Dear Claire: How Have Some Inspections Changed During COVID?

Navigating Home Inspections During COVID: A Buyer’s and Seller’s Guide

I’ll answer this question both from the buyer’s perspective and the seller’s perspective. During COVID, inspectors will usually limit the amount of people in the house. If you’re a buyer, you will usually want to walk through the home with everybody, including your grandparents, mother, sister, and best friend. Inspectors are pretty much going to require that you limit the amount of people going through the home. You probably won’t be able to get everyone into the home that you want. It might just be you that the inspector allows in the home and the person, whomever you’re buying the house with. You might be able to say who goes in and out, but it’s going to be limited.

From the seller’s perspective, you want the buyers out of the house for the inspection. You don’t want them to be there, you don’t want to hear them tearing up your house, and you also don’t want to hear what they have to say about the house. That’s not really changed much, but we now ask that buyers wipe down the house after they’ve been in it and we provide bleach wipes. If we’re representing you on the sale, if they open the crawlspace, open any countertops, or counter cabinets, they can wipe them down with bleach wipes. When you come home, you won’t be too concerned about it.

On the seller’s side, there’s a lot of, “Where do I go for four hours?” I’ve advised people to go to a Starbucks if it’s open, or, you know, maybe go to the beach for the day since a typical home inspection is going to be four hours. It’s pretty difficult to find somewhere to go to work from or to go to in general. Four hours you can’t be in your home. That’s kind of a weird COVID problem. You know, there are other places in the US that I think they do pre-listing inspections. Mostly, in Portland, we don’t do that. So, that’s not really a common thing, but we definitely have home inspectors who are like, ”Yeah, I don’t know, if there’s tenants that are living in the property, I don’t really want to be there with them.”

You’ve got to figure out where your tenants can go and all that can be a little bit difficult, but all in all it’s pretty similar. The details are different but it’s all pretty similar.

If you have something else you’d like us to address comment below, or let us know. I love answering your questions especially when they’re on current topics, like this one. And if you just can’t get enough of us, you can go ahead over to our Paris Group Realty, YouTube channel and check us out over there. We’re always happy to have you checking us out. Have a wonderful week and I will see you soon. Take care.

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