Interview With an Inspector

We interviewed Residential Home Inspector Ken Duggan with Pillar to Post Inspections here in Dallas/Ft. Worth.

Robin McCoy, Realtor® with Keller Williams Realty

Hey everybody. It’s Robin McCoy with Keller Williams and I am here with Ken Duggan, the owner of Pillar to Post Inspection Services here in the DFW area. He is a residential home inspector, and he’s going to tell us a little bit about the home inspection and what you can expect and why you need one, Ken.

Ken Duggan, Inspector with Pillar to Post Inspections

All right, well thank you Robin. As a home inspector in Texas you have to be licensed and pass a background check. We go through an extensive training program that educates you on how to inspect the home and do practice inspections. That way you’ll be knowledgeable and very good at what you do.

Robin

Awesome. So you’re hired by a buyer essentially.; tell me what you do during an inspection. What can you do and what can you not do?

Ken

Right. So when you get a home inspection, we go and inspect all the major components of the house, check the roof, the foundation, the plumbing, the electrical, the windows, doors, all the major requirements for the home. And we do it and put it in a nice report and give it to you so you have a visual.

Robin

So it is a full on report that they do. You really put the house through it’s paces. The client get photographs, they tell you what is good to go and what might be considered deficient. It’s also important to know that just because something is deficient doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t buy the house. Right? Because there’s codes and easy fixes and things like that. Correct.

Ken

Yes. We inspect everything from large extra large houses all the way down to little condos. We do new construction.

Robin

Well, let me ask you, you said new construction. So why should a buyer get an inspection on a house that nobody’s even lived in yet? It’s brand new, right?

Ken

Yeah. Well, we do about 15% of our inspections on a new home. And the reason you’d want to do that is because they build these homes so fast and they might not have the proper people to do it. There’s a lot of things that you can find that they not doing correctly. So if you get a home inspection by a non biased person, you can come back to the builder with these issues and tell them, that these need to be fixed and you get a lot better response.

Robin

I think a lot of people would. I know I get as a realtor, I get a lot of questions like it’s a new house, should I get an inspection? Absolutely. Okay. Well let me ask you one final question. How can you benefit a seller? I’m on the seller side; is there a reason to hire you as an inspector in that case?

Ken

Absolutely. We do a pre-listing inspections. The advantage of that is really to find out what issues are with your home ahead of time. That way you can address these issues and know up front without the surprise of an inspection when the buyer wants come back at you and try to negotiate these fixes, you already have it, and adds value to the home.

Robin

Well, I’ve seen cases where a buyer, if you’ve done an inspection and they have the paperwork and you as a seller, you’ve shown what you fixed already, oftentimes they’ll take that inspection and go with it. So they may not even right hire their own inspectors. It can get you out in front of a lot of things. Well again, Robin McCoy with Keller Williams, Ken Duggan with Pillar to Post. We appreciate your time today. And if you have any questions about the real estate market or an inspection, please don’t hesitate to give us a call. We’ll have the contact information here for you.

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