What Do Home Inspectors Look For?

The Inspection Checklist: What Gets Examined and What Doesn't

A standard home inspection runs top to bottom in 2 to 4 hours, follows the ASHI Standards of Practice, and costs about $300 to $500 (Bankrate puts the national average near $343). Outside, the inspector covers foundation and structural integrity, the roof and attic, gutters and flashing, siding, windows, doors, and how the lot grades and drains away from the house. Inside, it's the plumbing system and every water fixture, the electrical panel, breakers, wiring, and outlets, the HVAC equipment, interior walls, ceilings, floors, and built-in appliances and ventilation.

The red flags inspectors write up most often: water damage and moisture problems, foundation cracks, outdated electrical work like knob-and-tube wiring or Federal Pacific panels, roof deterioration, and HVAC equipment near the end of its life.

Just as important: what a standard inspection skips. Radon, termites, asbestos, lead, and mold all need separate specialists. Cosmetic wear, anything behind walls or below ground, pools, septic systems, and well water are excluded too. The written report, usually with photos and severity notes, lands within a couple of business days.

The Numbers Sellers Get Wrong Before an Inspection

Here's the number that should reset expectations: 86% of inspections find at least one issue. A perfect report isn't the goal. The real goal is not handing the buyer an opening over something you could've fixed for twenty dollars.

The common seller mistake: spending on the wrong end of the list. Sellers pre-emptively replace big-ticket items, a full HVAC replacement runs around $7,500 on average per Angi, hoping to buy a clean report. Then the inspector writes up missing GFCI outlets, a running toilet, a dripping faucet, sticking doors, and a blocked attic hatch anyway. Cheap function-and-access fixes change the tone of the whole report. Major replacements rarely pay you back, because 46% of buyers use the inspection report to renegotiate, and they negotiate off their own contractor quotes, not your receipts.

Worth doing before the inspector arrives: replace burned-out bulbs and missing GFCI outlets, fix running toilets, slow drains, and dripping faucets, free up sticking doors and windows, clear access to the attic, electrical panel, and water heater, and leave the HVAC service receipt on the unit. Not worth doing: major roof, foundation, or HVAC work right before listing, or chasing cosmetic flaws the inspection ignores.

How a Novation Sale Handles Inspection Findings

The inspection round is where traditional sales wobble. The report lands, the buyer's agent sends a repair addendum, and the price you already agreed to starts moving. Remember: 46% of buyers renegotiate off that report.

Cash Flow Deals runs the sequence in a different order. Cash Flow Deals is a Florida real estate investor that connects homeowners directly to vetted FHA, conventional, VA, and DSCR buyers through a novation agreement. The property gets evaluated up front, before a number is set, so the findings that show up on most reports (an older roof surface, an aging condenser, slow drains) are reflected in the price from day one instead of arriving as a mid-contract repair demand. One honest carve-out: if a later inspection turns up foundation, moisture, wiring, or drain-line problems that weren't visible up front, the numbers get re-run and the seller decides whether to continue. Listing-side details run through Silver Door Realty, a licensed Florida brokerage.

If your house would rack up a long report and you'd rather price that in once instead of negotiating it twice, see how a novation sale works in Florida.

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.

Here's how Cash Flow Deals turns an inspection-checklist worry into a locked number:

1. Cash Flow Deals reviews the property's major systems: roof, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, foundation, the same categories a home inspector checks, and sends a written price before any inspection takes place.

2. The seller reviews the price and the carve-out terms: no repair addendum to negotiate, no re-listing if the numbers work.

3. Once accepted, the file moves toward closing on a set schedule. The written price itself arrives within two business days of the evaluation: the same turnaround a standard inspection report takes to land.