Getting building inspection reports is a very important stage in the process of buying a house. Sometimes people decide to skip those reports for many reasons such as time pressure, the high cost, couldn’t be bothered, etc. They are really playing with fire, because if later on it turns out that the house has a problem – it’s their problem.

But even those who do go though all the trouble and employ an inspector to check their future asset can not rest in peace. Why? Because some reports list more things that ARE NOT COVERED than things that are covered

According to solicitor Tim O’Dwyer the best way to select a building inspector that will produce a decent inspection report is to ask for a standard report before contracting him. This way you can see in advance that you won’t be paying good money for a crappy job.

If you look up appraisal and valuation in the dictionary, they will come up as synonyms, but there is a huge difference between those words when it comes to real estate.

Realtors often offer people “free appraisals” of their property but as good as it sounds, those appraisals are inaccurate (to say the least). What the estate agents are really doing is applying their knowledge of local market to try and predict what that property can be sold for. Why they call it appraisal? Because they are not professional valuers and it’s illegal for them to use the word “valuation”.

Why shouldn’t people believe those appraisals, after all who knows the prices better than the local real-estate agent? Because in many cases estate agents have their own agenda in mind – so they can give a higher appraisal to attract people so that they choose to sell the property through their agency, etc.

Speaking of concrete houses, I was under impression that ZEGO offers a unique solution - but actually that they have many competitors.

All of them offer ICF – insulated concrete forms – as a building system. Here’s the list of the first ones I found:

Thermacell

When people are planning to buy a house, the first thing they think of is “do I have enough money for a deposit?”. But the expenses of buying a house don’t end there – in fact, there are many more costs people must know about in advance, so they would have a chance to save enough money.

Here’s a list that covers most of the house-buying expenses: