100 point Property assessments

[MasterBuilderDad]

I recently learnt that most of us who buy houses do so on the basis that everything works, or is identified by the surveyor who only ensures the building is safe to dwell in and conforms to regulations.
But having a customer who just exchanged contracts, hire me for a quick basin install that turned out to have been done with duct tape! (No joke) , I asked "wasnt this on the report?" To which he replied no.
So I got to thinking (oh oh) and I devised a new concept that covers this for prospective home buyers to know what does and doesn't work as advertised or assumed to be...most people who again, yep, my customers too!, who are selling to you maybe! Lol... ask me to do the weirdest things just because they are selling.
Im thinking about charging £99 and it takes about an hour and is done by a qualified and experienced tradesman who will spot everything.
It wasnt easy but I managed to find 100 different items to check for an average 2 or 3 bedroom house or flat. Not much in it really.
So things like door handles falling off, boilers not working or breaking constantly i.e needs replacing...taps... showers...baths... leaks.... flooring...I could go on (100 times).
The process is simple...take a tap, it gets a rating...Good, ok, repair, replace...so you know what does AND doesn't work.
This (is yet to be proven) should give you a better buying position as if too much is needed to be done, then it could be considered as a refurbishment property.
Take it from a builder, its easy to hide problems especially if the buyer spends no more than 1 hour there before deciding.
The check catches the unknowns as well, so you may not get a discount but you'll be aware of 100 things you didnt know about before!
So.... market research time...Ill take it forward and offer a 50% discount to all mums (ah, ain't he sweet) if:
A. Is it an idea worth paying £99 quid for or shall I increase/decrease price?
B. Will it make a difference to your decision to buy a property?
C. The service works well for first timer buyers, but can you see a need to have more than 1 a year?
D. The service doesn't include providing any certificates as no actual work is carried out, but if we were able to assist you directly or indirectly to undertake any work after the report has been generated, would that be a service you would consider using?
E. Would you benefit from this check as:
A landlord, homeowner, tenant, business (office) ?

Thank you for getting this far in reading, that's a good sign! It means my idea is interesting ! Please comment, tell me it's stupid, tell me it's great, is it love...or is it hate.

Landlord to multiple properties here. It sounds like a lot of work, and to put it nicely I think that only over-cautious buyers would use the service (maybe not at that price though) and I most likely wouldn't, as I tend to rip everything out of my properties and start again.

Good luck though, it could be lucrative !

Having recently bought a house with hidden disasters ;

• I’d want the bath panel taking off and underneath inspected for leaks / mouse poo
• under sink inspecting for mouse poo and leaks
• shower pressure testing
• all walls checking potentially moving items slightly ( we found unexpected leaks!)
• window locks testing

Good luck !

Thanks Blake..Im trialling it next week for an estate agent who thinks it will add more value to buyers and sellers as they may not be aware of such issues.
I don't expect landlords to go crazy over it in your instance, but not everyone can afford to refurbish every property right away and tenants always cause more problems than homeowners! Fact!
These are London prices and an hour isnt a long time. But I appreciate your input. Thank you.

How would an hour check find hidden duct tape on drains for example? Maybe the boiler works when you look at it, but fails a week later?

I think it's a good concept and agree that nervous housebuyers/FTB's would probably be very interested.

Price-wise, it seems competitive but without knowing exactly what is checked it's difficult to say how competitive (I'm also used to London prices!). It depends how superficial the checks are - if I could do them then I wouldn't pay for someone else to.

Finally, how realistic is it to complete all the checks in 1 hour?

Good luck!

Interesting idea, I like the concept but also wonder how it would actually be carried out as like pp say things could just work for that day.

Also perhaps you could allow the list to be customised so someone might not care about the shower pressure but would want to know what the insulation is like in the roof etc

Also when would it get done and how would it work from a selling point of view. For example I wouldn’t mind someone doing this but then would want to have look myself if they can back and say XX doesn’t work/needs replacing I want X amount off.

what part of the country are you in? I'm a first time buyer looking right now with limited knowledge this sounds very useful

Why on earth wouldn’t you care about shower pressure

Whenever we've bought or sold we've paid for the mortgage survey to include s homebuyers report rather than just the basic valuation and everything you mention was covered.

