Auburn Hills, Michigan
Looking for an Auburn Hills home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Auburn Hills, seven days a week. Home inspection reports come back in 24 hours.
Schedule your inspectionCall 734-331-3269
Services
For buyers, sellers, and homeowners keeping an eye on the place they already own. On new construction we also do pre-drywall inspections and 11-month builder’s warranty inspections. Our certified inspectors walk every major system in your Auburn Hills home and tell you plainly what they found — then put it in a photo-rich digital report within 24 hours.
Following the InterNACHI Standards of Practice:
Included free with every home buyer inspection— and none of them require us to sell your information.
SatisfactionIf you are unhappy with your inspector on the day of the inspection, before you have seen your report, tell us and we will make it right — or you owe us nothing.
30-Day WarrantyA free 30-day Guard home warranty trial, negotiated for you with no obligation. Activate it whenever you are ready.
$100 OffThe buyer’s protection guarantee: if the first home we inspect for you does not make it to the closing table, for any reason, we take $100 off any further home buyer inspection within 30 days of the original.
Optional services at an additional cost — not part of a standard inspection. Tap one to see what it covers.
A camera down the main sewer line, watching its condition from the inside — roots, breaks, bellies and blockages no visual inspection can find. More about sewer scope inspections
The wood-destroying organism report VA buyers are typically asked to provide, on the federal NPMA-33 form. Carried out during the same visit. More about Veterans WDO inspections
Up to five air samples sent to an accredited laboratory, added to the same appointment rather than booked as a second visit. More about mold inspection and testing
View a sample report
Offices, retail, multifamily and warehouses in Auburn Hills and across Oakland County. Know what condition a building is in before you sign — or stay ahead of problems in the one you already own. Reports in 24 to 72 hours depending on size.
Following the CCPIA commercial standards:
Commonly added to a commercial inspection at additional cost.
Commercial laterals are longer, older and carry more. A camera is the only way to see the condition of the one you are buying. More about sewer scope inspections
Air samples to an accredited laboratory, which matters most in buildings that have sat empty or had a roof or plumbing leak. More about mold inspection and testing
View a sample report
Add either to an Auburn Hills home or commercial inspection, or book it on its own. We test and we never remediate, so there is nothing to sell you on the back of a result — the number you get is just the number.
Radon measured in house on a professional continuous monitor; mold samples to an accredited laboratory:
The other things worth testing while somebody is already there.
Carried out after remediation on the treated area and the areas next to it, to confirm what was found. More about mold inspection and testing
A damp basement can have several causes, and the buried sewer line is the one a visual inspection cannot check. A scope rules it in or out. More about sewer scope inspections
View a sample reportAuburn Hills housing stock
Auburn Hills has roughly 11,935 housing units and about 38% of them are single-family detached. Age is the most useful single fact about a house before anyone has seen it. It narrows down what is worth checking first, and it is why two places of much the same size can need quite different inspections.
If the town has a defining decade it is the 1990s, which accounts for 2,679 homes, around 22% of the housing stock. It is also less detached-house territory than most of the area at 38%, so condominiums, duplexes and small multi-family buildings are a bigger share of what we inspect here — and those bring their own questions about what is yours to maintain and what belongs to the association.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $215,400. Only 48% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, so a good share of what we inspect here is bought as a rental or sold with tenants in place — which changes what access on the day looks like. There are around 1,037 manufactured and mobile homes in Auburn Hills. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement. Around 674 homes sit in two-to-four unit buildings, where a shared roof, a shared wall and sometimes a shared furnace mean the report has to be clear about where one unit stops.
Treat this as a starting list, not a diagnosis. An Auburn Hills home inspector checks these things early in a home of this age and then records what is genuinely there, which is often not what the era would suggest.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Auburn Hills was built
81% of homes here run on utility gas. Another 246 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Auburn Hills has the second lowest share of detached single-family housing of any town on this site — about 38%, behind only East Lansing. Nearly two thirds of the housing here is a condominium, a townhouse or an apartment.
That is what a city built around a corporate and university base looks like, and it shapes the first question of almost every inspection here: which components are yours, and which belong to the association. Roof, siding, windows and sometimes the water heater or furnace flue can sit on either side of that line depending on the governing documents, and it decides who pays for what we find.
The building stock is also comparatively young. Of about 11,935 units, 2,679 date from the 1990s, 1,902 from the 1980s and 1,717 from the 2000s, with roughly 46% built in 1990 or later. There is older stock too — 1,488 units from the 1960s and around 1,800 predating 1960 — but the weight of it is recent.
