Home Inspection Report: What's a Dealbreaker and What Isn't?

No. It is a list of observations about the property's condition on one particular day. There is no score, no threshold, and no grade. An inspector who writes a long report is usually a thorough inspector, not the bearer of bad news about a bad house.

More than you expect. Brand-new construction can produce 100 or more items, and a home that has been lived in for 15 years will produce more than that. Volume tells you very little. The distribution of severity tells you almost everything, and that is the part the report does not summarize for you.

Not whether the house is perfect. It is not, and neither is the one you would buy instead. You are trying to answer three things: is anything here unsafe, is anything here going to cost real money in the next few years, and is anything here going to make the home difficult or expensive to insure. That third one is where Florida diverges from everywhere else, and we get to it below.

These share a trait: they are expensive, they are slow to fix, and several of them can affect insurability. That combination is what makes something worth a real conversation rather than a repair request.

Most of this list is a Saturday and a trip to the hardware store. Spending negotiating capital on a missing outlet cover is how buyers lose leverage on the item that actually mattered.

This is the section that does not exist in a generic inspection guide, and it is the one that changes outcomes here. In most of the country, an inspection tells you about condition. In Florida, several separate inspections tell your insurance carrier whether they will write the policy at all, and at what price.

A focused look at four systems: electrical, plumbing, heating and cooling, and the roof. It exists for insurance underwriting, not for you, and it is typically required on older homes applying for new coverage. Citizens Property Insurance, the state-backed insurer, requires one on properties more than 20 years old seeking new coverage, and requires that serious hazards such as exposed wiring or active leaks be repaired before coverage begins. Private carriers set their own thresholds, which is why your insurance agent needs to be in this conversation early rather than the week before closing.

The report covers the roof, the electrical system, the plumbing and water heater, and the HVAC, and it records the age and condition of each. Carriers care about remaining service life, so an aging water heater or a panel nobody has looked at since the nineties can hold up a file even when nothing is leaking or sparking. Every one of those is fixable when it surfaces early in the inspection period and painful when it surfaces the week of closing. Budget roughly $100 to $150 for the inspection.

Because in Florida, a roof can be watertight and still be a problem. Carriers underwrite remaining life, not just current condition. Citizens, for example, requires a roof inspection on soft roofs such as shingle over 25 years old and hard roofs such as tile, slate, or metal over 50, and requires documentation of at least five years of remaining useful life. If the roof has less than that, proof of full replacement is required before the policy is written.

The one inspection that can save you money rather than cost you. It documents wind-resistant features already present in the home, such as roof-to-wall connections, roof deck attachment, and impact-rated openings, and those features translate into premium credits.

Under Section 627.0629, Florida Statutes, residential property insurers are required to inform policyholders about available hurricane mitigation discounts, and the Office of Insurance Regulation reviews the discount structure on a five-year cycle. The inspection is performed on a state form by an inspector authorized under Florida law, and a completed form is generally valid for up to five years absent material changes to the structure.

What earns the credits, specifically: a hip roof, hurricane clips or straps tying the roof to the walls, a well-attached roof deck, and impact-rated glass on windows and doors. The report runs about the same as a four-point, roughly $100 to $150, and in many cases your general inspector can complete it during the same visit. It also stays with the property, so ask whether the seller already has one on file before you pay for another.

It is optional. Skipping it is usually a mistake, because you are declining to document savings the home has already earned.

A wood-destroying organism inspection, performed separately from your general home inspection by someone licensed under Florida's structural pest control law. Standard home inspectors can note damaged wood but are not permitted to diagnose what caused it. On the Gulf Coast, this is not a formality. Termite pressure here is genuine, and the WDO report is the document that tells you whether the damage in a crawlspace photo is old, active, or someone else's problem from 12 years ago.

Get a quote early, ideally before you are emotionally committed to the house. In Florida the property itself decides whether a carrier will write it at all, what coverage is available, and what you pay every year you own it, and your lender will want coverage bound before closing. The buyers who get caught are the ones who treat insurance as a closing errand instead of an inspection-period question.

Four things, in roughly this order of weight.

Citizens sets its own thresholds, as above. Across the wider market, 15 years is the number that matters. Under Section 627.7011, Florida Statutes, a carrier may not refuse to issue or renew a policy solely because of roof age when the roof is less than 15 years old. For a roof 15 years or older, the carrier must let the owner get an inspection from an authorized inspector before it can require replacement as a condition of coverage, and if that inspection documents five or more years of useful life remaining, age alone is not grounds for refusal.

