I don’t see it that way.
This only locks in the offer.
Typically/usually An offer on a home is locked-in when both the buyer and seller have signed the purchase agreement, creating a legally binding contract.
The rule doesn’t mean homebuyers are required to get an inspection. However, they can only waive it after an offer is accepted. " They do have the ability to do so, but it will no longer be used as a differentiating factor when presenting an offer to a seller," Sarah Gustafson, the president of the Massachusetts Association of Realtors, told WBUR’s Dan Guzman.
Explain further please…
Well, the main reason buyers waive inspections is to have their offer accepted. With this change, waiving the inspection no longer improves the odds of a seller accepting the offer, so there is no longer any reason to waive an inspection. You can announce after the offer is accepted, that you decided that are having an inspection done. This will take the % of home sales being inspected to well up over 90%. Mandatory would be 100%.
Morning, Nick. Hope to find you well.
I concur. The current Mass. law should improve the current % of homes being sold to be inspected. But to expect the rate to go to 90% percent is a little too optimistic in my opinion.
I concur. 100% new home or used home sales inspection rate would be a great attachment. Will it ever happen? Every state and province would have to agree.
Kind regards.
Robert Young
Bottom feeders will rise to the top as agents scurry around to find soft reports for their buyers!
I see and hear that comment a lot. But I am happy to say, that I rarely run into those agents. While no agent likes to hear bad news, nearly all the agents that I know, accept that as part of the biz. Yesterday, about 1/3 of the way through the inspection, the buyer announced that he’d seen enough and we could stop the inspection. The agent just nodded her head and said she was thinking that this was not going well, either. And then at the next inspection, the agent tells his client at the end, “This is why I like Lon. He finds all this s**t and tells it like it is.”
I’ve “divorced” myself from a few agents over the years. Interestingly, all of them were old timer, old school agents (my age, ahem) and were struggling to adjust to a world where their sales were inspected.
We know all know that more government makes life better, right?
Uh, no. On its face, it may seem like a good thing to home inspectors, but government interference rarely, if ever, leads to anything good. Free enterprise and socialism each have their merits, but for small and medium sized businesses, socialism doesn’t usually work out so well. The irony is that It was small and medium sized businesses that commissioned Marx and Engles to write the Communist Manifesto.
Protectionism, socialism, and communism are all first cousins. They all lead down a common path. Laws that expand government ultimately stifle free enterprise. They don’t protect consumers. They harm consumers and fill government coffers. They disincentivize merit based competition. Licensing has degraded home inspection to a fungible commodity. Government encouraging home inspections may seem like a good idea, but in the minds of consumers, it could represent and reinforce the fungibility of home inspectors.
Merit based competition works. Socially engineered competition doesn’t work.
Very well said and very true!!
Morning, Lon Hope to find you well and good spirits today.
I concur, Lon. The longer I inspected, the more rare I would run into agents with that mindset.
The biggest factor to me, looking and acting as a professional while being good with good communication skills.
No home is in perfect condition others are not well maintained.
Experienced Professional Realtors know this and refer whom they enjoy working with. That is how this industry works.
Well said, Lon.
It is almost a knee jerk reaction to say “There oughta be a law” when we see someone doing something we don’t like. I’ve also said it and then immediately reminded myself, “not necessarily.”
Many years ago, the president-elect of the Colorado Association of Realtors approached several of us inspectors to inform us that CAR was going to get us licensed and he was willing to allow us to be involved. I responded with, “What if we don’t want to be licensed?” He said, “The bus is going to be driven, it is only a question of who drives the bus.” I reached my hand across the table to him and said, “Hand me the keys.”
There are no occupations that regulation and licensing have removed the incompetent, the dishonest or worse, from their ranks. The proponents of licensing counter that licensing provides an easier means of removing the bad actors than market forces provide. Marginally, that seems true. Yet, even with licensing, bad actors often keep working for years before finally getting the boot. Proponents of licensing counter that regulation and licensing provide a baseline of expertise, knowledge and professionalism. Once again, at the margins, probably true. But lordy, how often do we encounter licensed professionals that are not within a light year of competent?
Sadly, I use the example of doctors. Doctors go to really tough schools for years. They have to pass a really hard exam. They have tough internships. And yet, I’ll wager a few dollars that all of us have a story or two about crummy doctors. I confess that I would not deregulate medical professionals as that is one of the few professions, imo, that education requirements, regulation, and licensing do create a baseline of knowledge. Yet, I have repeatedly encountered doctors that demonstrate a baseline of knowledge barely above mine.
