The scariest part of homeownership? Home Inspections. We brought on Adam Wright of RJ Inspections to chat about recent news in Massachusetts inspections, what scares inspectors, and when it’s best to request inspections.
Saad: I thought, you had like a police vest on or something.
Adam: It does look like a badge. I’ll tell you one thing though, that works in my favor in like bad neighborhoods. You get to a house early, you walk around the outside and they see that think he kind of looks official. I’m not gonna mess with them a little bit.
Mike: You’re not to be messed with anyway, yeah.
Adam:What’s going on? Who’s this little one we got?
Saad: This is little Dua. She’s a little sick right now and I’m on daddy daycare duty so she’s gonna be joining us. She might have a little booger or two joining us too.
Adam:A nice multitasking, she’s quiet. don’t think I could ever do that.
Saad: Oh, he magically disappeared.
Mike: In my screen he’s frozen.
Saad: In mine, he’s gone.
Mike: I need him to like emerge from the screen into real life or something.Adam come back.
Saad: Well, for those who are here, we’re going to be talking about inspections today.
Mike: Anam, what’s up? She’s getting her hair cut. Show it to the whole salon, please. Ben, hello. Fuso, fun. I forget who that is. I don’t see a name attached to it. But what’s up? I believe it’s Flannel and Zeke. Hello. All right, let’s try to get them back in here. Do it.
Saad: Adam! All right.
Mike: Yeah, there he is.
Adam: All right. right. right. Technical difficulties. All good, man.
Saad: Well, today we have we have state trooper. We have home inspector, team home inspector, Adam Wright, one of our amazing partners and somebody we rely on regularly. Him and his team. They’re amazing.
Saad: So today we’ll be touching on all things home inspection. So if you guys have questions, definitely drop them in the comments and we’ll try to cover them. Perfect opportunity in the next 25 minutes or so to pick Adam’s brain on anything and everything home inspection-related.
Adam: Thanks for having me guys. I apologize in advance. I’m not an influencer. I’m a home inspector. So my technology skills on this are already failing, but we’ll get through it.
Mike: We can hear you and we can see you. Everything’s good. My loose segue is you were talking about being potentially sick a little bit. Adam, many people say that you’re the doctor of homes. So, I would assume that at parties, people are going up to you with a picture of a shingle or something and be like, Doctor, you think you can look at this and see what’s up here?
Adam: Yeah, actually, you’re not far off. All my friends in like, you my whole sphere they know that I’m a contractor home inspector So I’m I’m the one that they call with it’s all I constantly get texts with questions pictures if we’re out there’s always questions that come up with that, which honestly I’m happy. I’m always happy to answer it .So for those of you out there who hesitate to send me anything like feel free DM me shoot me messages I’m always happy to answer.
Mike: Yeah. Yeah Is this a mole is it mold is it growth. Whatever. But no and thanks for that and yeah, we’ll continue the tradition that in but barge you with questions.
Mike: Just a general of like, you know, we’re at late March about to hit the spring market ah What have been? Your you know what you’ve been seeing out in the field the last few months would have been the trends of reintroduction super competitive situations that you’ve been brought into? Have you had a little bit more of like, okay, every home’s getting an inspection again? Where’s that been at for at least you and your company?
Adam: Well, I would say the past like six months, Home inspections are definitely back. I think we all lived through the phase where everyone was waiving home inspections. I felt like we were through that, but now I’m seeing it rear its head again. So it is coming back, like right now we’re busy. There are a lot of transactions going on I feel. But one of the tell-tale signs for us is because you guys know we offer a pre-offer preliminary. So, if somebody’s in a competitive situation, they’ll hire us to do a walkthrough with them prior to their offer to kind of tell them as much information as we can. When we start getting a lot of those, that’s a sign that you know, people are. We’re getting a lot of calls on Sunday and Monday trying to get, know, same day or next day. We always try to leave like Mondays and Tuesdays kind of open, you know, some open slots. When people call to get those, we can get them in because those are, you know, like you have to act fast on those because offers are due at this day. You’re only given so many showing times. I mean, those are coming back. We do see those again.
Mike: And can you talk about what…what the main difference is between like a full-on inspection and kind of what I know it’s to give buyers peace of mind. And if you want the house, that’s a reality kind of you have to face that sometimes is that other people are willing to waive their inspection. You might have to be too, but this at least gives some peace of mind. So, can you go over like what the main things you inspect are?
