Thread: pricing for Inspection

when you price a home Inspection on Sq. ft. and a house has 1000 sq. ft upstairs over a 1000 sq. ft. basement and has a 500 sq. ft. garage do you charge for a total of 2500 sq ft or do you give them a break on the basement and garage. thanks

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I would only discount the basement and the garage if I didn't look at them.

Seriously, its part of the home and needs to be inspected. Charge for it.

TIME IS MONEY

rick

We don't have many basements, but I use the conditioned living area. If the basement is finished and has heat/air ducts, then it would count, if not, then I would treat it like a garage, no increase in price. BTW, I do charge more for a crawl space foundation than a slab (I hate to crawl!)
The living area figure is a pretty good indicator of what you have, since every one wants the house to be as big as possible for selling and loan purposes.

Like Rick, if I was to inspect it, I included it.

"Under roof" is what I went by.

Time IS Money
I charge by the sq ft and by what I'm inspecting. I use a "range" type of setup. $X.00 minimum, up to 2K or any condo (since there's no roof-crawl-exterior) add for 2001-3000,
add for 3001-4000 & premium for up to 6000. Over that is base + per sq ft.
Extra for pool, any guest with a bath, add for bath and kitchen, pool, add for pool + spa. No difference for slab vs crawl. Charge like all were crawl. Still have liability for slab just get a little "freeby" for me since no crawl.

If someone grossly misrepresents something I will add charge in the field or not inspect the extra. They usually go for the add-on. This usually happens when they don't call out for "guest" when it is obviously a discrete guest area with it's own facilities. I don't bust their b**** about it. Sometimes only "mention it" to the agent that called it in and do the little bit extra free "this time only" if it's not all that much extra. Seat of the pants call in the field. If I feel that they are trying to take advantage of me, I charge, usually more than called for just to "slap them upside the head"

The counties around here have the tax records on line. You type in the address and up pops a photo taken the last time the property was sold or the last time the propetry was appraised by the county for tax purposes. Part of that tax record includes the heated/cooled square footage. So unfinished basements and garages are not included.

So square footage for me is conditioned living space as told to me by the client and confirmed by the tax records. The client usually gets the square footage from the MLS listing which is usually within 100-200 sq ft of the tax records.

I charge a flat fee for homes 3500 or less square feet. I discount for homes under 1200 sq ft. Most homes here have crawls, maybe 25-30% are slab. Virtually no basements. Foundation type does not change price. I do add surcharge for age.