Inspection photo's more or less

During inspections, I normally take a photo of each room, defect or not for reference, this gives the home buyer especially out of town buyers, a visual of the room I am referencing in the report. as you know 5/3 home can have a lot of pic’s, my question, do you only ad the pics with defects or leave all pic’s in the reports?

I can tell you what I do.

I like the report to be lean in the defect sections.

However, I do have some investors who have never seen the property. I create a section in my report called “courtesy photo’s”. Otherwise, unless requested I leave them out. I feel like the listing/selling agent should provide “selling information”.

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Welcome back to our forum, Richard!..enjoy participating. :smile:

Pictures of defects only go in the report.

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I put pictures indicative of the house. If the outside paint is good add a couple of pictures. Same for the lights, ceiling, flooring, windows, doors etc. I don’t suggest I am covering all good areas in pictures but enough to give the overall impression.

I agree. However I do include photos of main shutoff devices.

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I do as well, forgot to mention that, I also take a picture of the water main where it enters the house, the panel with the cover removed, the furnace, and WH and furnace data plates.

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Only defects and locations. The listing will have plenty of room pictures.

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The pano’s I take with my phone are more, shall we say, representative of
the condition of the property. Those RE camera make every room seem like a palace…

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In my opinion, less is more. Cluttering up an inspection report with multiple photos detracts and whitewashes what the report is really about.

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Generally, I only put pics of defects (other than the cover pic). On super-clean reports I will sometimes put pictures of furnace filter locations, water shut-offs, etc. just so people think they are getting something for their $500. IMO, descriptive pics are what listing agents (and their photographers) get paid for.

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I agree with that :+1:
Thank you

I usually take several pictures of areas my client is less likely to see such as the crawl space and attic. If there are several bedrooms and bathrooms, I will take pictures of them for better overall reference so they can figure out where a particular defect may be. Whatever will help them understand what they’re attempting to purchase.

I use Homegauge and We take a 360 deg. picture of each room, the garage. and several at the outside. These will go in the overview sections of the report. The Main Summary section is Clean, (which I put at the front of the report) and will only have the pictures needed to show defects, a “maintenance & Information summary” follows and will have pictures of shutoffs and minor issues as well as those things a client may wonder about… (I don’t have clients calling to ask if we checked the fireplace, or water pressure …etc…I put that in the Maintenance and Information summary with a picture showing “YES We Are Thorough”

The 360 deg. pick also come in handy to give reference to where defects may be located (easily crop the area we might need). They also come in handy sometimes if you need to remind yourself of something later. We will also take a 360 or two on flat roofs…we have a great mountainous, desert view here. We have very good feedback on our 360 photo laden reports for those that scroll down to review the complete report. 360s are great for CYA also, shows ALL areas that may have been blocked from view, no need to take several picks in the same room if cluttered.

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Check out Episode 263: Inspection Photos: Too Many or Not Enough? Webinar with Derik Pomaville, CPI from Home Inspector Podcast on Amazon Music.
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/d0b2c097-9054-4d30-8762-186293b42dc3/episodes/e65f5514-69fe-45e8-b0b2-8f39021889d7/HOME-INSPECTOR-PODCASTEPISODE-263-INSPECTION-PHOTOS-TOO-MANY-OR-NOT-ENOUGH-WEBINAR-WITH-DERIK-POMAVILLE-CPI?ref=dm_sh_Agq0AnGoMtb2gao3sm4K36Mqe

I put the pictures of the different areas of the home in the proper sections of the report. The kitchen section includes a picture of the kitchen for instance. If there’s a defect I’ll take a picture of that. If a house has three bathrooms for instance and there was a defect in one bathroom the customer could be confused about it’s location without a reference photo.

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Thank you Larry, I see by the comments that some inspectors only take pictures of defects, I also take pic’s of each room, each slope of roof, each side of house, if it’s a older home I have pic’s on file for the 4 point wind mit if needed, if they refuse to get it, I know they will be calling me for the 4 point wind mit if they buy the home, that being said it does take more time, and your right it does CYA
Thanks again Richard

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