At the height of the frenzied, competitive housing market, the majority of homebuyers were forgoing home inspections in order to secure a contract — and hurting the bottom line for the home inspection industry in the process. Now that the market is cooling, home inspectors are hoping to see business return to normal.
In a “normal” market, about 85 percent of homebuyers get a home inspection, said John Vaughn, president of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter for the American Society of Home Inspectors and a 25-year veteran of the home inspection industry. At the height of the housing boom, about 40 percent of buyers were getting a home inspection.
“They were holding their breath hoping nothing was wrong,” Vaughn said.
In the last two months, Vaughn said, home inspection appointments have increased by about 30 percent.
Vaughn estimates there are about 450 home inspectors affiliated with a professional home inspection association in the Washington-Baltimore region. But when the market was at its height, only the more established inspectors were getting enough work.
“For those who have been established in the business for a long time, it didn’t mean a whole lot,” Vaughn said. “But therewere people who had just started. … We probably saw about a 20 percent dropout rate for those who weren’t established.”
Inspection time
» A typical home inspection takes about four hours and usually costs about 1 percent of the total sale price of the home.