Adam: Right. A full home inspection, the quick version is we look at everything we can, follow all of the state standards, you know, you get a full documented, you guys have seen our reports, very detailed, tons of pictures, know, just very, very thorough. The average price on those is anywhere from $500 to $1,000, depending on square feet.
Adam: What we call a preliminary is the way we have to kind of work around it with the state is like we’re not supposed to do consultation if it’s pursuant to the sale of transfer of the property. So, we do a preliminary inspection, meaning that we’ll go out to the property and it’s in pursuit of the full inspection to be done later, right? So we’re not filling out the entire report. We’re not looking at everything in depth. We’re basically going through, sometimes we can go through everything, which is great. But other times it’s like, hey, you have a one-hour show. Like you have an hour to get through this house. So let’s go through, hit the primary concerns, try to either find or eliminate some big red flags and basically give you a professional set of eyes on the property to give you some idea of the condition of the property so you have more information you have to put your offer in, the better. So our hope is always once you move in, we’ll come and we’ll complete the inspection or if you have a chance down the road. In the real world, people just want as much information as they can and we try to provide that as best we can.
Saad: Are you finding that the preliminary inspections are mainly for single families, for condos, for multi-families, the whole gamut?
Adam: We’ll do all of them, yeah, it doesn’t matter.
Saad: What I mean is are you seeing more of those for any certain kind of type of property?
Adam: Single families. Generally, it’s single family because that’s where, I mean, you guys would probably say that’s where the big buyers pool is most competitive certain areas and certain price points that we’re doing them on, right? So, if somebody is in a nice town trying to buy something for 700,000, well, so is the rest of the world, right? So those are the ones. And it’s usually one of those like, hey, if the open house has a line out the door, it might be one of those situations where people are waving them. You guys never recommend it, the smart realtors don’t, so you at least want some sort of information to get to them about the house.
Mike: Exactly. That kind of goes along with a question that was submitted from our friends at Coast, Brian and Angela. When a buyer’s going out, what are the top three things that they should be looking at in their prospective homes in terms of what could be a high-cost item to them?
Adam: Yeah. I would say the main killer of a house is water, right? So is it a roof leak? Is it water into the basement? Is it water penetration through the walls? All of that can create damage, mold, unsafe situations. So, like that’s the main envelope in water intrusion. That’s the main thing that can ruin a house. Other than that, I mean, it’s major structural concerns, right? Those are the big cost heavy money items. And that’s your major mechanical. So like, if someone told me, hey, you only have an hour to go through this house. I’m doing the exterior as best I can. We’re running water everywhere that we can stress the pipes, flood the drains, hot water temperature, pressure, and drain function. And you saw it, can tell I say the, and then we’re going to the basement. We’re going through all the mechanicals, all the structure, we’re checking as much as we can. If we still have time, then we’re going to the attic and looking for the same stuff. That’s the bones of the inspection, and that’s where all the big expensive items tend to be, I would say. Interior, obviously, you’re for water stains, things like that, deflection, cracking, those kind of things.
Mike: Understood. Saad, I got a question if you’re good. Okay. So Adam, we’ve discussed in the past, rulings or ongoing rulings about the law being passed to not have to waive your inspection. Obviously the deal could be subject to like, you know, not contingent upon anything that’s found in the inspection, but that right to at least have one for that. Could you kind of give people who don’t know about that an update as to where that’s at and what you think about it.
Adam: Absolutely. The short version of the update is it has been passed, but it’s not active yet. So basically what happened, the long version of it is they created a bill, basically a consumer protection bill, because so many people were buying houses, being somewhat forced to waive their inspection if they wanted to own. And then they move in and there’s all these problems which are super expensive. They’re suing everybody. A lot of problems arise from it. So it became a consumer protection law where it went to the House, went to the Senate. was like two pages long, had penalties in it, had restrictions on it, all these other things. But the main gist was that you’re not allowed to submit an offer saying you’re waiving your home inspection and you’re not allowed to accept an offer with that. Basically saying, hey, that’s off the table. There’s no such thing as waiving it. Everyone has the right to. The confusion there was a lot of people say it’s an inspection mandate. Nobody’s forced to have it, but everyone has the right, kind of like, led. That bill went, you know, from here, just shrunk down, shrunk down, shrunk down, and it got attached to the affordable housing bill that passed. So, it got attached to that, and basically what actually passed was just two paragraphs, got whittled down, two paragraphs, and it basically said those things. The first paragraph, you can’t accept an offer knowing whether or not they’re going to waive their home inspection. And the other one said you can’t put in an offer knowing whether or not, you can’t put in an offer saying that you’re going to waive it. Basically puts everybody on the same playing field when it comes to avoid those issues.
