Home / Inspection reports
Listing photographs
never show the cracks
Australian listing photography is done by professionals. The rooms look larger, the light looks better, and the problem is just outside the frame. We go in person, and we write down what is actually there — including when the answer is that you should not buy it.
What we look at
What 2,471 inspections teach you
Since 2019 we have walked through 2,471 homes. Do that often enough and certain things announce themselves within three steps of the front door.
StructureExtensions, wall movement, roof sag, floors that give underfoot. The age a renovation is covering.
CrackingA stepped vertical crack and a continuous horizontal one mean different things. We do not wave the second one through.
Material gradeStone benchtop or laminate, solid timber or floating floor. Almost indistinguishable in a photograph.
Design faultsCirculation that doesn't work, a toilet improvised into the laundry. Undoing that later runs to $30–40K.
Drainage and dampAdelaide's reactive clay soils move with the seasons. Ground conditions and drainage get checked every time.
Light and privacyWhether the windows face a neighbour's fence, whether the afternoon sun reaches the living room.
Outdoor spaceWhether the garden in the photograph is usable yard or a side passage with hedging.
Ongoing burdenOverhanging trees, a pool, ageing split systems. We convert these into an annual figure.
Contents
What a report contains
This is the table of contents from a report delivered to an actual client. They run to around twenty pages and arrive one to two days after the inspection — Best Offers campaigns close within days, so a day matters.
01VerdictBuy or don't, and up to what number
02Property overviewLand, configuration, build era, title type
03Condition assessmentFindings by severity, with recommended action
04Critical defect analysisScenarios with probabilities and repair ranges
05Suburb deep-diveMedian, five-year growth, rental yield
06School catchmentZoned schools and what that zoning is worth
07Crime and demographicsOffence rates, owner-occupier share, incomes
08Locational riskSocial housing, flood overlay, heritage, easements
09Comparables and valuationThree independent cross-checks
10RecommendationOpening offer, walk-away ceiling, decision tree
11Photo logEverything captured on site
Suburb statistics and sales evidence are drawn from published sources including CoreLogic RP Data, the Australian Bureau of Statistics and South Australia Police.
Case 01
A report that ended in “don't”
April 2026. A two-storey brick home in Lower Mitcham, under consideration by a couple — both doctors — expecting their first child. The renovation had only just finished, and in photographs there was nothing to fault.
Case 01
Lower Mitcham · strata title, two storey · 3 bed 2 bath
Conditional proceed
The agent's verbal guide was above one million dollars. We did not think the property was worth it.
“Walk away above $1,000,000.”
There were two cracks, and they were not the same
A stepped vertical crack following the mortar joints is common in older brick homes. The one that concerned us was beside it: a continuous horizontal crack, 1.5 to 2 metres long. Horizontal cracking that runs unbroken behaves differently. We split it into three scenarios and put a probability and a cost against each.
60%
30%
10%
A low probability is not a reason to ignore something. If the ten per cent case runs past a hundred thousand dollars, that is a matter for a building inspector and a structural engineer before you go unconditional. Saving $400 to $700 on an inspection is a poor trade against carrying $100,000.
Then we checked the price three ways
We anchored on a freestanding house sold two months earlier in the same street, adjusting for title type, land size and timing. We repeated the exercise against two other nearby sales. All three paths converged around $1.05m to $1.08m, and we discounted 4 to 6 per cent for the cracking risk to arrive at a fair value of $980,000 to $1,025,000.
Opening offer $925,000 to $950,000; walk-away ceiling $1,000,000. If the vendor held firm above it, we named three alternatives that did more for the same budget.
Case 02
A good suburb, a poor position
Case 02
Kensington · small allotment on an arterial road · 3 bed
Watch
Kensington is blue-chip eastern Adelaide. The median sits above $1.4m and the socio-economic indices are strong. On the address alone, this looked like a good buy.
It carried two handicaps that could not be designed away. The allotment was 150 square metres — too small to subdivide or extend, so there was no land value to recover. And it fronted a busy arterial road with commercial neighbours.
Houses on the main road do not track the side streets, even in the same postcode. We forecast growth of 5 to 7 per cent a year against a suburb trend of 7 to 9, and set the ceiling at $850,000.
“Drive past at 8am and again at 5pm before you bid.”
That went in the report. Some things resolve into numbers; traffic noise is not one of them. Clients overseas cannot make that trip, so we make it for them.
How we grade
Thirteen properties, three top grades
The actual distribution from a shortlist we assembled across Adelaide for one client. A grading scale on which everything scores well is not a grading scale.
Strong Buy3
Buy6
Consider3
Watch1
Every grade carries its reasoning. The three at the top had an approved subdivision already in hand, or an allotment well above the suburb average, or a clear margin between build cost and end value. The one at the bottom is the Kensington property above. Each came with an opening number and a walk-away number.
Fees
You can buy the report on its own
For buyers who already have a property in mind, or who are running a campaign elsewhere and want a second opinion.
Inspection report · per propertyAUD 330Incl. GST. Attendance, photography, condition assessment, suburb research, valuation and final recommendation. Delivered one to two days after inspection.
Full buyer's agency1%Of the final purchase price, with the AUD $3,300 engagement fee deducted in full. Reports are included at no additional cost.
An inspection report is prepared to inform a purchasing decision. It is not a structural certificate and does not replace a formal valuation. Where a structural defect is suspected, a separate inspection by a licensed building inspector and structural engineer should be obtained.