You Wanna Get High With Me?

Being a home inspector is great. It's fun, it's interesting, and I get to meet wonderful people. I know exactly what to do during a home inspection. But what should the homebuyer be doing during the home inspection?

In my mind, the primary responsibility of the homebuyer during the home inspection is to observe and to listen. By watching the routine of the inspector, the homebuyer will gain a comfort with the home as well as the inspection process. The inspector has the opportunity to present to and discuss with the homebuyer all the many aspects of each component and system in the home. The goal is to have no issues looming after the inspection.

That being said, active participation in the home inspection is always a good thing. I love participation! How much participation and by whom is an often debated question. Depending on an individual's role in the transaction - buyer, seller, agent, or other interested party - the intentions, interest, and involvement vary widely.

A sure fire test to tell how committed someone is to the participation process is by asking who would like to go onto the roof. Many of my home inspector buddies cringe when I speak of home buyers or agents climbing roofs with me. However, with some good judgment and a few precautions, it turns out just fine.

The fun begins when I ask, "Okay, who would like to get high with me?" If anyone looks too enthused, I get a little nervous thinking that they must have misinterpreted my question. But, after a moment, most all recognize that it is time for the roof inspection. No better way to inspect a roof than to climb up and walk around! Every now and then, a home has a walk out balcony that lets us hop the rail and stride smartly to the peak. But more often than not, it is up the ladder we go.

The truth of it all is that less than 20% of homebuyers will venture up the ladder to stroll their roof. And of that group, about half are wearing inappropriate shoes or clothing for the ladder climb. Relatively small portions of those who choose to climb just do not appear physically able to make the ascent. If it does not look safe to me, they are staying on the ground.

A few times people have objected to being told to remain on the ground. Some have even insisted that this is their inspection, they are paying me, and they will climb if they choose to. They are then are told that it is my ladder and I decide who climbs it. I have also not yet been paid for my services. I simply and calmly explain that if they would like to play the "I'm not paying" card, I can play my trump card, called "I'm not inspecting". This is rare, but does get us all back to our proper places!

Walking on roofs is all well and good, but nothing separates the bold from the meek in the arena of home inspection participation quite like the subject of crawling in crawl spaces!

Florida is a wonderful place to live. Sunshine, beautiful beaches, and a lifestyle that most of the rest of North America can only dream of. It is the quest for that good life that attracts millions of tourists every year as well as tens of thousands of new residents. But some residents of Florida, the ones found in crawl spaces, can bring fear to the heart of the bravest!

Traveling about the country to numerous home inspector events has provided me much in the way of education and perspective on the business of home inspecting. But whenever my peers discover I live and inspect in Florida, the subject always turns to critters and creatures in crawl spaces. With their eyes the size of grapefruits, I can keep them mesmerized with my many tales. Those would be opossum tales, snake tales, and gator tales!

They way these guys are captivated by the idea of an inspector crawling on his belly under a home in Florida makes me feel like Marlin Perkins from the old television show "Wild Kingdom". I can recall being about eight years old listening to Marlin narrate, "Jim will now wrestle the deadly 25 foot anaconda". Then Jim, dressed in khaki shorts, shirt and a pair of lace up boots, would proceed into the jungle marsh to risk life and limb while Marlin kept on filming and narrating.

That Jim would have made one heck of a home inspector! If he wasn't afraid of anacondas, you can bet he would be unafraid of real estate agents!

Wally Conway is President of Florida HomePro Inspections, and has recently written a book entitled "Secrets of the Happy Home Inspector", available at GoHomePro.com or Amazon.com. Wally's expertise and experience has been sought after by HGTV's "House Detective", the Florida Times Union, and many real estate boards and associations. As a speaker, writer, instructor, and host of The Happy Home Inspector radio show every Saturday at 3 PM on WOKV 690 (http://www.wokv.com), Wally blends the right amount of up-to-date information with just the right amount of humor, insight, motivation, and real-world application. Visit WallyConway.com for more information!

