The relationship between Realtors and home inspectors is often contentious. A home inspector arrives on the scene only when a deal is close at hand, and the scent of commission checks is in the air. The discovery of construction defects in a home can kill a deal, and a home inspector who reveals those defects to a buyer – rather than the defects themselves – is perceived as a deal-killer by some Realtors.
Some Realtors try to minimize the risks that construction defects will abort an imminent deal by suggesting that buyers hire a hack home inspector who will overlook or minimize them. Buyers should make no mistake about this: there’s a too-high probability that a home inspector referred by a Realtor is an industry-friendly hack who may ill serve a buyer.
I’ve watched Realtors conduct a decades-long assault on the character of one particular home inspector who I consider a friend and who, from what I’ve seen, is highly professional and knowledgeable and who cares only for the interests of his clients. His approach drives some Realtors bonkers.
You can read a Realtor’s unhinged rant about this home inspector at Gary Lucido’s Getting Real blog. You can follow my response to it in the comments on Gary’s post. A while back we did a video tour of University Village with Gary. The best way to judge his credibility is to read his dishonest, repeated and willful ignorance of simple facts in the extended exchange in the comments on one of his posts about a client of ours.
Realtors who disagree with a home inspector’s findings or conclusions about a home should dispute them on a factual basis. Trashing the home inspector is a stupid Realtor trick that only makes a Realtor look foolish or unprofessional.