Adam: Right now they’re at, the last I heard, the head of like the MAR legal team, their goal was to finish the paper, this passed last summer, by the way, and then it was supposed to get rolled out in the winter, got bumped out. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but MAR has had their hands tied with legal forms. So, it got bumped back and then it got pushed to June. So, right now, what it’s going to look like and when it actually gets into effect is still up for debate. Will there be a mandatory contingency period? Will you still be able to negotiate?
Adam: Like in my opinion, I think you should still be able to put in like an aggregate for negotiation, right? So like hey, I’m not telling you whether or I’m gonna waive it, we’re gonna get it, but I won’t negotiate anything less than $100,000. That’s basically saying you’re gonna waive it, but right now they have the right to gain all the information, all that kind of stuff. We’ll see how it looks. Right now it’s kind of the state talking with NAR and the two of them trying to figure out what the paperwork’s gonna look like, so we’ll see what actually shakes out as far as does it have teeth to it? Will there be penalties? Who will the penalties be applied to, the realtor or the seller? All that’s unknown and up in the air as of right now.
Mike: Very, very interesting stuff.
Adam: But it did pass, so something will take effect, I guess, eventually. But we just don’t know that yet.
Mike: Yeah. If we’re going off of common sense here, just like any negotiation, it’s the terms that you put. To not have to waive it is good for the consumer on both ends because then you’re not getting sued on the other end having hidden stuff. But you can also, like anything, it is a negotiation. We’re not gonna be, you know, negotiating as you’ve mentioned, like a hundred off of a hundred thousand dollars worth of damage. You just want to know more about the property that you’re purchasing at that moment.
Adam: Exactly. One of the other things that they were trying to put in it originally was a mandatory 10-day contingency. Like that doesn’t happen. Like you can’t force people to have that. That has to be something that they can, you know, some wiggle room, like an advantage. You know, if a seller is trying to sell a house and there’s other things pending, like backed up like 10 days, it’s a long time in today’s world. You know, used to be 14, you know, two weeks, contingency, right? Like, you know, 10 years ago, but nobody does that.
Mike: It’s always, we’re same week every time, at least maybe the next day.
Adam: Exactly. I think that everyone has to be reasonable, right? But you know, that’s not always the case. So I think it’s great that everyone will have the right, it will reduce lawsuits. It’ll give everybody that help kind of level the playing field and at the end of the day, realtors will be happy because they’re not getting sued as much. think sellers will be happy because, okay, they’re not waiving, but the only way to separate yourself now is to just offer more money. So that could be more money. But I think everything else should be negotiated. Negotiate the aggregate, negotiations and the terms and everything else. But at least you get the information of the house, I guess.
Saad: What you’re talking about, is that just for Massachusetts or is it national?
Adam: It’s only Massachusetts.
Saad: So this is not something that’s being brought in because obviously we do some business in New Hampshire, specifically Mike does. So nothing like that kind of on the docket in New Hampshire.
Adam: Nothing’s on the docket for New Hampshire. The other state that’s bouncing around is New York. That’s the other one, but that keeps kind of getting shut down. Massachusetts is the only one that went through so far. If it does go through, depending on what it looks like, think other states might be next to fall. Yeah, New Hampshire, they’re free of diabetes. I don’t see them dropping that. No.
Mike: Doesn’t everybody build their own house in New Hampshire? I figure that’s it. Yeah.
Adam: It’s like the wild west in New Hampshire. I’d be shocked if they implement that there. Yeah.
Saad: One question I had…talking about sellers. Do you work with sellers, like seller consultations prior to them listing their homes? What does that look like if somebody is like, listening is like potentially wants to list their home or if they’re a buyer and they’re kind of curious if a seller has done that, should they look out for?
Adam: I would say on the seller side, like the sellers that I talk to, if we like put a range like this, like there’s the side where the people want to know every single detail about the house. They want to disclose it or fix it. So they want a full home inspection report detailed and they’re even going to share it, say all the things they did. There’s the other side that doesn’t want to know anything, they’re like, I’ll them figure it out, I don’t care, I hope they waive it, you know, whatever. But most people kind of fall in the middle, where it’s like, I want to know any big showstoppers so that I can address them, I don’t want the deal to fall apart down the road.
