Birmingham, Michigan
Looking for a Birmingham home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Birmingham, 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 Birmingham 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 Birmingham 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 a Birmingham 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 reportBirmingham housing stock
Birmingham has roughly 10,435 housing units and about 71% of them are single-family detached. Homes built in a single stretch tend to wear out in the same places at the same time. That is why when somewhere was built is the first thing worth knowing about it.
The busiest stretch of building here was the 1950s: 2,405 homes, about 23% of everything standing today.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $679,700. Around 508 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.
None of this says anything about the specific house you are buying. It is the shortlist a Birmingham home inspector works through in a home of this age, and every item on it gets photographed and written up whichever way it turns out.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Birmingham was built
81% of homes here run on utility gas, and 12 still heat with oil. If yours is one of them, the tank is the thing to ask about — where it is, and whether it was ever buried. Another 74 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Birmingham publishes a monthly list of newly issued building permits, and makes site plans and exterior elevations available to the public at city hall. That is the most useful pre-offer research tool of any city we write about, and hardly anyone uses it.
The reason it exists is the reason it matters. Birmingham is a rebuild market rather than a growth market: building slowed to about 516 units through the 1990s and then more than doubled to 1,149 in the 2000s, on a housing stock where roughly 2,405 units date from the 1950s and about 2,974 predate 1950. Houses come down and larger houses go up in their place.
So before you buy, you can find out what is about to happen on the lot next door — and in a city where a neighboring teardown means a year of trucks, an open excavation and a regraded lot line, that is worth an hour of anyone’s time.
The City takes the disruption seriously enough to publish a Builders Code of Conduct that opens with a sentence worth remembering: builders are guests in an existing residential community.
Before you buy
The teardown next door
Birmingham’s Builders Code of Conduct is a document about construction etiquette, and reading it as a buyer tells you a great deal about what living next to a rebuild is actually like here.
It opens by describing builders as guests in an existing residential community, and states that existing neighbors have a right to the quiet enjoyment and use of their property. It asks builders to communicate with neighbors about the project, its expected duration and who to contact, and to find out in advance whether an adjoining owner has concerns that could be dealt with before work starts.
On site management it is specific: control deliveries so the site and the right-of-way are not overloaded; time excavations so construction follows quickly and open excavations are not left standing; comply with the City’s rigid perimeter fencing and controlled entry gate requirements; keep walkways open, with extra care on routes to schools during travel times; and place portable restrooms and waste disposal to minimize the impact on neighboring property.
The line that matters most to a buyer sits under the heading about exerting care: builders are asked to grade property, temporarily or permanently, so as to avoid drainage problems for a neighbor, and to avoid damaging trees and shrubs on adjoining land and in the public right-of-way. A regrade next door genuinely can put water against your foundation, and if you are buying beside an active site that is worth understanding before rather than after.
And the City is blunt about enforcement: it will not tolerate ignorance of the laws, and says an aggressive enforcement team is in place.
Short-term rentals
If your plan for a Birmingham property involves short stays, check the current position before anything else.
On 27 April 2026 the City Commission voted to place a six-month moratorium on issuing licenses for renting or leasing, or offering possession or occupancy of a dwelling, for 30 days or less. The City attributes it to growing resident concern about noise, parking, transient occupancy and disruption to neighborhood character, heightened by an incident at a short-term rental property on Lincoln. The Planning Board held a study session on the subject in May 2026.
A moratorium has an end date, and a six-month one voted in April 2026 runs into the fall. We are telling you what the City decided and when, not what the position is on the day you read this — that is a call to the Building Department, and it is the first call to make if short-term letting is the reason you are buying.
The City also publishes a Landlord Code of Conduct alongside the builders’ one, employs a dedicated rental inspector, and takes rental-property concerns through a citizen request system and a mobile app. We did not find a published rental inspection cycle or license validity period, so we are not going to state one.
Seventy years apart on the same street
Few markets we work in contain such different buildings side by side.
About 1,518 units predate 1940 and another 1,456 went up in the 1940s, with 2,405 more in the 1950s. Against that, roughly 1,862 units have been built since 2000. On a single block you can find a 1926 house that has been through five roofs and three furnaces, and a 2012 house whose first round of replacements is still ahead of it.
