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The hot housing market is “very bad” for this home inspector

With heightened competition to buy homes, many buyers are waiving inspections and other contingencies.

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Despite the decline in business, home inspector Peter Drougas says "there's no way I'm closing down."
Despite the decline in business, home inspector Peter Drougas says "there's no way I'm closing down."
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

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People often assume the hot housing market means Peter Drougas’ inspection business is very busy.

“It’s really more that we’re being burned,” Drougas said. “Doing 500, 600 inspections a year to doing less than 300. And we might only do about 200 or 250 inspections this year.”

With the shortage of homes on the market, Drougas said, more buyers are waiving appraisals and inspections to have their offers accepted.

“In the past year, we’ve actually found that a lot of people are calling us to do an inspection of a property after they buy it,” Drougas said. “Often that worked out OK, but there are a few examples where we did discover something where they probably wouldn’t have bought the house. Or they’re in a situation where they paid way over the asking price, so they’ve got no money and now a $50,000 repair to do.”

Drougas is hoping that the housing market will normalize, giving buyers more power so they can go back to insisting on inspections.

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