How much does a Home Inspection Cost?

The home inspection cost varies a great deal depending where you are located geographically within the United States so I am only going to talk about Kansas City home inspections.

Even in the Kansas City Metro Areas you will find a wide array of home inspection prices. Typically as of 2024 a quality inspection performed by a full time professional home inspection company; the cost of a home inspection is $400-$450 for a standard size home. Of course the price increases as the size of the home and amenities increase.

The majority of home inspection companies charge according to the amount of square footage with certain add on fees. Premier Inspection Services found this type of fee structure to be difficult not only to ourselves but to the customer.

The home inspection cost

What causes the home inspection cost to increase is basically tied to the amount of work and time involved to inspect the property and write the home inspection report. The size of the home can be determined by the amount of bathrooms, HVAC units, kitchens & fireplaces. Everyone seems to know the amount of these items when buying a home because these items are important to the buyer. Whereas the total square footage is more difficult to determine and many times is not advertised due to a fear of being sued for making an incorrect statement (This has actually happened).

To me a home with large rooms really doesn’t make a difference, it is the amount of bathrooms, fireplaces, electrical panels, multiple air conditioners & kitchens that take up the majority of time and effort. Of course if the home is over 5500 square we would want to look into making a customized quote due to this may take multiple inspectors to complete the home inspection and report in a timely manner.

The Home Inspection Business

Now that we have talked about the size of the structure let’s talk about the home inspection business. Sometimes people think wow that’s a lot of money for 3 hours of work. If that was the case that would be true but it is not the case.

Kansas City home inspectors on average have to drive 45 minutes to get to the appointment which means 1.5 hours of drive time. With 3 hours of onsite time plus 1.5 hours of report writing time (if all goes well) and 1.5 hours of travel time. That means there are 6 man hours (Minimum) in one inspection. [ And if the customer orders radon testing then there is an additional 2 hours spent driving, writing and uploading that report ]  That doesn’t include all of the time spent scheduling the inspection to gain access to the property and the multitude of follow up questions from either the buyer, seller, real estate agents, mortgage company needing paid invoices or contractors hired to make the repairs.

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Professional home inspectors such as Premier Inspection Services have a lot of overhead such as company vehicles, tools, computer equipment, report writing software, employees, E&O insurance, general liability insurance, workmen’s comp insurance, an actual office that answers the phone and so on… And all of this is what is needed to provide you the best service and protection you deserve.

Of course you can always hire the part-time cheap home inspector that’s new to the home inspection business or the retiree that decided home inspection would be fun to do for some extra income. They don’t have hardly any expenses, insurance or the experience to provide you the professional service and protection you deserve. They definitely won’t be around if you were to have issues or questions. If they fail to identify issues correctly the cheap home inspection cost just might be the most expensive thing you ever purchased… On second thought maybe that’s not a good idea.

Author: Mark Pence – Premier Inspection Services