East Lansing, Michigan
Looking for an East Lansing home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in East Lansing, 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 East Lansing 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 East Lansing and across Ingham 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 East Lansing 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 reportEast Lansing housing stock
East Lansing has roughly 15,745 housing units and about 36% of them are single-family detached. Housing that went up mostly in one era has mostly one era’s problems — which is genuinely useful to know before you buy, because it tells you what to look at first.
Most of it went up in the 1970s — 2,879 homes, around 18% of the town. It is also less detached-house territory than most of the area at 36%, 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 $240,800. Only 40% 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. Around 1,072 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 is a prediction about a particular house. It is where an East Lansing home inspector starts looking in a home of this age, and what we photograph and write up either way.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When East Lansing was built
67% of homes here run on utility gas, and 7 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 285 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
East Lansing has the lowest share of detached single-family housing of any town we write about — around 36%. Close to two thirds of the housing here is a condominium, an apartment, a duplex or a house in use as a rental, and that shapes almost everything about buying one.
It also means the City runs the most demanding rental licensing process we have found anywhere. On the City’s own figures, an initial rental license takes on average between two and five months, includes an all-trades inspection, and ends with a hearing at which City Council makes the final decision.
And before any of that, there is a question the building itself cannot answer: whether the property is allowed to be rented at all. Some neighborhoods have petitioned to permit only owner-occupied residences, and some individual parcels carry deed restrictions barring rental for a set period, often twenty to thirty years.
If your plan for a property involves tenants, that is the first thing to check — before the offer, not after the inspection.
Before you buy
If you are buying to rent
This is the section that saves people the most money, and it has nothing to do with the condition of the building.
The City’s own first step for an initial rental license is verifying property restrictions: confirming there are no zoning or deed restrictions. Neighborhoods that have petitioned to allow only owner-occupied residences are described as overlay districts. Separately, individual parcels can be deed restricted so that the home may not be rented for a specified period — often, the City says, twenty to thirty years.
A house subject to either is a perfectly good house that cannot lawfully be your rental. No inspection reveals that, no walkthrough reveals it, and it is not visible from the street. The City’s Planning, Building and Housing Department and the Assessor’s Office are where that gets checked.
If the property is clear, the process itself is substantial. The City describes an average of two to five months, made up of a completed application with documents and fees, an administrative review by the Housing office, an all-trades inspection followed by a letter setting out what has to be brought into compliance, a Commission hearing that forwards a recommendation to City Council, and a Council hearing at which the final decision is made.
The application itself is notarized, and if the owner does not live within reasonable proximity of the unit a legal agent is required. It asks for the number of rental units and the number and size of habitable sleeping rooms, a declaration on subletting, the occupancy and license class sought, and certification that insurance for structural loss and premises liability is in place. Floor plans must show habitable and non-habitable rooms, all exits, and basement and attic egress windows — and a site plan or mortgage survey is required.
That last item is worth flagging. Egress windows are a genuine safety item and a common finding on older housing with finished basements. We report them as part of a buyer’s inspection whether or not a license is in prospect.
The sewer line, defined precisely
Most municipalities describe the ownership boundary loosely. East Lansing defines it to the inch, and the definition is less favorable to the homeowner than most.
On its basement flooding and sewer backup page, the City states that it is not responsible for private sewer lines, and defines those as the lines that run from the home up to and including the connection to the sewer main under the street. Not up to the main — up to and including the connection to it.
The City also sets out the Public Act 222 test: a claimant must prove the public sewer had a defect, that the governmental agency knew or should reasonably have known about it, that it failed to take reasonable steps in a reasonable time to remedy it, that the defect was 50% or more of the cause of the event and the damage, and that the claimant owns and has related the value of the damaged personal property. If all five are met, a written claim must be filed with the City within 45 days of discovering the backup, addressed to the Finance Department on Abbot Road.
And the City is candid about the system: it states that much of its water and sewer pipe will need to be replaced or enlarged in the coming years because of age or limited capacity.
Given all that, a sewer camera inspection is a straightforward piece of due diligence here. It records what is actually inside the line you are about to own — roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and a clear run where they do not. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what East Lansing laterals are generally made of. It is added to the same visit rather than booked separately.
Water at the foundation
East Lansing publishes practical guidance on keeping water out of a basement, and it happens to match the things an inspection looks at.
The City advises clearing gutters and downspouts so water is carried away rather than saturating the ground at the foundation, and says downspout extensions should reach at least four to six feet from the building — noting they are often knocked loose or crushed by lawnmowers and foot traffic. It warns that landscaping and hardscaping can change how water moves and redirect it toward the foundation, and that the ground should slope away.
