hey folks my name is Chris at Hauseit based in miami florida today we're going
to talk about a fun topic that we get asked a lot is do you need a home
inspection when buying a condo in miami or florida generally
well that's a great question i mean to take a step back if you're buying a
freestanding house or um you know multi-family or some structure where
you're responsible for the entire structure
then of course absolutely it's essential for you to get a home inspection and
other things such as a survey to accurately check out the the boundaries
of the property but when you're buying a condo
um it's a little bit different because you're not responsible for you know for
example the common areas of the building perhaps the the rooftop um or amenities
hallways and such you're not going to be responsible
really only responsible for the interior of your apartment because the outer
walls are oftentimes the the building's responsibility for for
upkeep so is it really necessary then for you to
get a home inspection i mean they can be quite
expensive right it can range from you know you can shop around and find ones
as cheap as maybe 300 for a 1200 square foot apartment or
as much as you know 600 to 800 for a 3 000 square foot apartment so it does
vary and after all you know it is a visual inspection so you know they're
not going to be opening up your walls to look at your wires and such
you know they really can see what you see by yourself through an inspection
now with that said they do have some additional tools such as infrared
cameras and such to see that you know perhaps hot water is actually
running or you know certain appliances are heating up perhaps they can check
for moisture behind the walls and stuff to look for obvious leaks and such
so those are all typical but is it worthwhile and is it customary
well it actually the interesting thing is it varies by region because if
you had asked us that same question for buying a condo or a co-op in new york
city um it's actually optional because most agents will assume actually that
it's it's optional and will want to confirm if you actually want to do one
for the reasons that i mentioned before however
it's interesting because in miami and the south florida market generally
it seems to be much more customary for buyers to always get a home inspection
when buying a condo despite having all the same rationale
the pros and cons of whether to pay for one or not so it's much much more
customary for buyers to get a home inspection here and
you know buyers often can use this to their advantage as well
so besides the the obvious benefits of you know having a second pair of eyes
take a look through the apartment you know someone who can explain to you
hey maybe this might be off there might be something wrong with the shower
faucet or or some something um you know it's always helpful for that
but they can also help you know help you
learn how to take care of your new property but you know a very interesting
benefit is it can help with negotiating
as well during the inspection period
so here in florida as you may be aware from our prior videos offers are made
with a standard realtor contract that's kind of a fill in the blank contract
you fill it in as the buyer you sign it send it to a seller that's your offer
and if it gets accepted you know accepted then the seller simply counter
signs and then everyone is bound up by the terms of the contract
well you know one of the standard clauses of the contract is in inspection
period and you know it's left blank but if if you leave it blank then it
defaults to i believe either 10 or 15 but most agents write down 10 or 15 just
to clarify and during this inspection period the
buyer has the right to you know have an inspection or you know expect
take a look at the building's finances through you know building financial
statements and other building documentation and essentially
has the right to back out or cancel or renegotiate for any reason during
this period so that's seller's bound but the buyer is not and what's interesting
then as a tactic as you might imagine is the buyer will get a home inspection the
home inspector will invariably because they're being paid a significant
amount they will invariably come out with a you know
20 30 100 page document of potential defects or you
know in a home inspection report and they invariably will find things because
it is their job and what often happens is the buyer will
then send that report to the listing agent or the seller and say hey
you know whoopsie i didn't know about some of this stuff or
like i totally took a casual look my first time and
you know i didn't notice some of the stuff that the inspector noticed and it
changes my mind and it could be whatever reason they want but they essentially
either want the seller to fix those things or give them a monetary credit
and the monetary credit of course as you can imagine because sellers typically
aren't engineers or contractors themselves and you don't want to delay
closing most sellers will then try to negotiate
with them on a monetary credit and of course
it depends on the type of market you're in if it's a very hot market as we're
seeing in miami i mean you never know right if the seller has tons of backup
interest and potential offers they may say hey go take a hike you know i'm
not i'm not paying for anything i'm not giving you a credit if you don't want it
tell me right now you want to cancel and then i'm going to show it to five other
people so really depends on the
competitive nature of the property and the market in general
if it's a much weaker or softer market of course you know you have much more
leeway as the buyer because of the if it's clear that the hey the seller has
no other interest there's nobody else like it's crickets out there and it's
just you as the buyer you've backed the seller into the corner then yeah you can
probably demand you know you can have a lot more leverage when you show them
that inspection reporting or say hey you know
like i want these nx things fixed i think it'll cost as much sometimes the
inspectors will make it easy for you by listing how much they think each repair
item will cost with a total and then sometimes buyers who are a little bit
you know more easy going or perhaps want to take the easy way out is they just
forward that report and say this is what the inspector says
you know i want that as a credit and they negotiate back and forth maybe the
seller agrees maybe they agree to something in the middle
or of course you can you can actually you know if the
inspector points out other things that you're uncomfortable with you can also
renegotiate and say hey you know i'm just playing not comfortable at all
these are major items i don't even know if i'm going to like
like this property it's going to have to be a serious
you know credit for me to be incentivized again so you can maybe ask
for something larger or something you know arbitrary it all depends on the
competitive nature of the situation and the market as we discussed
so there you have it that's that's basically it in a nutshell it is
customary for buyers condo buyers to get a home inspection
in miami and the florida market generally so don't hesitate if
if you need a home inspector and you want a referral feel free to drop us a
line email us team@hauseit.com we'd be happy to intro you to some nice folks
we've worked with before and of course if you're looking to buy or sell we can
help you save money in both scenarios when you buy we can give you two thirds
of the buyer agent commission back back to you with our Hauseit Buyer
Closing Credit program and when you sell you can save all 6% in broker
commission if you find a direct buyer with our Hauseit Agent Assisted FSBO
program and if you want a little bit more help we can offer you our one
percent for full-service option where someone handles everything
for you and
we cover all of new york city long island hudson valley
we're based now in miami florida and we also cover all of southeast florida so
miami-dade county broward county
palm beach county martin county and st lucie county my name is Chris at Hauseit
and i'll see you on the next one