What Sellers Don't Mention That I Usually Find Anyway

Most sellers aren't lying. I want to start with that. The vast majority of people selling a home are honest about what they know. The thing is, they might not know what's behind the wall, and they might have forgotten about something that happened seven years ago, and they almost never volunteer information that could hurt the sale unless they're directly asked.

So part of what I do as the inspector is fill in the gaps. Here's the kind of thing I notice that didn't make it into the seller's disclosure.

Fresh paint where there shouldn't be fresh paint

I walked into a house in Belleview a while back. Whole place was painted, which is normal for a sale. But one corner of the master bedroom ceiling was done in a slightly different sheen than the rest. You could only see it when the light hit it from the bathroom door.

That's a tell. Either someone touched up a stain right before listing, or they painted over a spot they hoped nobody would notice. I went up into the attic right above that corner and there was a section of insulation that was darker and matted from old water exposure. The roof had been leaking, probably had been patched, but the ceiling told the story.

Touch-up paint near plumbing fixtures, paint sheen mismatches on ceilings, suspicious freshly painted patches in closets. All worth a closer look.

Past pest activity

Florida has bugs. Termites, carpenter ants, drywood beetles. A house that's had treatment isn't a problem necessarily, but it should be in the disclosure, and the buyer deserves to know. I find evidence anyway, usually.

In the attic I'm looking for mud tubes on the rafters, frass piles (fine sawdust that's actually termite or beetle waste), and the little exit holes drywood termites make. Around the slab edges I check for past tenting evidence. Sometimes you can see where the tarp hold-down lines compressed the landscaping, sometimes there are residual treatment markers near foundation entry points.

Spray treatment usually leaves stains around baseboards and door frames. Tented homes sometimes have a faint chemical residue still detectable in a hot attic.

None of this means the house has active pests. Most of the time it means somebody got ahead of the problem. But it should be on the disclosure, and when it isn't, that's a conversation worth having before you close.

Roof patches that don't quite match

A full roof replacement leaves a uniform appearance. A patch leaves a slightly different one. From the ground a roof might look fine. From the roof itself, or from a drone, you can usually see where someone had a couple of squares replaced after a hailstorm, or where a section was redone over a chronic leak area.

If the seller says the roof is original, but I see a 4x6 area of mismatched shingles over the kitchen, that's not me catching them in a lie. They probably forgot or didn't know. It's just information you should have.

Patched drywall that's been smoothed over

Walk through any house and you'll see some patches. Past curtain rods, past TV mounts, past kid stuff. That's normal. What I'm looking for is patches in unusual locations. A circle of patched drywall in the middle of a wall that's not near a fixture or stud is sometimes covering a leak access hole that was cut to repair a plumbing issue. It might also just be from removing a wall safe. Either way, it tells me the wall was opened at some point, and I want to know why.

I run my hand along baseboards in older bathrooms. Soft baseboard means the wall behind it has been wet. Hardwood floors near tubs and toilets that have a slight ripple to them mean water sat there at some point.

Fixtures that look new in a house that's not

Brand new water heater in a 1985 house? Fine, water heaters don't last forever. But brand new water heater right next to corroded supply lines and old shutoffs makes me wonder if there was a flood in there last year. Sometimes the seller will tell you about it. Sometimes it just gets quietly fixed and not mentioned.

Same goes for one new toilet in an otherwise original-fixtures bathroom. Sometimes a wax ring failed, the toilet was replaced as a cheap fix, and the subfloor underneath is soft. I want to put a flashlight under the bowl and look at the floor.

Why this isn't about catching anybody

I'm not playing detective. Most sellers aren't trying to hide anything dramatic. The point is that the house has a history, and that history affects what you're buying. Some past issues are nothing. Somebody fixed it, the fix held, you'll never think about it again. Some past issues mean there's something still going on under the surface.

The inspection is just the tool that surfaces the questions. What you do with the answers is up to you and your agent.

But yeah, when a seller's disclosure says "no known issues," and the house tells me a different story, that's a conversation I think you should be in on.