Palm Springs Condo Living: The Condo Buying Process: Home Inspections

The home buying process, whether it be a condo or a house, can be complicated. There are many things to consider and everything is on a tight timeline. One step in the process that is not required, but that I always recommend, is a home inspection. A home inspection can save a home owner thousands of dollars in unexpected repairs and can help a buyer make the decision to proceed with, or get out of, an escrow. I've participated in many home inspections and work frequently with Walker Novak of Novak Home Inspections. We recently sat down and discussed the differences in doing a home inspection on a condo and a house.

Palm Springs Condo Living: Hi Walker, Thanks for joining me today to talk about home inspections.

Walker Novak: No problem.

PSCL: You have many years of experience doing home inspections. What would you say are the differences in doing one for a condo vs. a house?
WN: Actually, there isn't much difference to them except that with a house you're concerned with the entire structure, roof to foundation, and with a condo it's really only concerned with everything inside the interior walls of the unit. However, there are some steps that I do when inspecting a condo that aren't specific to the unit, but may impact the buyer's decision making.

PSCL: What's that?
WN: The main thing has to deal with the roof. I go up on the roof to see what the current condition is.

PSCL: Since this is outside the condo itself shouldn't this be an HOA issue?
WN: It typically is an HOA issue, but if there are problems with the roof this could lead to a huge assessment to the individual owners, depending on how the specific HOA operates. If an HOA has plenty of reserves they may pay for the repair out of that, but if they are cash poor the individual owners will have to foot the bill. I like to share roof condition with the buyers so they can then research the issue with the HOA to see what sort of expense they can expect.

PSCL: That sounds like a great idea. What else is unique to the condo buying process?
WN: With a house, I don't get too concerned with the neighbors, but with a condo it can be very important. Any issue in an adjacent condo, particularly upstairs/downstairs can impact your condo. A neighboring unit issue that can have a huge impact on your unit is water. Let's say you have upstairs/downstairs neighbors. The upstairs unit gets a water leak and since nobody is there for 6 months it goes unnoticed. Pretty soon the downstairs unit notices a sagging ceiling with black spots all over it. They've got a potentially big problem, and it didn't start in their unit but rather upstairs. Not only does the upstairs neighbor have to repair their own unit, they also have to repair the downstairs unit. This is something you don't worry about with an inspection at a house.

PSCL: Ugh...sounds like a nightmare. What else do you do to try to avoid this type of issue?
WN: The biggest threat is with the hot water heater. They have a lot of water in them and are usually hidden in the back of a closet with stuff stored in front of them so you can't see them and usually don't have a water pan. I make sure the water heater is operating properly, suggest getting a water pan, and make sure that the heater is accessible as part of my inspection.

PSCL: I'm sure your clients are grateful for your extra attention to these issues. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us today.

WN: You're welcome.