On the older stock the questions are the usual ones for prewar housing, plus the ones peculiar to a renovation market: how additions and dormers were tied into the original structure, how finished basements were treated, what a re-grade or a new drive has done to the way water moves, and what is behind finishes that were installed over the top of older work.
On the newer stock the recurring items are grading that settled after backfill, flashing where roof geometry gets complicated, and how a large house sits on a lot that was originally platted for a smaller one — which is a drainage question as much as a zoning one.
A buyer’s inspection covers the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and accessible interior, reporting what is failing, what is near the end of its service life and what to plan for — and saying plainly what could not be seen. Permits and inspection requests here run through the Building Department and BS&A Online, and the usual caution applies: a permit on file does not establish good condition today, and no permit does not establish bad work.
The buried line
On a prewar Birmingham house the buried lateral running to the sewer main is usually the oldest thing being sold, and no visual inspection reaches inside it.
Ninety years or more is enough for roots to find a joint, for ground movement to displace a section, and for repairs to have been made and forgotten. In a rebuild market there is a second consideration: heavy equipment, excavation and re-grading on or beside a lot are hard on buried pipe, and a new house does not necessarily mean a new lateral. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Birmingham laterals are generally made of.
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.
Alongside it, commercial building inspections follow the CCPIA standard for offices, retail, multifamily and warehouse property, and radon testing or mold inspection and testing can be added to a residential or commercial visit.
Local information from City of Birmingham — A Builders Code of Conduct · City of Birmingham — short-term rentals moratorium · City of Birmingham — Building Department. 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. A zone is an average taken across a whole county, and no house is an average.
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 Birmingham 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
Birmingham publishes a monthly listing of newly issued permits on its website, and makes site plans and exterior elevations available to the public at city hall under the public disclosure laws. That is unusual and genuinely useful — in a city where teardowns and rebuilds are common, an hour with that list before you write an offer can tell you whether the lot next door is about to become a construction site.
Check the current position before you rely on anything. On 27 April 2026 the City Commission voted a six-month moratorium on issuing licenses for renting or leasing, or offering possession or occupancy of, a dwelling for 30 days or less, citing resident concerns about noise, parking, transient occupancy and neighborhood character. A six-month moratorium voted in April 2026 runs into the fall, so the position may have moved by the time you read this. The Building Department is the place to confirm.
The City clearly thinks so. Its Builders Code of Conduct asks builders to grade property, temporarily or permanently, so as to avoid causing drainage problems for a neighbor, and to avoid damaging trees and shrubs on adjoining land. It also requires perimeter fencing and a controlled entry gate, asks that excavations not be left open longer than necessary, and asks that walkways stay usable. If you are buying beside an active site, those are the things to watch.
Split in two. About 1,518 of roughly 10,435 units predate 1940 and another 1,456 date from the 1940s, with 2,405 from the 1950s. But roughly 1,862 units have been built since 2000, after a slow 1990s. Around 71% is single-family detached. On one street you can find a house that has been through five roofs and one that has not yet had its first replacement.
How the pieces meet. Additions and dormers, and how they were tied into the original structure. Finished basements, and what is behind the finishes. Re-grading and new driveways, and what they did to the way water moves around the foundation. Older houses in a renovation market accumulate layers, and the joints between those layers are where problems usually show up.
It employs a dedicated rental inspector and publishes a Landlord Code of Conduct alongside its builders’ one, and residents can submit concerns about rental properties through the City’s citizen request system or its mobile app. We did not find a published inspection cycle or license validity period, so we are not going to state one — the Building Department is the place to confirm it.
No. A permit on file does not establish that work is in good condition today, and nothing on file does not establish that work was done badly. In Birmingham the record is unusually accessible, which makes it a good starting point — but the record tells you what was declared and an inspection tells you what is actually there.
On older housing especially, and there is a second reason here. The buried lateral on a prewar house has been in the ground ninety years or more, and no visual inspection reaches inside it. In a rebuild market there is also the question of what heavy equipment, excavation and re-grading nearby have done to buried pipe — a new house does not necessarily mean a new lateral. 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.
Police, fire, rescue, military and educators — our way of saying thank you for your service. Enter code HERO at checkout.
Claim the Hero DiscountNeed a Birmingham home inspector and not sure we reach you? Call 734-331-3269 and we will tell you.
From the blog
October 22, 2017
May 18, 2024
February 24, 2026
February 18, 2025
July 2, 2020
Your local Birmingham home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
