Building and pest reports are essential

Building and pest reports are what I would consider the most common, and almost mandatory cost when buying a house. These reports look at the building (structural soundness) and pests, to check you aren’t flatting with termites or white ants. I can say that building and pest reports have saved me over five times from buying complete dumps of properties.

Termites are surprisingly common in Brisbane homes.

With white ants, termites or even damp, you can’t physically see it from the outside. Building and pest inspectors (who in Queensland are generally licensed builders) will inspect under the house, in the roof and use their own technical equipment to check for damp and other issues.

I’m not kidding when I say these reports have saved me over five times.

In one year I literally spent over $2000 on reports for different properties before finding the right place but I’m glad I did! One of the properties had concrete cancer, another had issues with flooding and water leaking through the walls which was going to cost the new owner $9000 to fix, another had termites in a tree in the backyard and evidence of old damage in the roof. This was all stuff I wouldn’t have found out without using a building and pest inspector.

Building and pest reports might have cost me a bit, but have saved me much, much more over the years.

A further word of warning.

One thing you need to be wary of is when the real estate agent selling the property is pushing their own building and pest inspector.

You want to maintain your independence and get your own team to look after this. Make sure you use a certified building and pest inspector, and if there are a few small issues in the report that are fixable, that’s great, you can use this to negotiate discounts from the vendor!