What is a luxury home inspection and what should buyers and sellers expect from their home inspector?
If you are a luxury home buyer or a luxury home seller, your needs for a home inspector may be a little different from buying a standard home. Why? There are specific needs surrounding a luxury home inspection such as privacy concerns and custom features and size of the home. These make luxury home inspections a little more challenging.
Are you consider selling a luxury home? If so, a pre-listing inspection luxury home inspection could be very helpful for you to get your home ready for sale. A luxury home buyer will expect the home to be in turn-key condition if the home is market price. The pre-listing inspection will give you a maintenance summary of all the items you can repair/replace or spruce up to get buyers to see all of the benefits and beauty of your luxury home rather than the items needing repairs.
A Luxury home is usually $1.5m or higher and has special or extra features for a luxury home inspector to inspect. Some luxury features include spas, pools, theaters, wine cellars, high end appliances, multiple furnaces and air conditioners, and more.
What To Expect
Whether you are doing a pre-listing inspection or you have an accepted offer and the buyer is doing their home inspection, there are certain expectations that all parties have:
- How long will the inspection take? This depends on the size of the home, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, if the property has a pool and/or spa, outbuildings, casitas, number of furnaces and AC units.
- Example:Â if your luxury home is 4,500 square feet with 4.5 baths, 5 bedrooms, 2 furnaces/AC units and a pool will take 4-5 hours depending on if others are present and asking questions.
- Will the luxury home inspector answer questions during and after the inspection? Yes. You may ask your luxury home inspector questions during the inspection keeping in mind that questions prolong the time it takes to complete the inspection.
- After the luxury home inspector has completed the inspection, they will go over a “summary” of all findings with you while explaining and showing any issues found. This can be 20 minutes to an hour depending on the depth and amount of questions.
- After the luxury home inspection is completed, your luxury home inspector will have your comprehensive report emailed to you within 24 hours. You and your agent may ask further questions about the report and the condition of any items of concern.
- Even after months of moving into your new luxury home, you may call your luxury home inspector with questions! We love providing excellent client services.
Resources and Connections
When working with a Luxury Home Inspector, you will have access to other professional services. Coastal Property Inspections, your luxury home inspector in Orange County, provides a list of resources on their website for you to review and vet on your own. While you are performing your luxury home inspection, ask for suggestions!
Do Your Homework When Choosing A Luxury Home Inspector
Not all home inspectors have the same credentials, skills or experience. Do not go by price. You know what they say about price – “you get what you pay for”. Call the luxury home inspector directly and have a nice chat to see if you both are on the same page with expectations. Ask….
- Are they Certified?
- How many inspections have they done?
- Do they work for a large corporation or are they a boutique company?
- Do they use technology such as infrared thermal imaging, drones for the roof, etc., to assist in providing the highest level of service?
- Do they provide a full droning of the roof, chimney, gutters, etc?
- Do they use infrared in bathrooms, around vulnerable moisture areas and radiant heating?
- Do they inspect all appliances and structural components?
- How long will it take for the report to be sent to you?
- Will they answer questions in the future should they arise?
- Do they stay on top of inspection trends and education
- Ask what they did before they were inspectors. This may be interesting and or eye opening.
A Luxury Home Inspector should provide the highest level of service, communication and professional skills and is a must to have on your next purchase or sale.
This article is written by Suzanne Martin, wife and business partner of Chris Knappett, Certified Professional Luxury Inspector with Coastal Property Inspections in Orange County CA. We invite you to call Chris directly to talk about his services and approach to giving you the best luxury home inspection in Southern California!
Call Chris:Â 949-396-9595 or email him at Chris@coastalpropertyinspect.com