One small, concrete thing the City does that is worth knowing: after any inspection it leaves a sticker on the premises saying whether the inspection was approved or disapproved.
Before you buy
Attached housing
When two thirds of a market is attached housing, the inspection conversation starts in a different place.
On a detached house, everything from the ridge to the footing is yours and the report covers all of it. On a condominium or townhouse, the association may own the roof, the siding, the windows, the exterior doors, sometimes the balcony structure and occasionally mechanical components shared between units. The governing documents decide, and they vary enormously between developments in the same city.
That does not change what we inspect — we report the condition of what is there, accessible and visible, either way. It changes what you do with the report. A failing roof covering is a very different number depending on which side of that line it falls, and a special assessment is a real possibility on the association side.
So get the documents before the appointment if you can. A buyer’s inspection covering the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and accessible interior is more useful when you already know who owns what.
And because Auburn Hills carries a large commercial and industrial base alongside its housing, commercial building inspections to the CCPIA standard come up here more than in most of the towns we cover — offices, retail, multifamily and warehouse property, where the mechanical count alone changes the arithmetic.
Permits and records
The City’s Community Development department runs permits and inspections through BSAonline, which handles electrical, mechanical, plumbing and sign permits and inspection scheduling without paper.
Inspections are required after obtaining a building, electrical, plumbing or mechanical permit, and the trade permits typically require both a rough and a final inspection. Scheduling closes at 4:00 pm the business day before, and inspections run Monday to Friday excluding City holidays. After each one, the City leaves a sticker on the premises indicating whether it was approved or disapproved — which means a house with recent work sometimes carries a visible record of how that work went.
The department also publishes a zoning verification letter application, tenant occupancy and tenant occupancy construction applications, an after-hours construction permit application, and rules on construction hours and debris. The zoning verification letter is the one worth knowing about as a buyer: a written answer from the City about a specific parcel is worth more than a phone call you half remember.
The usual caution applies to any record. A permit on file does not establish that work is in good condition today, and nothing on file does not establish that it was done badly. An inspection tells you what is actually there.
Water and sewer
The City’s Water and Sewer Division oversees approximately 185 miles of water main and 120 miles of sanitary sewer main, staffed by a utilities manager, a crew leader and ten operators. The City belongs to the North Oakland County Water Authority.
On backups, the City asks that water main breaks and sewer backups be reported to the DPW during business hours and to the Police Department after hours, at weekends and on holidays. It publishes a sewer back-up policy alongside Michigan’s Public Act 222 of 2001 and a claim form, with the completed form going to the Public Utilities Manager on Brown Road.
Public Act 222 sets out when a municipality can be liable for a backup and imposes a notice requirement with a short deadline. We are not going to quote a number of days for Auburn Hills, because the City’s own policy is the document that governs and we could not read the period in plain text — other cities in this region publish 45 days, and assuming that applies here would be exactly the kind of shortcut that costs someone a claim. Read the City’s policy, and act in days rather than weeks.
What an inspection covers is how the property itself handles water: accessible grading, gutters and downspouts and where they discharge, foundation conditions, the basement or crawlspace, floor drains and any sump equipment, with staining, efflorescence and past repairs recorded as found.
The buried line
Newer housing gets treated as though the buried lateral is not a question yet. It is.
A condominium or house built in 1995 has a line that has been in the ground thirty years, and the trees planted when the development went in are mature now. That is enough for roots to reach a joint or for ground movement to displace a section. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Auburn Hills laterals are generally made of.
On attached housing there is an extra question worth settling first: whether the line serving your unit is yours at all, or shared and association-maintained. The governing documents answer that, and it is worth knowing before commissioning the scope.
A sewer camera inspection records what is actually inside — roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and a clear run where they do not — and it is added to the same visit rather than booked separately. Radon testing and mold inspection and testing can be added the same way.
Local information from City of Auburn Hills — Community Development, building permits and inspections · City of Auburn Hills — Public Utilities, water and sewer · City of Auburn Hills — stormwater. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Oakland County
Zone 2 is the middle EPA category — the predicted average indoor level across the county sits between 2 and 4 pCi/L. What a zone cannot tell you is anything about one house: 29% of tests actually run in Oakland County still came back at or above the EPA’s 4 pCi/L action level. Zones are drawn around counties, not around addresses, which is why the only number that settles the question is the one from the house itself.
