One of our clients is building a brand new home from a national builder in Lakeway, TX, and we couldn’t be happier for her! The builder she chose is one that is well-known for building well-appointed custom homes and they have a great reputation among their peers. They also offer a builder walkthrough at the framing stage to ensure that everything is satisfactory to the buyer before the drywall is installed. Nonetheless, we still advise all of our clients to have home inspections, even on new homes, because there may be things that come up that are missed or overlooked by city code enforcement or the builder’s internal inspectors.
Three Reasons For Inspections of New Homes
In fact, we recommend our clients who are building new homes to have their third-party home inspector perform their initial inspection at the framing stage. This is for several reasons: most importantly being the peace of mind for the buyer. Once the drywall is complete, it is impossible to know whether or not the framing of your home was built correctly…until things start going wrong. Other great reasons to have a framing inspection is getting to know your home. Take this opportunity to take tons of photos of the wiring and piping inside the walls — it will be very helpful to have this information, should you decide to add additional shelving in closets or any other improvements that require nailing into the drywall. Furthermore, it’s fun to see and learn about the inner workings of your home, such as why the HVAC duct works are installed in certain places and how they balance the air.
Better Safe Than Sorry
Fortunately for this homebuyer, there weren’t any significant issues that were detected at the home inspection. But there were a few issues. A few examples that come to mind that her home inspector found: several missing foundation bolts at the framing in certain areas and some questions regarding insulation issues around the windows and other piping (in the builder’s defense, both of these issues were addressed by the builder’s inspector in between the time of the third party inspection and our framing-stage walkthrough with the builder.) It’s better to be safe than sorry, and for the cost of a home inspection (around $325), it is more than worth it in our opinion.