Personally I'd find it easier to ask the surveyor already there to do a bit extra but it might work for cash buyers or btl landlords who don't have any surveyor/ builder contacts.

Cats and kids. I think you just made it 101 points! But yes, it can be checked using a water pressure gauge but there is a fundamental reason showers suffer from low pressure, flow rate...gravity.
Sorry to hear your issues, hope you find someone to help, let me know if not. I know a lot of tradesmen all over the country ; )

Home buyers report... interesting..Ive not heard or seen this by any customers so far.
Ill check it out... thanks Miss Bartlett!

I've taken a trusted builder into a property before buying to get A sense of what needs doing and how much it would cost. I would not be bothered by the odd loose door handle, in the scheme of things having a handyman in for couple of days makes no difference in the scheme of things.

Indeed being too fussy might work against a buyer. I have just sold a BTL property to a couple who were acting like nervous FTBs. They persuaded the letting agency to let them have another view and then got the tenant to list (unreported) snags, things like a stiff oven door hinge, and ask for these to be rectified, along with assurances on an elderly but serviced boiler. I had accepted a low offer so would have just pulled if they insisted. It took both the letting and sales agent to explain that small maintenance items are part and parcel of owning a property. And that this one was in good order.

newsparklythings

London and Kent : )
Could you do the question bit and Ill swap for some free advice your way ; )

Needmoresleep

I did think this might be a counteractive exercise but it sounds like it still worked as you accepted a low offer rather than putting things right.
A handyman cant do everything as some folk seem to think..and its £300 a day for a handyman in London. Not a cost to be sniffed at. Unless youre loaded! Loadsamoney....yehhh.. : )

Hardly. I respond quickly when a tenant raises a problem. It is in my interest (quiet life etc) to keep on top of maintenance.

Yes a handy man may cost £300 a day in London. But this is not 'loadsofmoney' compared with the value of a London property. To some extend buyers do need to accept that if they buy a second hand home they buy into a standard maintenance cycle. If I sell a well maintained property at a fair price reflecting aspects of that cycle I am not expecting to engage in the detail of the odd loose door handle.

But as I said I would take a builder round, paying him an hourly rate, if I was concerned that there were potentially problematic structural issues on a property I was buying.

Good idea. Whenever Ive bought a house I take a list with me of things to check (found on property buying sites) as i dont know any builders.

Ive always had a home buters report too which is similar to your list.

How about including things that are not part of the house? I wish Id checked that the floor of both my sheds werent rotten and that there was asbestos in the garden and that the patio retaining wall wasnt cracked and slowly sliding down the garden and that the garage wall had buckled and that the turfed garden was actually laid onto concrete! So many things missed

should be home buyers report not home buters

It might be used as a pre survey check. A cheap quick look done at the time of offering. Better to walk away having spent £99 rather than £1000.

You might have this covered but I'd want:
-Plumbing to be checked for incorrect slopes/pipe breakage
-Fence post for rotting (we just spent hundreds replacing our fence)
-shower temperature (whether the thermostat is any good?)

• soil type

I needed the car version of this list when I bought one recently. I checked the obvious things like lights and wipers, I didn't check that the central locking worked on all doors (news flash, one door doesn't lock at all and it doesn't have a manual locking mechanism) and the cigarette socket was working for sat nav etc. Small annoyances, but I would've haggled harder if I'd spotted them. When I eventually get round to buying a property I'd definitely want a list of 'not immediately obvious' things to check!

I can't get used to the fact the youth of today do not know how to operate a scredriver...will only appeal to a certain market who wouldn't know how to DIY.

It's a bit like the AA check that you can pay for in secondhand cars.

Update: Homebuyers report via RICS is £400! Wow...
Looking up inclusions now!
On it like vomit : )