We place a continuous monitor for 48 hours and read the result on site — no mail-in kit, no lab wait. How radon testing works · Oakland County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones. Elevated-result share from the Michigan Indoor Radon Program.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Auburn Hills home inspector.
Family owned since 2009, more than 16,000 inspections completed and over 2,000 five-star reviews across Michigan. We also handle home buyer inspections, commercial building inspections, mold testing and radon testing.
We do not sell mold remediation or radon mitigation, so there is nothing to gain from a result that comes back bad. The number you get is just the number.
Radon, mold, sewer scope and wood-destroying organism inspections go on the same appointment as the home inspection rather than costing you a second morning.
Most people do, and it is the most useful hour of the whole purchase. Ask anything while we are standing in front of it.
InterNACHI and CCPIA certified, with four Certified Master Inspectors and National Home Inspector Examination passes on the team — none of which Michigan requires. The standards we inspect to are published and you can hold the work against them.
Including weekends, because inspection windows sit on closing dates and closing dates do not care what day it is.
Reviews
I recently hired Trademark for a full home inspection on a new purchase, including sewer scope and radon testing. It was a phenomenal experience from beginning to end. Our inspector, Mitch, did a fantastic job explaining all the findings, and the digital report with photos and videos was superb. Would definitely recommend without hesitation.
Salina HamiltonOak Park, MIWe had Mitch inspect our prospective house and he was amazing. He was thorough, patient to answer my questions and provide feedback on what areas he would recommend having a follow up expert and why. The office was responsive and I was able to book multiple services to be done in the same visit (inspection, radon test, sewer scope).
Chris PlaweckiOak Park, MIExcellent sums up the entire experience, from the initial call to set up the appointment with staff that was informative and helpful, up until the actual inspection that was very professional and thorough with any and all questions I had answered. I would highly recommend Trademark to anyone who needs inspection services. Thanks again Curt, my inspector, for an excellent job.
Johnny Thomas JrSouthfield, MIWhat happens
Questions
Most of it. Only about 38% of the roughly 11,935 housing units are single-family detached — the second lowest share of any town on this site, behind East Lansing at 36%. That means condominiums, townhouses and apartments make up close to two thirds of the market, and the association documents matter as much as the inspection report.
Get the governing documents. They decide which components are yours and which belong to the association — roof, siding, windows, exterior doors, sometimes balcony structure and occasionally shared mechanical equipment. We report the condition of what is there either way, but a failing roof covering is a very different number depending on which side of that line it falls, and a special assessment is a real possibility on the association side.
The City leaves one after an inspection indicating whether it was approved or disapproved. If you are looking at a house where recent work has been done, that sticker is a visible clue about how the inspection went — and a reason to ask what the permit was for and whether it was ever finalled.
Through BSAonline for electrical, mechanical, plumbing and sign permits and for scheduling. Inspections are required after obtaining a building, electrical, plumbing or mechanical permit, and the trade permits typically need both a rough and a final. Scheduling closes at 4:00 pm the business day before, and inspections run Monday to Friday excluding City holidays.
It is a written answer from the City to specific zoning questions about a parcel, and Auburn Hills publishes an application for it. If anything about your plan depends on what a property is zoned, whether a use is permitted, or what could be rebuilt on the lot, a written answer is worth considerably more than a remembered phone call — particularly on an older or unusually sited parcel.
Report it to the DPW during business hours, or to the Police Department after hours, at weekends and on holidays. The City publishes a sewer back-up policy alongside Michigan’s Public Act 222 of 2001, and a claim form that goes to the Public Utilities Manager on Brown Road. Public Act 222 imposes a short notice deadline — read the City’s policy for the period that applies here rather than assuming a figure from another city, and act in days rather than weeks.
Comparatively young. Of about 11,935 housing units, 2,679 date from the 1990s, 1,902 from the 1980s and 1,717 from the 2000s, with roughly 46% built in 1990 or later. There is older stock as well — 1,488 units from the 1960s and around 1,800 predating 1960. A house or condominium from the late 1990s is approaching thirty, which is where original roof coverings, furnaces, air conditioning condensers and water heaters reach the end of their expected service lives.
It is worth considering. A property built in 1995 has a lateral that has been in the ground thirty years, with mature trees around it. On attached housing, settle first whether the line serving your unit is yours or shared and association-maintained — the governing documents answer that. We will not guess a material from a build year. Putting a camera down the line documents roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and is added to the same appointment.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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Permits, assessing and property records for Auburn Hills are handled by Auburn Hills, Michigan, not by us.
From the blog
October 22, 2017
Your local Auburn Hills home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
