that we negotiate on four things instead of forty. Sellers respond much better to a short, specific list of genuine problems than to a demand built from the whole report, and buyers get the things that actually cost money addressed rather than a token credit for cosmetic items.

And sometimes the answer is to walk. That is a legitimate outcome and I will tell you when I think it is the right one, even though I do not get paid for it.