What Do Home Inspectors Look For?
4 min read · Last updated 2026-08-03 · Reviewed by Camilo Palacio, Licensed Florida Real Estate Professional (License #3280644, REALTOR®)
A home inspector checks nine major systems, from the roof and foundation down to the electrical panel and HVAC. That's the American Society of Home Inspectors' own standard: structural components, exterior, roofing, plumbing, electrical, heating, air conditioning, interior, and insulation and ventilation. Under a traditional listing, whatever that inspector finds gets renegotiated after you've already accepted a buyer's offer. Cash Flow Deals prices in your home's condition before you're under contract, so a worn roof or an aging HVAC system doesn't reopen your number later.
| Factor | Traditional Sale | Cash Flow Deals |
|---|---|---|
| When you find out what's wrong | After you accept a buyer's offer, once their inspector walks the house | Before you sign, so there's no surprise renegotiation later |
| Who prices in normal wear and tear | The buyer's inspector, after your price is already agreed on | Reviewed upfront, before your net price is locked |
| What a worn roof or older HVAC does to your number | Routinely becomes a credit request or a reason a buyer walks | Doesn't reopen your signed price |
What a Home Inspector Actually Checks
So what happens when that inspector's report lands two weeks into your traditional sale, after you've already told your landlord you're moving? You find out, all at once, everything about your house that's changed since you moved in. The American Society of Home Inspectors' Standard of Practice lays out exactly what a member inspector has to cover: structural components (the foundation and framing), the exterior (siding, drainage, and grading), the roof (materials, flashing, and drainage systems), plumbing (supply lines, drains, and the water heater), the electrical system (the panel, wiring, and safety devices), heating, air conditioning, the interior (walls, floors, stairs, and built-in appliances), and insulation and ventilation. That's nine categories, and a licensed inspector is required to walk every one of them, not just the ones that are easy to see from the driveway.
What a Standard Inspection Does Not Cover
A general home inspection is not a code-compliance review, and it is not a cosmetic walkthrough. ASHI's own Standard of Practice states that cosmetic issues and code compliance sit outside a standard inspection's scope, and an inspector can skip a component entirely if it isn't safely accessible. That gap matters to you as a seller: a full inspection report is not a full accounting of every flaw in your house. It's an accounting of the flaws inside a defined scope that a person could safely reach and see in a single visit.
The Three Things Most Likely to Reopen Your Price
Three categories of finding do most of the damage to a signed price: the roof, the foundation and structural framing, and the electrical panel. A cracked slab, a sagging ridge line, or a panel with the wrong breakers for the wiring gives a buyer's agent exactly what they need to ask for a credit, a repair, or a lower number. You don't get to negotiate that back once it's in the report. A Porch survey of 998 homeowners found that 86% of home inspections turned up at least one problem the inspector flagged in the written report, and the findings that actually move a price tend to live in those same three systems.
What It Costs and Who Usually Pays
A standard home inspection runs around $343 to $344 on average nationally, typically landing somewhere between $296 and $424 depending on the size of the house and the local market, according to Angi's 2026 cost data. The buyer usually pays for it and orders it, since it's the buyer's decision whether to move forward. But the findings become your problem the moment your buyer's agent calls with a list, because by then your price is already agreed to, and the only thing left to negotiate is how much of it you give back.
Why the Traditional Timeline Puts Your Price at Risk
Here's the order a traditional sale actually runs in: you agree to a price, then a stranger with a flashlight and a moisture meter decides whether that price still holds. About 5% of pending home sale contracts fall through before closing, and home inspection findings are named among the leading reasons, alongside buyer financing and appraisal problems, according to the National Association of Realtors' Realtors Confidence Index Survey. The contracts that don't fall through often close at a lower number than the one you originally signed. You spend weeks getting to a number, and the inspection is the moment it gets renegotiated out from under you.
How Cash Flow Deals Prices Condition In Before You Sign
The one thing you're actually buying when you work with Cash Flow Deals is certainty that your price won't move after you've already committed to moving. Not a bigger number. Certainty. Think of it like getting your car appraised before you agree to sell it, not after the buyer's mechanic already has it up on the lift: the condition gets priced in before the number is final, not renegotiated once you're already committed. Cash Flow Deals is a Florida real estate investor that locks in a net price for a seller's house before repairs are scoped, using a novation-based, flat-fee process arranged through its licensed FL brokerage partner, Silver Door Realty — not a traditional listing, and not a brokerage itself. The roof's age, the HVAC's remaining life, the electrical panel: all of it gets reviewed before your number is locked, not after you've already told people you're moving.
The Terms, In Writing
1. Condition review: Cash Flow Deals and Silver Door Realty review your home's condition before your net price is set, not after a buyer's inspector reports back. 2. Net price: locked in writing before repairs are scoped. 3. The one exception: if something structural surfaces that was not visible or disclosed before we signed — foundation issues, hidden moisture, old wiring, cast-iron drain failure — we re-cost it and bring the number back to you. You decide. You can walk away. We disclose what we know at offer time so this almost never happens. 4. Closing date: set by you, not by Cash Flow Deals. Outside of that one narrow, disclosed exception, an ordinary inspection finding doesn't put your number back on the table.
Common questions
Do I need to fix anything before an inspector walks through my house?
No repair is required before an inspection happens. The inspector's job is only to document condition, not to require you to fix anything first. What you fix, if anything, becomes a negotiation only after the report is in a buyer's hands, which is exactly the moment a traditional sale is most exposed to a lower number.
What happens if an inspector finds something serious after I've already accepted an offer?
In a traditional sale, that finding usually turns into a credit request, a demand for repairs, or a buyer walking away, and you're the one deciding under time pressure. With Cash Flow Deals, ordinary wear like an older roof or an aging water heater doesn't reopen a signed net price. There's one narrow, disclosed exception for real structural surprises, covered in the terms above, and even then you decide and can walk away.
Does Cash Flow Deals send someone to look at my house before setting a price?
Yes. Your home's condition gets reviewed before your net price is locked, working with Cash Flow Deals' licensed FL brokerage partner, Silver Door Realty, rather than after you've already signed with a buyer whose inspector works for them, not you.
How much does a home inspection cost, and who pays for it?
A standard inspection runs about $343 to $344 nationally on average, typically between $296 and $424, according to Angi's 2026 cost data. The buyer is usually the one who pays for it and orders it, since it's the buyer's decision whether to move forward with the purchase.