Adam: So, like your options are, you know, do nothing, get the full home inspection report, or in the middle there, that’s when most people fall, they get a consultation. So, basically, what that is, now we’re allowed to do an actual consultation, caller consultation, we’ll go through the house the same way we would a home inspection and we would tell you everything that would come up on a home inspection: things that we would write up, things that could be an issue, normal deal killers, and things like that. And they get all that information, but there’s no report at all. The advantage is here, right? A couple would be that it’s a lot cheaper than a full home inspection. Some may say it’s an advantage to not have everything documented because with disclosure laws and things like that, there’s no documented items that we detail out. So some sellers don’t want all that, some seller’s agents don’t want that. And the other advantage would be it’s not a home inspection. So we don’t have to abide by the state standards, meaning that like, remember we’re not allowed to give prices, not allowed to talk about the scope of work, all these things that the state tells us not to do when we’re doing a home inspection, well, we’re free to help with that. We find a problem, we can actually help them with it a little bit, like tell them what normal people would do to kind of fix it. We try not to refer contractors because it’s a conflict of interest, but it can be much more helpful to the seller because we’re just there to tell them about their house and what problems would come up if someone ever wants to get a home inspection down the road.
Adam: That’s usually before it’s even lifted, so it’s not technically pursuant to the sale or transfer of the property. Our standards in our code like we are kind of protected from getting in trouble with our board in that sense. So most people end up with the consultation. That’s 300 bucks. So it’s short money. We make nothing on them, but it’s a service that people like. And a lot of times like a listing agent, they’ll just say, I don’t even want to be there. Like, you know, go meet with the seller. You guys have your discussion. Go over it, and if there’s anything major, bring it to my attention, we can talk about it. Same thing you guys don’t want to have to disclose everything or know about everything because then you have to right
Mike: It’s, yeah, I think it behooves the seller to at least have an understanding of what could possibly come up, always to get out ahead of it.
Adam: There’s always something, right?
Mike: Yeah.
Adam: There’s always going to be something that we uncover, whether it’s on the home inspection. There’s such an advantage to get ahead of it. And then do I fix it? Do I disclose it? Or do I leave it and see what happens? One of your three options, I would say.
Saad: Is there anything in particular you feel like, you feel that buyers get particularly worked up about that, that they kind of shouldn’t?
Adam: Honestly, the simple answer is like everything. If people get, I always try to tell people like, look, everything can be fixed. Literally. Like there’s nothing.
Adam: The one problem that is a huge problem, if you have like, I don’t know if you’ve heard of like the crumbling country, like the major structural foundation issue where like people’s foundations are crumbling. That’s a big one. That’s is very difficult to fix.There’s no state funding for it yet. And you’re talking about like hundreds of thousands of dollars. Like everything else, aside of major structural issues…it can be fixed. Like people freak out about mold all the time. hear mold and they think it’s gonna kill them. It’s like, we found some mold in the attic and they think it’s the end of the world. It’s like, look, we find this all the time. Call a mold company and they get rid of it. The three of us, like, we’re used to seeing it. Like when I see it, I’m just calm. It’s like, oh, you get this, you get that. It’s like every other house that I see. It’s have the next thing that you have to do, right?
Mike: Yeah, I think there’s probably something we can do besides like post inspection, going through the report with them and explaining each thing, but maybe like, I don’t know, some knowledge base of something so people can at least have an understanding of what the scope is on some stuff. Because if you go in completely blind, then everything is a surprise to you. And how many times have we had a double tap in the electrical box or like some outlet things that are like $10 to fix in a YouTube video for two minutes, things like that, that become like a focal point of the discussion when they really shouldn’t be.
Adam: Yeah, it’s like you guys are good at that. Like you set expectations to the buyer. Like, look, and we try, we do it too. Like our driveway speech, we tell people it’s like, when you get the report, be prepared to be overwhelmed. Like there’s a lot in there and that’s like, hey, I haven’t even looked at the house yet, but I’m telling you, there’s gonna be a lot in the report. There always is, there’s no perfect house. We’re very detailed, that’s why you hired us. But like the questions they should ask throughout, well a couple things. One, make sure they’re there because some people are like, do I have to be there? It’s like, well, yes.
Mike: Yeah, yeah, that’s it.
