Rick Bunzel's (rickbunzel) Blog

Washington Home Inspector Licenses will be issued beginning July 1, 2009. Beginning Septembers 1, 2009, inspectors will be required to have a license to inspect unless they are already a practicing inspector. Practicing inspectors will have until July 2010 to become licensed. Many Washington Real...

Yesterdays inspection almost came to an abrupt end. As soon as the buyer's Realtors and myself walked in I sensed that the home was too cold. I carry an infrared thermometer and a quick check of the inside temperature showed it at 29%. Yikes - fortunately the pipes and toilets had not frozen yet...

I was recently working with a client looking at a commercial property and was sent a Google Street View link. Last I checked they were only doing major metro areas however this morning I noticed the little yellow figure on the map and gave it a try. Sure enough - The Googlers had driven through t...

Home inspection is an opinion based profession and yes, it is true if you put 10 inspectors in a room, you will get 10 different views. Is this unique to the inspection profession? No, the same can be said about lawyers, doctors, appraisers, claim adjusters and REALTORS. The reason is that our op...

We are seeing a rise in Manufactured Home Sales as people trade down or opportunistic buyers jump on these low cost homes. If they happen to be using FHA they will want to check to see if the foundation are going to need to be upgraded before they make the offer   The most common problems found: ...

Disaster Planning - Are you ready?With the number of hurricanes marching down on the Gulf and Southeast I started thinking it was time to review our Disaster Planning. Since I am a firefighter and had my first home in the middle of earthquake country, this was something we always did. Everyone s...

I was talking to a REALTOR about a home I inspected recently and she explained that the deal was in limbo due to a mold inspection. I recalled that I had discussed mold with the client and did not observed any mold conducive conditions during my inspection. The REALTOR said that the client looked...

Ok, the titles a tease. One can't really guarantee anything. However with some common sense, correctly set expectations and a good inspector, you should end up with a reasonably accurate inspection. Here are some tips to make that happen. Education- Clients need to understand the inspection proce...

Start around 2000, the mortgage banking industry began to require that a licensed local engineer certify that a manufactured home is sitting on a permanent foundation in order to approve a loan This started only with loans required to meet HUD (Housing and Urban Development) guidelines which incl...

Over the past 5 years I have always consoled my clients to inspect their HOA's. Most buyers, particuliarly first time buyers have no idea of what a HOA is , let alone the power that the HOA holds over the individual owner. Fortunately most of the abuses in California, Az. and Florida have already...