Three line items carry nearly half the repair estimate
In a typical Bay Area inspection report, three items carry close to half the repair estimate, and items under $300 add little.
Each bar is one of the 22 Bay Area homes we read, sorted by how much of its repair estimate sits in its three largest items (filled); the dashed line is the median, 46%.
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A repair estimate reads like a long list, but the money is not spread evenly down the page.
For each of the 22 Bay Area inspection reports in the study, we ranked every priced finding by its estimated cost and asked how much of the home’s total sits at the top of that list. The median home has about 17 priced items.
The first two figures are per home. In the median home the three largest items carry 46% of the estimate, and the single largest carries 18%. The last two pool all 658 priced items across the 22 homes.
A median hides the spread, so the next chart shows every home. The top-three share runs from 11% to 72%, and the middle half of homes fall between 23% and 53%.
Each bar is one home’s estimated repair total. The filled part is its three largest priced items; the grey part is everything else.
Eight of 22 homes have half or more of their estimate in three items. At the other end, seven homes have less than a quarter in the top three. The difference tracks the length of the list: the high-share reports have a median of about 9 priced items, the low-share ones about 54. Some of that is arithmetic: the longer the list, the less any three items can hold. Some is how finely the inspector itemizes.
Many items, few dollars
Group every priced finding by size and the count and the money tell different stories. Items of $1,000 or more are 17% of the list and 48% of the dollars. The first list is the share of items in each band; the second is the share of estimated dollars.
Share of items
Share of dollars
Items under $300 are 27% of the count and only 8% of the dollars. The $1,000 to $5,000 band is the reverse: 16% of items and 39% of dollars. The $300 to $1,000 band is the largest on both lists, 56% of items and 44% of dollars.
Very large items are rare. Only 5 of the 658 priced items are over $5,000, yet together they hold 9% of the dollars.
Set a floor
Another way to read an estimate is to pick a floor and ignore everything below it. The table shows what each floor leaves on the list in the median home, and how much of that home’s estimate it still covers.
Each column is its own median across homes, so a row does not describe one house. Floors of $2,500 and $5,000 are left out: the median home has no items that large.
Drop everything under $300 and the median share kept is 91%, while the median count falls from 17 to 13.
The list collapses between $500 and $1,000: the median count falls from 10 to 3 items, and the share covered from 72% to 39%.
Where the largest item sits
For each home we took its single most expensive item and noted the category Insite filed it under.
Ties are listed alphabetically.
HVAC holds the largest item most often, in 5 of 22 homes. Electrical and Safety Issues follow with 3 each. The eight categories shown account for 21 of the 22 homes; in the other home, the largest item falls in another category.
The estimate against the price
A dollar figure reads differently on a cheaper house than on a more expensive one, so we also divided each home’s estimate by its price. The price is the asking price, or the sale price for the 2 homes where only that was published. 19 of the 22 homes have both, and the rest are left out here.
In the median home the estimate is 0.44% of the price, about $4,400 per $1M of price. The middle half of homes fall between 0.12% and 1.65%, or $1,200 to $16,500 per $1M.
The median share falls as the price rises, from 3.06% (Under $2M) to 0.09% ($4M and up): the estimate does not grow in step with the price. Taken home by home, the 19 homes with a price show a moderate relationship: a higher price tends to go with a smaller estimate.
Treat gaps between bands as rough. Each band holds a handful of homes, between 4 and 6; prices follow region, and most of a region’s reports come from one inspection firm.
How big the largest item is
The largest item’s share of the estimate says how much one item holds, not how large that item is. Here is the dollar figure: each home’s single most expensive priced item.
The median home’s largest single item is $1,900; a quarter of homes have a largest item above $3,600, and a quarter below $1,000.
Concentration by price, size and age
The top-three share from the start of this article, split by the price, the size in square feet and the year the house was built, one at a time. A band is shown only when it holds at least three homes, and a home missing a fact is left out of that split.
The medians by band rise with the price: the median top-three share runs from 20% (Under $2M) to 65% ($4M and up).
The medians by band rise with the size: the median top-three share runs from 31% (Under 1,500 sq ft) to 54% (Over 2,500 sq ft).
There is no straight line from age to the top-three share: the highest median is 57% (Built 1960–1979), the lowest 30% (Built before 1960).
There is no straight line from age to the number of priced items: the highest median is 35 items (Built before 1960), the lowest 13 items (Built 1960–1979).
Treat gaps between bands as rough. Each band holds a handful of homes, between 4 and 9; prices follow region, and most of a region’s reports come from one inspection firm.
What the total leaves out
None of these figures include the findings Insite does not price. In the median home, 43% of findings carry no estimate. Most are scope notes, where the inspector says what could not be reached or was not tested: about 11 in the median report. The rest are advice, such as having a specialist take a closer look, and plain facts about the house, such as the age of the water heater, about 3 each. A scope note is not a clean result; it means that part was not checked.
Three things to do with your own estimate
If you have a report with an estimate, start here.
- Find your top three. Sort the estimate by cost. In the median home here, those three carry 46% of the total.
- Check where each of those prices came from. A figure from a contractor’s bid or another document in the package is firmer than a general estimate; get a bid for any of the three that has none.
- Don’t negotiate the long tail. Items under $300 are 27% of the list and 8% of the dollars. Budget for them and move on.
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