I recently had two building and pest inspections done by two different companies. The price was almost the same – but the difference in quality of service was amazing.

The first company responded to my booking promptly and arranged for the inspection to be carried out on the next day. I was promised that in case they find termites I will get a call immediately. Of course I was hoping that they wouldn’t because I really had my heart set on that property, but guess what – they did. Their inspector called me and let me know that there were signed of infestation and that the report will have the details.

Naturally, I was anxiously waiting for the report, checking my email every hour. At 12 in the afternoon I finally lost my patience and called the company only to get “Yes, we’re working on your report, it will take another hour to get it ready and, by the way, we have lost all the pictures taken during the inspection because of a faulty camera”. Can you imagine how furious I was! The only reason why I hired that company was because the sample report they had online looked really good, many large pictures with all the problematic spots circled to be easily seen.

Of course after such a fiasco I wasn’t going to hire them ever again. Luckily I found another company – and this time I will mention a name because I would recommend them to anyone: BuyWise. They are real professionals. The inspection was quickly booked for me by a very friendly lady, I got to choose the day and the time, they let me be present during the inspection and they were actually half an hour earlier on site than we scheduled! Pest inspector had a specially trained dog with him - what a brilliant idea to train a dog to detect termites! The building inspector didn’t leave any of my questions unanswered and only left when I was completely satisfied. I got the report early on the next day, great pictures and even an estimate of costs for all the repairs needed. I would definitely use their services again.

Doing efficient research of properties online saves you tons of time - and time is money, right? It is really a good idea to find out all you can about the house before you take time to inspect it. And it is possible with the help of these very useful tools:

Reiv - weekly sales data

This tool gives you an idea what’s happening on the market, is it a good time to buy or sell, see full explanation here.

Realestate.com.au – Sold properties

This tool gives you the precise picture of a houses price range in the area you’re looking at. Visit Realestate.com.au, click on “Buy” tab and on “Sold Properties” in it, choose your state and suburb and you will see all the sold houses on the map. Many properties (not all but still decent percentage of them) will show the price they were sold for.

Google maps

Using Google maps you can look at any house from above. Actually there are 3 kinds of maps: satellite, terrain and regular map.

Satellite map can help you understand, for example, is the garden facing north or south, how close is neighbor’s house to yours, is the back yard large enough for you to build a workshop there, etc.

Terrain map can tell you for example whether or not your house is located on the hill.

Regular map shows very clearly all the near-by amenities, like recreation centers, schools, shopping centers, train stations, etc.

Google planimeter

Not in every real estate listing you can find the size of land and in many cases even the agents can’t tell you that – but you’d still want to know. This is where Google planimeter can help you – set the points in the corners of the allotment and the tool will measures its area. The downside – no search box, you have to manually find your state/suburb/street/lot on the map.

Gmap pedometer

In many cases you would like to know the distance between, say, your house and the closest bus stop. Using Google pedometer you can easily set two points on the map and it will tell you the exact distance between them.