According to the Urban Land Institute’s Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2023 forecast report, Dallas-Fort Worth ranks 6th in the nation for homebuilding prospects in 2023. And depending on whose report you look at, D-FW is ranked somewhere in the top 10 for home building in 2022, though that number slowed in the second half of the year.
All of which is to say, despite permit issues, and all the talk about the market slowing down — the slow down is relative to the fact that our market is busy as heck compared to most of the rest of the country, and a LOT of new homes are being built here.
What does that have to do with a home inspection, you ask? Surely a brand-new home doesn’t need an inspection — it’s NEW! You’re probably not surprised to hear (from a home inspector) that yes, of course, you need a home inspection on a newly built home. Builders make mistakes, and no one has yet lived in that new home to discover what doesn’t work, which is where we come in.
Every now and then, we like to remind people that we find all kinds of problems in new construction homes, too.
Look Both Ways
Inspector Brian pointed out that this is a common oversight in both new construction and newly renovated bathrooms: the shower entry threshold doesn’t get finished, leaving it open to water running under the shower and into the space beneath the floor.
The owner may not notice until problems occur, because you may not think to step inside the shower on the final walk-through (but your home inspector will). And now you’ve got not just an easy Builder’s Warranty fix, but a repair issue as well.
Roof Regrets
Can you see the dip in that brand-new roof? That’s not something you like to see on a new house. This one has been sitting for a few months before purchase, and the recent rain exposed defects in the roof structure, which allowed water penetration, causing damage to the roof decking, and making the roof sag.
Do You Mind The Gap?
There’s a line between setting your expectations too high and egregious errors, and people’s lines are probably different, but here’s a thing that happens with brickwork. This is a poor brick-and-mortar job, leaving a gap at the change between brick and stone, so they went back and filled it in with rocks and clear silicon. As a homeowner, you have to ask yourself, how many spots are like this? Does sloppy brickwork eventually affect the integrity of the structure, or the aesthetics to a degree that it bothers me or affects the value of the home?
That’s Mighty Neighborly
Always, always make sure the sprinkler system gets checked before moving into your new construction home. With so many other details to deal with, for some reason, it seems like this one just gets down at the bottom of the list, because we find so many issues with sprinkler systems. And it’s usually small stuff, but that can be a pain in the butt stuff when you’re moving and have to contact someone to get them out to fix it.
Obviously, the sprinkler heads get laid before the fence goes in, so sometimes they miss the mark with the property lines, as in this video. As to why they installed the controller on the outside wall? Your guess is as good as mine.
Best practice, if you can manage it when you’re buying a new construction home is to get in at the beginning during the building process. Not only is it exciting to watch your home be built from the ground up, and depending on the builder, you can make design choices, but you can have an inspector with you at each phase of the process to ensure that your home is solid from the foundation to the roof.
