The Value of an Inspection

Buying a house on your own is always a gamble. Buying a house that could be anywhere up to 600 years old without expert help is no better than a crap shoot. In fact it's probably closest to Russian Roulette. Any number of problems found in a modern house are merely amplified in an old home. And certain problems exist in an old home that don't exist in a modern one: Asbestos, dry rot, and lead pipes to name a few. Certainly any potential homebuyer who has studied a little bit can find things like dry rot, but it really takes an expert to spot serious problems.
So, to help us out, before we bought the house, we actually paid an English surveyor and engineer to both survey the house for damage and come up with a comprehensive plan to refurbish it. This cost us around 1,800 dollars. Below is an example of what the blueprints he gave us looked like:

Now at first glance, this might not seem like a good return for the investment, but for piece of mind, it was well worth it. He surveyed the walls, foundation, roof and wood joists. All came through solid, with only minor maintenance needed. He found real issues (asbestos in the fireplace for one, though it was neutralized, meaning it cannot get airborne), managed our expectations about how we could restore the building (Plumbing has to go on this wall, that staircase cannot be moved, this is a load-bearing wall), and continues to be a resource of knowledge (This can be removed, that cannot, don't fix that until spring, etc.).

We did this before we bought, and becasue he would get paid either way and had no loyalty to the Realtor or selling party, we got unbiased truth. We decided beforehand what level of problems we would tolerate and still buy, so when it came back well above that level, we went into the negociations to buy even more pleased with our results. That's all well and good, but perhaps the value would've been better seen if he had discovered a fatal flaw like a shifting foundation, bad termite infestation or sever wall degradation. Luckily for us that didn't exist here, but had it, we would've saved ourselves lots of money and years or heartache.

On a different note, if I am forced to sell or abandon the project because of rising costs vs. the Euro or other reasons, the survey plus detailed floorplans/details greatly increases the interest and value of the place. It gives the seller leverage.