In Colorado, we are not licensed, at least for now. That effort to license us in Colorado all those years ago failed, as did the next two attempts. If I get my druthers, I’d druther not see us licensed. The evidence is pretty clear that licensing does not do much to improve most professions or at least, it doesn’t do enough to justify the bureaucracy and expense. Even with licensing, the market still determines who succeeds and who doesn’t. The market identifies the best and eliminates the worst.
I have quite a few fellow inspectors who want us to be licensed here. While they throw out the usual reasons like eliminate the crummy inspectors, they will eventually mention that it will make for fewer inspectors. Those of us remaining will get bigger slices of the inspection pie. Woo-hoo. A cynic might wonder if that is more of the real reason. However, it has been observed that when a profession is licensed, there is a surge of people getting into it, presumably because they think licensing will eliminate competition. After a few years, the number of people in that profession returns to or near pre-licensing numbers. That “market” at work again.
My favorite poet philosopher, Neil Peart, was an anarchist. He rationalized that no government is better than too much government. I can’t go there with him. Either extreme is bad. We need some regulation and some government. The dispute is how much, and I appreciate the difference of opinion on where that line is drawn. More government is our future because, most people want that. I’d rather move slowly in that direction.
A piece of paper from the state does not ensure any level of competency. Realtors and buyers seem to believe that it does.
I’m right there with you on all points. We need some amount of government but the question is how much is too much or not enough? Whatever the right amount is, I don’t know, but one thing I firmly believe is that the government should work for us. It seems that the government sees it the other way around, that we work for the government.
The states that require home inspectors to be licensed have done great harm to the trade. Nothing good has come out of home inspector licensing.
I don’t believe that is true and I really hope that it isn’t.
Larry, I have conducted surveys multiple times asking home inspectors if they want licensing for home inspectors. The results have been the same every time. Approximately 85% of inspectors want Big Brother to take their. Money and tell them how they must run their business. In all the times I have done surveys, I never saw less than 80% wanting government interference in home inspection. Socialism is apparently very popular among home inspectors.
Whether it was popular or not, there aughta be a law against thinking like that. 
Seriously, what is happening to our sovereignty and freedoms? Wake up people! SMH
I don’t know most people so I hope you are wrong.
Plato was no fan of Democracy but thankfully we don’t have one. His allegory in “The Republic” depicts people who are confined to live in caves and experience reality as silhouettes projected by a control group (government). When someone escapes the cave, experiences life above (true relity) and returns to share his new knowledge the cave dwellers kill him for disturbing their ignorance. He likens Democracy as rule by the cave dwelling masses who are blinded by their own ignorance. (notice the scary similarity to the 21st century where the masses are “taught” by exposure to social media)
The saying, “ignorance is bliss” is embodied by many who honestly think they are enlightened. For the history buff Plato’s allegory above describes the death of Socrates who was tried and condemned for impiety.
Curiously, Christ met the same fate for very much the same reason some 400 years later.
I’m in an unlicensed state, but the topic got me interested in what states have licensing. The below map is current as of April 2025.
How about accountability? Isn’t that a good thing?
There is a case in Indiana where an inspector, whose license is now expired, performed a HUD inspection instead of a home inspection for a real estate transaction and failed to identify significant deficiencies, including electrical, plumbing and HVAC systems. The deficiencies were so extensive that the buyer had to take out a loan to pay for the repairs. The buyer likely didn’t have the resources to hire an attorney so their only recourse was to file a complaint with the AG.
His second hearing is scheduled in a couple of weeks since he failed to appear for his first hearing.
Licensing elevates home inspections from an occupation to a Profession. And without a legal standard, there is no accountability..
That’s not true. There are both “good Faith” and “reasonable expectation” standards applicable to contract law. In this country you can file a claim against virtually anyone by simple visiting the appropriate state / county commissioner and filing a claim.
Caveat emptor applies to the purchase of services as well as goods. The accountability you are claiming puts the onus on the seller (caveat venditor) and uses the government (licensing) to pursue a claim. This creates a fiscal burden on the general public for something you, as consumer. are responsible (protecting your own transaction).
Nebraska requires home inspectors to be registered which is short of license.