Adam: Technically, no, but yes, you do because you don’t wanna just read the report. You’re not gonna understand it, you’re gonna be overwhelmed. You want to know what’s going in there before you see it. And the other is like, ask questions while you’re there. So like one of the questions is like, is that normal for the house? It’s like, so if I’m telling you like, hey, there’s this problem, this problem, like, well, is that normal for the age of the house? Like, yeah, completely normal. Like it gives them the idea of like, if you buy the house next door instead of this one, cause you think that’s better, it’s probably going to be the same thing. Like, yeah, it’s completely normal. So expectations, I think, are very important going into a home inspection.
Saad: I’ve heard this a few times at inspections is that one of the big reasons like being at the inspection as a buyer yourself is so important is because the context is so important. Like you said, what other houses are like? How important is it in the grand scheme of things? The report is, mean, if something’s deficient, it’s going to look red, but doesn’t mean it’s going to be a ticket item or anything like that. Like you said, everything can be fixed but the context is what’s the most important thing. So you’re not able to get that just by looking at the report.
Adam: No, not at all. And we’re almost like handicapped with it because we’re not allowed to give you a price. So, like if we’re like, it’s a $10 fix, but it’s a safety hazard, so it’s in red. It’s doing them a disservice if I try to tell them like run away from the house because of this, you’re not helping anybody.
Mike: Yeah, a large portion of it is the attitude that you bring in. The first thing that you’re here not having it affect you in like a surprised and shocking way. It’s just like, okay, what does that mean? Ask for their questions, do a little research online. Those are the best clients because then you actually can see it for what it is.
Adam: Oh, yeah. And so, like you Saad said…another advantage to why they should be there, like you get all the context, but the other thing is, like, you know, all the training that I give my guys, like, it’s to teach these people, like the whole point of the home inspection in general, right, is like to teach you about the home and prepare you to own it. So if you’re not there, you’re not getting that lesson. So, you know, hey, where’s your main water shut off? What type of heat do you have? What does that even mean? How should you maintain it? Like, you need to know where these things are and how, you know, Hey, this area I’m not too worried about it, but this is an area you need to watch. Need to monitor this, and like, this might be the next thing that you have to fix. So they absolutely should be there to learn all that. Cause if they just look at the report, not going to get any of that context.
Saad: Yeah. always talk about people, the inspection report is kind of essentially a playbook. It’s like a playbook for like a short to medium term.
Adam: It’s quite a to-do list for some people. Yeah. Have I ever showed you guys a trick on how to narrow down that to-do list for the repair request thing? There’s a tool in the report, the top right, if anyone has an inspection report, and it says tools, you click on it, it repair request builder. Let’s say somebody moved into the house and they want to create a to-do list for their significant other. You hit that button.
Mike: What a nice gift.
Adam: It brings you to another page where it just shows every action item that we put. You can filter it, just show me the red, show me red and orange and then they can select them, like bink, bink, bink, bink, and then just like create a form and it shows just those. You can put comments next to them, can put dollar figures next to them, so like it’s super cool that you can do that right from the software and kind of narrow it down like that playbook or to-do list, like you can even zero in further on it.
Mike: That’s cool. That’s terrific. Yes, anything that you can do to simplify it is great.
Mike: Real quick on the people who have joined us: John Manor. Hello. Jackie. What’s up another agent. — hey, Adam Hey, guys. Nate, what’s up, Nate? Uzi Garrett Big Jim keeps a…
Adam:I don’t even want to touch my screen to like read any of those because I know I’m gonna screw it up oh I’ll rely on you to read those, Mike, because there’s no chance I’m touching it, Mike.
Mike: Quinstagram, Momofit, Danielle, hello. And then that’s where we’re at right now.
Mike: So, Saad, you got any last questions for our inspector cop here?
Saad:No, I think that was good. Adam, thank you so much. We’ll obviously have you on again. I mean, there’s so much to talk about when it comes to inspections. So more to come from Adam for sure. Thank you for that intel and hopefully if any listeners have questions DM us we’ll get them answered for you too or DM Adam directly he’s awesome and an important partner for us so thanks again Adam.
Adam:Thanks for having me guys it’s been a pleasure and yeah like you said anyone reach out with questions.
Mike: Thank you, that’s been Adam, Saad below, I’m Mike this is Storii Time. That’s how we end it every week. We’ll see you next week. Adam, talk to you soon.
Adam: Thanks again.
This podcast episode was recording prior to the implementation of the Affordable Homes Act in July 2025. To learn more about the act, contact Adam at or read on here.
This Instagram live is transcribed for your easy reading. If you want to catch Storii Time live, every week, follow @saadmun1r and @photolowski on Instagram.