Independent construction or a ready-made real estate project

By: Akiva Pashkos

Most people planning to buy a house face one of two main choices: buy into a project sold by an established company, essentially something ready-made, or hire a contractor independently and build the house exactly as they want it. Either way, it is worth bringing in a home inspection engineer to support the process. Each path, of course, comes with its own advantages and disadvantages.

Independent construction

Building independently means you get to decide, from the ground up, exactly how the house will look: the number of levels, the architectural design, the finishes and any extras. It is still worth getting guidance from a home inspection engineer along the way to head off construction defects.

The downside is that when you hire an independent contractor rather than one from an established project company, you are taking a risk on someone whose quality and reliability you cannot really vouch for. There is no guarantee the work will meet the highest standards, or even the relevant building codes.

Here is a sad example I came across recently. Keren (not her real name) wanted to buy her dream house in the center of the country after years in an old apartment, and had saved a respectable sum for it. After months of tiring meetings with agents and running all over the city, she found an old house in a great location at a bargain price and bought it, planning a full renovation and an extension.

She hired a contractor who seemed reliable and professional and settled the details with him, even bringing in portable toilets to make his work easier. A few months later, as the contractor was nearing completion, she came by the house to see her new dream home.

Near the living room window she heard a strange hum, and looking out, she noticed a heavy-duty power cable supplying the neighborhood running right past her window. That was when she realized the contractor had not built the house to the agreed plan, under which the window was supposed to face east, away from the cable: a genuine, significant construction defect. She also noticed the house was smaller than the original plan called for.

On a friend's advice, she turned to a home inspection company that runs engineering checks on houses and locates construction defects, and hired an engineer for a full inspection. The report confirmed it: the contractor had deviated from the plan and had also shrunk the built area, using fewer materials and pocketing a tidy profit at her expense.

Luckily, the engineering report was drawn up to a high professional standard and held up in court, and she went on to sue the contractor.

Buying into a project

Buying from a project has its own advantages: an established company that depends on its reputation to sell this project and the next one tends to use top-level professionals working to strict standards, on a more or less fixed timetable.

The downside shows up when a resident wants a home inspection to find construction defects in an apartment bought through a project: red tape and bureaucracy can slow the process down, sometimes even delaying access to the apartment for the inspection or the response to the findings.

There are two main reasons for this friction. First, the resident is just one of many buyers in the project, so they get less individual attention. Second, since these inspections have become so common, contractors now face the burden of responding to expert opinions on a large number of apartments at once, often involving extensive repairs.

In short, whether you buy into a large, multi-unit project or hire an independent contractor to build your house, a home inspection company's work in locating construction defects is valuable, and close to essential.