That is the law. The practical reality is that the list of carriers willing to quote starts thinning at about 15 years on a shingle roof even when the roof is perfectly sound, and a 20-year-old shingle roof usually needs that documented remaining life to get written at all. Metal and clay tile get a much longer runway, commonly 30 to 40 years. Expect an older roof to be covered on an actual cash value basis rather than replacement cost, which means depreciation comes out of any future check.

Your Florida policy carries a separate hurricane deductible, and it is a percentage of your dwelling coverage rather than a percentage of the claim. Section 627.701, Florida Statutes, requires carriers to offer options of $500, 2%, 5%, and 10% of the dwelling limit, and on most homes here the real choice is among the last three.

On $400,000 of dwelling coverage, a 2% deductible means $8,000 out of pocket before the policy pays anything on a hurricane claim. At 5% it is $20,000. A separate all other perils deductible, often $2,500 to $5,000, covers everything that is not a hurricane, and the hurricane deductible applies once per calendar year rather than once per storm. Flood is excluded from the homeowners policy entirely, which brings us to the next section.

Flood is always a separate policy. Your homeowners coverage does not pay for storm surge or rising water in any flood zone, including the good ones, and this is the single most common misunderstanding we correct with buyers moving here.

Zone X means the property sits outside FEMA's high-risk Special Flood Hazard Areas, and it comes in two versions: shaded X for moderate risk and unshaded X for lower or minimal risk. A federally backed mortgage generally does not trigger the mandatory flood insurance requirement that applies in the high-risk A and V zones. Your lender can still require a policy anyway, so confirm it rather than assuming.

Lower risk is not no risk. FEMA reports that from 2014 through 2024, 29 percent of National Flood Insurance Program claims came from outside high-risk flood areas. Nearly one claim in three was filed by someone who had been told the map said they were fine.

Much less than in an A or V zone, and the honest answer past that is that you have to quote it. Pricing under FEMA's Risk Rating 2.0 weighs elevation, construction, replacement cost, and distance to water, so two Zone X homes on the same street can come back with different numbers. Get both the homeowners quote and the flood quote early in the inspection period, not days from closing. What a house costs to insure is part of what the house costs, and it belongs in the decision while you can still act on it.

It corrodes anything metal and exposed, faster the closer you are to the water. Condenser coils, fasteners, railings, exterior light fixtures, garage door hardware, and outdoor kitchen components all age differently two blocks from the Gulf than they do two miles inland. When we read a report on a gulf-front or gulf-adjacent home, corrosion notes get more attention than they would elsewhere, and we ask whether the HVAC equipment was specified for a coastal installation.

The most common moisture problems we see on this coastline do not come from the weather. They come from an empty house. A second home that sits closed up between visits with the thermostat set high, or off, is the classic setup for a musty smell and a mold finding. If the home you are buying has been vacant or lightly used, read the moisture section carefully and ask how the house was maintained between stays.

Yes. A property that has run as a short-term rental has more turnover, more guests, and more hours on the HVAC than a comparable second home. That shows up in flooring, appliances, mechanical wear, and deferred small repairs. None of that is disqualifying, and much of it is priced in. It does mean the mechanical sections deserve a closer read, and it means scheduling the inspection can take more coordination during season, since the house may be booked.

For every item you are considering raising, ask in this order:

Not quite, and this is the most misunderstood part of a Florida transaction. The "AS IS" Residential Contract used across most of the state gives the buyer a defined inspection period, during which the buyer may cancel and recover the deposit. What it does not do is obligate the seller to make repairs. Sellers frequently do make repairs or offer credits, because they want the deal to close, but that is a negotiation rather than an entitlement.

Practically, this means your leverage is highest during the inspection period and drops sharply after it ends. Use the window. Your agent should be helping you separate the items that justify a real ask from the ones that will cost you credibility, and your specific contract language and deadlines should come from your agent and, where appropriate, your attorney.

Then it did its job. That is the entire reason the inspection period exists. Walking away from a home over a failing foundation or an uninsurable roof is not a failed transaction. It is an inspection working exactly as designed, and it is far cheaper than finding out in year two.