What an Inspection Tells Me That Underwriting Cannot

The spreadsheet tells me whether I want to look harder. The property tells me what I am actually buying.

I can learn a lot from a rent roll, trailing financials, tax records, and an offering memorandum. I still want to walk the property.

I am looking for the things that rarely show up cleanly in seller materials: how repairs were actually made, whether water is getting where it should not, how electrical and mechanical systems evolved over time, which finishes are near the end of their life, and whether a renovation scope is really as simple as it sounds.

Sometimes the inspection confirms the underwriting. Sometimes it gives us a reason to add contingency. Sometimes it changes the business plan completely.

My contracting background probably makes me spend more time looking at physical details than some investors do. I consider that a feature, not a distraction.

The goal is not to find a perfect building. It is to understand the imperfect building well enough that the purchase price, capital plan, financing, and operating assumptions all describe the same property.