There is something emotionally charged about the buying and selling of New York high-end real estate. How else to explain the juggernaut of reality TV shows about high-end brokers?

After 30 years of marriage, Sharon and Michael Newman decided it was finally time to move from the Catskills to New York City.

On blocks near Kissena Park streets are quiet, houses are small, and the electricity that charges the atmosphere in downtown Flushing is nowhere to be found.

A five-story, seven-bedroom house in Brooklyn Heights has sweeping views of New York Harbor and the Manhattan skyline.

Demand is so intense that there are waiting lists in some buildings, and a few landlords report that eager renters are even bidding up rents.

Sales at the very high end of the market barely missed a beat in the recession. But that prosperity hasn’t yet trickled down.

A Flatiron condo, a Midtown South co-op and a Brooklyn Heights carriage house.

A four-bedroom ranch in Montclair, N.J., and a four-bedroom colonial Cape in Babylon, N.Y.

For a century, Roosevelt Island housed a grim penitentiary. It was demolished in the 1930s.

More borrowers are opting for fixed-rate loans with terms other than the standard 30 or 15 years, especially when it comes to refinancings.

Two more glass skyscrapers are added to a group of towers on the waterfront of Long Island City.

Insurance coverage for a co-op unit; when a tenant is ‘blacklisted’; a co-op is smaller than estimated.

The market for $500,000-to-$600,000 houses in Westchester has become especially active.

A shaky real estate market means more sellers are providing buyer concessions, from gift cards to help with paying property taxes.

Houses of worship are adaptable to residential and other uses as congregations dwindle.

The settlement reached last week over questionable mortgage practices by major American banks hardly cracks the iceberg that is the foreclosure mess.

Under the settlement, nearly two million Americans could benefit from mortgage relief from the nation’s biggest banks.

A cold war-era satellite relay station is for sale in California after a Silicon Valley mogul gave up on plans to turn it into a weekend home.

How can I make my front porch more appealing to buyers?

Court hearings meant to protect New York homeowners from foreclosure are hopelessly slowed by endless paperwork and requests for additional information.

The Bay Area and Silicon Valley expect the windfall from the Facebook stock offering to make their in-demand region even hotter.

The house, designed by the architect Eric Fisher, looms over the street like a big industrial arm.

A town house in Dallas, a midcentury modern in Rhode Island and a Tudor in Denver.

Prices in some parts of the country are still off by as much as 25 percent from their 2007 peak.

Trinity Church is the largest landlord in Hudson Square and is part of the effort to rezone the area to residential from manufacturing.

Rising oil prices and a boom in shale exploration are leading companies to add office space in the Houston area, most notably Exxon Mobil.

Ms. de França is the president and chief executive of Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, which focuses on new residential developments.

Meet the real estate broker’s interns: an ambitious group willing to do anything, earn nothing and wake up early on a Sunday to fluff the couch cushions at open houses.

A Flatiron condo, a Midtown South co-op and a Brooklyn Heights carriage house.

A four-bedroom ranch in Montclair, N.J., and a four-bedroom colonial Cape in Babylon, N.Y.

Homes in Dallas, Rhode Island and Denver.

Compare the cost of renting and buying equivalent homes.

For recently divorced men, a new breed of decorators offers help navigating a strange new world.

Plants that light up the winter garden can be found at Broken Arrow Nursery in Connecticut, which has long been a favorite of gardening geeks.

A sister in need drew the painter Beverly McIver back home to North Carolina, unaware that a new beginning was in store for both of them.

A jewelry designer finds striking new objects for storage.

Timothy Sakamoto and Jochen Repolust are part of the small but growing niche making mobile apps focused on specific works of architecture.

To promote an auction of 20th- and 21st-century design, the interior designer Stephen Sills has created a preview exhibition in an apartment at the Apthorp.

Fishs Eddy now sells plates acquired from the archives of the now-defunct Syracuse China Corporation, many more than 100 years old.

The designer Russell Greenberg creates custom baby rattles with ends shaped like profiles of mom and dad.