Parkwood Property Inspections: Home Inspect NCions in the Triad & Triangle – High Point, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, and Surrounding Areas!
Two weeks ago we took a small vacation from inspecting homes and spent some time at one of North Carolina’s beautiful beaches with a group of friends. After frying 3 pounds of bacon one morning for a community breakfast, a fellow beachgoer asked why I was pouring the grease in a dish rather than down the drain. Her comment prompted this blog.
Read More “Ask the Home Inspector: Can I Pour Grease Down the Drain?”
Buyers have been told all summer that we are in a sellers’ market. One of the main reasons for this is that a housing inventory shortage has caused competition for properties to be fierce. However, fall is fast approaching, which means, based on housing trends, sales will slow down and homes may sit longer than they did over the summer.
Most of the common electrical terms get their names from the people who helped develop the concepts. Let’s look at what some of the common electrical terms mean.
Alessandro Volta was an Italian physicist and a pioneer of electricity and power. He is credited as the inventor of the electrical battery. The scientific unit of electrical potential is named in his honor. Volts, or voltage, is a measure of the force in an electrical system. The average house has 240 volts of electricity available to it. In homes, we can split the 240 volts into separate branches with 120 volts of power supplying most outlets, or keep it together with 240 volts of potential at some outlets. Standard plugs and outlets are fit to run items on 120 volts. Special plugs are used when appliances or equipment require a higher voltage to operate.
Read More “Electrical Terminology: Volts, Ohms, Amps, and Watts”
Sometimes we inspect homes that have gone through the foreclosure process for our clients. They often have ideas about flipping the house or using the property as a rental, and want us to look it over so they know where to begin in rehabbing the home.
The average size of an American home is on the rise. According to census data, the average new home is around 2500 square feet, which is roughly 50% more area than the average 1970’s era home. Houses of today often have larger rooms than houses of the past. They also typically have an extra bedroom and bathroom.
This expansion has come at a cost: The American lawn.
The first diagram below shows what the average house looked like in 1978, when it measured 1,650 square feet and sat on 0.22 acres. The second shows its counterpart from 2015. As homes have grown larger, the lots they’re built on have actually gotten smaller—average area is down 13 percent since 1978, to 0.19 acres. That might not seem like a lot, but after adjusting for houses’ bigger footprints, it appears the median yard has shrunk by more than 26 percent, and now stands at just 0.14 acres, a substantial reduction.
This blog is dedicated to a lovely friend (who shall remain nameless, unless she chooses to reveal herself), and written at her request. Last night we attended a wonderful farm to table dinner event in High Point. It was a great gathering in a group setting. People often ask us home related questions, and last night was no exception. Between meal courses, our fellow diner asked: “Can you explain why the paint is already peeling in our bathroom? Our house isn’t even old!”
“Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.” – – Louis D. Brandeis
You’re having a shower and somebody flushes the toilet. Suddenly, you don’t have water at the shower any more. Or maybe you run out of cold water when the toilet flushes and get scalded. Sometimes you run out of hot water in this scenario. In any case, none of these options makes you happy. Chances are, you have a water supply problem.
The water supply may be less than ideal for a number of reasons. These reasons may apply to the service piping that brings the water from the city main to the house (or from the well, lake, or river to the house) and to the distribution piping within the house. Let’s look at some of the causes.
These days, a large portion of single-family homes are being flipped, that is, the homes are bought, renovated, and resold quickly. In recent years, it has become harder for flippers to finance these investment properties, and properties are often bought with cash or hard money loans. However, many markets are in need of housing inventory and so those that can amass the funds to flip a property can make money in the process.
Prospective homebuyers should always have an eye out unprofessional looking renovation work and defect cover-ups. However, when the entire property has been flipped, it may be harder to tell where the investor cut corners while prepping the home for sale. “A lot of these guys who buy these homes to remodel and flip them do a good job,” said Bill Jacques, president of the American Society of Home Inspectors. But, “there’s always going to be the person to put lipstick on a pig and sell it. They try to honey up these houses and paint them, put some new light fixtures in and make people think they’re in new and good shape.”
This is by far the most difficult thing for prospective buyers. After months or weeks of searching, buyers finally find “the one”, and instead of remaining objective, they mentally move in. Don’t get attached too early or your heart might overrule your head and cause you to overlook major problems. The house is simply a building that needs inspecting. If you do find faults, it doesn’t mean you should put off buying. Rather try and use what you’ve discovered to negotiate the price or request a repair. Once you buy it, it belongs to you. Problems and all.