On sump pumps it is equally specific: test by pouring a bucket of water into the pit and confirming the pump starts and clears it; check the discharge pipe carries water well away from the foundation and is free of clogs; and it states a sump pump should always be plugged into a grounded outlet with a working battery backup in case of power failure. If flooding is believed to be a sewer backup, the City says to discontinue household water use immediately.
Those are exactly the observations we record: grading at the foundation, gutters and downspouts and where they actually discharge, the sump and its pump and discharge line as far as it can be traced, the power supply it is on, foundation conditions, floor drains, and evidence of past water entry. All as found, with what could not be seen said plainly.
A century of building
East Lansing was not built in one push. Of about 15,745 units, 2,879 date from the 1970s, 2,156 from the 1990s, 2,118 from the 1950s and 1,897 from the 1960s — with 1,509 predating 1940 and about 2,800 built since 2000.
On the older end, that means houses which have been through several rounds of everything: roofs, heating, wiring, plumbing, windows, and often a converted attic or finished basement whose integration into the original structure is worth a careful look. Egress from below-grade sleeping rooms is a recurring item in a city with this much rented housing.
On the attached side — the majority here — the question before the inspection is which components belong to you and which 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 documents.
Alongside the buyer’s inspection, commercial building inspections follow the CCPIA standard for offices, retail, multifamily and warehouse property — which in a market this heavily rented comes up often — and radon testing or mold inspection and testing can be added to a residential or commercial visit.
Local information from City of East Lansing — initial rental licenses · City of East Lansing — basement flooding and sewer backup information · City of East Lansing — rental housing information. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Ingham County
Zone 2 is the middle EPA category — the predicted average indoor level across the county sits between 2 and 4 pCi/L.
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 · Ingham County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their East Lansing 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, MIThis is one of the finest companies I have come across - that means serious customer service and professionalism. Justin was the inspector and he was very thorough yet very kind to answers all the questions that came in my mind during inspection. He took enough time, no rush, and a very detailed inspection was conducted. Extremely competitive pricing and timing from the company. 100% recommend to anyone looking for any kind of property inspection!!
Chirag R MiyaniMichiganWhat happens
Questions
No, and this is the first thing to check. The City’s own first step in the rental license process is confirming there are no zoning or deed restrictions. Some neighborhoods have petitioned to permit only owner-occupied residences and are described as overlay districts; separately, individual parcels can be deed restricted against rental for a set period, often twenty to thirty years. Nothing about the building reveals either. Check with the Planning, Building and Housing Department and the Assessor’s Office before you make an offer.
The City puts the average initial license process at two to five months. It runs from a completed application with documents and fees, through an administrative review by the Housing office, an all-trades inspection followed by a letter of code violations to be brought into compliance, a Commission hearing that forwards a recommendation to City Council, and a Council hearing at which the final decision is made. It is not a formality and it does not fit inside a normal closing window.
More than most cities. The form is notarized and signed by the owner and their legal agent if applicable — and a legal agent is required if the owner does not live within reasonable proximity of the unit. It asks for the number of units and the number and size of habitable sleeping rooms, a declaration on subletting, the occupancy and license class sought, and certification that insurance for structural loss and premises liability is in place. Floor plans must show all exits and basement and attic egress windows, and a site plan or mortgage survey is required.
You do, and further than you might expect. The City states it is not responsible for private sewer lines, defining them as the lines running from the home up to and including the connection to the sewer main under the street. That is the whole run plus the tap into the main. The City also notes that much of its water and sewer pipe will need replacing or enlarging in coming years due to age or limited capacity.
The City asks that you call its Department of Public Works, with an after-hours emergency line outside office hours, and that if you believe the flooding is a sewer backup you discontinue household water use immediately. If you intend to claim, Public Act 222 requires proving the public sewer had a defect the City knew or should have known about and failed to remedy, that the defect was 50% or more of the cause, and that you own and have related the value of the damaged property — with a written claim filed with the City’s Finance Department within 45 days of discovery.
Spread across a century. Of about 15,745 housing units, 2,879 date from the 1970s, 2,156 from the 1990s, 2,118 from the 1950s and 1,897 from the 1960s, with 1,509 predating 1940 and around 2,800 built since 2000. Only about 36% is single-family detached — the lowest detached share of any town on this site — so most of what sells here is attached housing.
Egress, among other things. The City’s rental floor plans have to show basement and attic egress windows specifically, which tells you how seriously it takes them — and below-grade sleeping rooms without proper egress are a common finding on older housing that has been converted over the years. We report egress along with how the finished space was integrated into the original structure, and what could not be seen behind the finishes.
Given how the City defines the boundary, yes. It states the property owner is responsible for the line from the home up to and including the connection to the main under the street, and that much of the system needs replacing or enlarging for age or capacity. No visual inspection sees inside that pipe. We will not guess a material from a build year — no authoritative source establishes what East Lansing laterals are generally made of. 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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