Ontario housing market so red-hot most buyers are skipping inspections, say home inspectors

Home inspectors in Ontario say the hot seller's market is preventing most buyers from getting inspections done, which in turn, is forcing a large number of inspectors to leave the industry due to declining business. They say the situation is also putting home buyers at risk. 

Magdalena Bisson and her husband found themselves in that position after selling their house in Kitchener, Ont., last spring and trying to buy in Brantford.

After losing out on several bids, they were finally successful. But like most homes for sale, the offer had to be unconditional, which means the sale wasn't subject to conditions like an appraisal, financing or a home inspection. 

Some sellers provide a pre-inspection report to prospective buyers, but not in Bisson's case. 

"We knew that buying a home had to have no conditions, otherwise, you lose the home and you could be looking for months and months and months," she said. 

After moving in — and two floods — the couple discovered the home needed major work including excavation around the house, fixing basement drywall and adding insulation that Bisson estimates could wind up costing more than $50,000.

Ontario home inspectors say the seller's market and routine unconditional offers are leading to fewer inspections, leaving buyers uninformed or settling for "walk-through" inspections that can be less thorough and not up to association standards. Inspectors say enacting provincial legislation that's been sitting in limbo would help protect consumers and regulate the industry.

Ontario's housing market is seeing house prices hit record highs; in December 2021 the average sale price was $922,735, up 23 per cent from the year before, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association. 

GTA home inspector Panos Loucaides says he's seeing more people getting inspections done after they've already made the biggest purchase of their life.

"We end up with people sometimes crying because of some serious defects and how much money they have to spend," he said. 

WATCH | Home inspector says some buyers are getting inspections when it's too late:

The issue isn't just happening in the Greater Toronto Area. Windsor-Essex County home inspector Bradley Labute says about half the inspections he does now are after a house is sold, which virtually never happened before the housing market heated up in 2018.

Labute says about a quarter of the houses he inspects after a sale now end up having "major problems."

"The market has shifted from us protecting the buyer before getting into the home to now afterwards, they're calling us and saying, 'I want to know what I bought,'" he said.