Home inspections: “walk and talk” vs written report

[Anonymous]

I’m putting an offer on a house soon and planning a pre-inspection. My realtor suggested an inspector for $300 that does “walk and talk” where we go to the house with him and basically he walks around and tells us about all the issues. I asked if they did a written report and the realtor said this would be closer to $500-600, and most people do walk and talk for pre-inspection.


Is this true? Anyone have a good or bad experience with it?

[Anonymous]

Usually they do both. That said the report is kind of generic and I’ve never referred to it later. Just take notes.

[Anonymous]

We did a pre-inspection with a full report.

[Anonymous]

I opted to take my own notes, rather than receive a report.

[Anonymous]

If you don't get a full, written report, you are wasting your money

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don't get a full, written report, you are wasting your money

This.

[Anonymous]

Both. Verbals are worthless in a pinch.

[Anonymous]

A good inspector will do both.

[Anonymous]

We did a walk and talk for pre-inspection and I wish we had paid for the report. I took good notes (I thought) but there were a few things that I didn’t catch onto as much as I thought I did- would have been nice having details for getting quotes etc once we moved in.

[Anonymous]

Both. The walk and talk can be very useful for your information and the inspector can often give you tips about how things work and maintenance that are very useful. However, you should still get a written report for purposes of negotiations over fixes with the seller.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Usually they do both. That said the report is kind of generic and I’ve never referred to it later. Just take notes.

I used our written report several times to address fixes that needed to be done. I'm fairly technical, but keeping track of which gas lines needed to be grounded vs which breaker is undersized is a lot of detail to catch from a guy chatting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't get a full, written report, you are wasting your money

This.

+2. The report has photographs usually, with description of issues and key systems. We found it useful even when we moved in for simple things like location of water shut off, this type of stuff.

[Anonymous]

I’ll be the dissenting opinion. We just did the walk and talk before making an offer on our home knowing we would be waiting the home inspection contingency so that having a written report to give the seller for repair requests wouldn’t be an issue. DH took really good notes (and a few photos) during it and as soon as we moved in we addressed the immediate noted issues. There are a few things we need to replace on the horizon that other contractors have told us about that are all in line with what the pre-inspection revealed.

I guess it really just depends on whether you’re the type of person that can process stuff by listening and taking notes or if you need to see it in writing.

[Anonymous]

Waiving not waiting

[Anonymous]

We also did only a walk and talk. I took excellent notes and pictures. I even took video (with the inspector's agreement).