[.ca] Inspect Before You Buy: Insider Secrets You Need to Know ... (ISBN 1601380313)

Wonderful concept, but not user (or layman) friendly:
Are you neurotic like me? Do you pour over Amazon reviews scouring every aspect of every product so that you don't get hosed on something you buy? Well, imagine how much more that neuroticism goes into overdrive at the prospect of one of the biggest purchases ever -- your home. So this book really appealed to me -- yeah, now I'll have the expertise and know-how to really eye a potential property for defects that cost me a fortune later or at the very least, give me a leg up in negotiating a more favorable price. And for those two purposes, this book definitely delivers what I intended. But my major complaint is that it is a very difficult read. It was almost like a crash course in home inspection. I'm not sure what I should have expected -- the book is VERY thorough. But that thoroughness is a little overwhelming. It pretty much lists in detail EVERY single thing that could possibly be wrong with a house. And it's organized by room, so you can do it as you walk from one part of the house to another. But after reading halfway through the book, I started to panic. It was almost like, "Don't forget to to check the wall; don't forget to lift up the carpeting and look at the kind of wood underneath; don't forget to check the entire metal fence for rusting; check the pipes to see if they are PVC, copper, PB, metal, yellow brass, red brass (which is actually pale brown brass), galvanized, etc etc etc etc. WHOA! This is not the sort of thing that you would be able to check on every house that you were doing a walk-through on when you're about to check out 4-5 a day with a realtor. I would be surprised if you could even cover 60% of this stuff by yourself once you narrowed it down to a single house. I mean, you're not going to lift up someone else's carpeting that is probably nailed down to check out their floors. What this book did make me realize was the value of a very good home inspector. And at the very least, it gave me a more thorough look at what sorts of things could go wrong in a home, the early warning signs and symptoms, the catastrophic consequences if you leave it untended, and how to go about fixing it. It's a great book both for buyers and current homeowners (just to help you keep your property up to snuff). It also helps you to understand so much about the inner mechanisms and workings of your home -- especially if you're like me and the extent of your handiness is putting a nail into the wall to hang up a picture frame. I would recommend it, but if you're a layman, don't think that you're going to get away with avoiding a home inspector for the price of this book.

This book contain everything:
This book covers every home inspection task, including the inspection of the kitchen sink! I had no idea that a home inspection covered so many items. This book made me feel well-armed to inspect a house for myself so that I really knew what I was buying. I felt that this book gave me the skills and confidence necessary to evaluate the home inspector's work. I also found this book to be an invaluable source for troubleshooting home repair issues once I became a home owner.

Home Buyers Inspection Bible:
Inspect Before You Buy, is a must read by any potential homebuyer. Charlie has covered every nook and corner of inspecting a house to uncover what buyers need to know before buying. This guide would have saved me thousands of dollars in repairs to my previous homes. His simple terms and descriptions make the reading easy to understand. Individuals considering selling their home will also benefit from this book. You will be able to learn exactly what homebuyers and inspectors look at during the inspection process. Simple fixes like changing out the front door could mean the difference between a potential sale or getting passed over for the next house. If you are considering buying or selling a home, get this book. From the front yard, to under the house and everything in between...this book covers it all. It gives insightful tips like checking the kitchen sink water pressure to insuring the air conditioner is properly functioning. Inspect Before You Buy will be a permanent addition to my library.

Good for turn-key houses.. not so good for fixers.:
This book gives an amazing amount of detail on some areas, including details on what to look for and what you might have to do to fix it in the future. This book will cover it if you want to find out about the state of a home's electrical, plumbing, or heating. Foundations and termite damage... not so much. In other words, it does a great job of covering things that probably aren't deal killers, but skips over the stuff that can really cost anyone looking to rehab a "fixer". All that said, it's a good book to start with.

Be a better home buyer (and home owner):
For most of us, our home is our biggest financial investment. Given this, it seems logical that we'd want to know as much as possible about our investment so we can take the best care of it. That knowledge begins before a house is purchased with the home inspection that's done as part of the buying process. But why depend on information from a second party? With Inspect Before You Buy at your side, you can do your own inspection and know a lot more about your home before you even move in. The author takes you through every step of a home inspection, describes what you need to look for, from roof to foundation and everywhere in between, and provides detailed checklists for recording your findings. Also covered are the big concerns--asbestos, radon, lead paint, water quality--and how to identify and test for them. Although the title positions this book as one to read before buying a house, it's an equally valuable guide to the inspections a homeowner should do on a regular basis to make sure things are as they should be. "There's always something," is a frequent homeowner lament. Inspect Before You Buy can make it one that's not often heard around your house.