Saginaw, Michigan
Looking for a Saginaw home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Saginaw, 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 Saginaw 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 Saginaw and across Saginaw 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 Saginaw 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 reportSaginaw housing stock
Saginaw has roughly 20,744 housing units and about 78% 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 years before 1940 — 7,871 homes, around 38% of the town.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $51,700. Around 2,146 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 a Saginaw 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 Saginaw was built
85% of homes here run on utility gas, and 22 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 108 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Saginaw is one of the oldest housing markets we work in. About 7,871 of its roughly 20,744 units — some 38% — were built before 1940, with 4,290 more from the 1950s and 2,552 from the 1940s. Around 78% is single-family detached.
Housing that old is not automatically housing in poor condition, and we are careful about the difference. A building that has stood for a century has proved something newer construction has not. What it does mean is that every system in it has been through several hands: the roof, the heating, the wiring, the plumbing and the windows have each been replaced, repaired or partly renewed by different people to different standards over eighty or ninety years, and the only way to know which is to look at each one.
It also means the City runs programs that matter to a buyer here more than they would elsewhere — a dangerous building ordinance aimed at properties that have been abandoned or damaged, and a rental registration scheme with a deadline and a penalty worth knowing about before you own one.
Before you buy
If you are buying a rental
Saginaw’s rental process is straightforward, and one line in it is unlike anything we have found in any other city.
The City sets out the sequence on its building permits, inspection and enforcement page. A separate Non-Owner Occupied Residence Form is completed for each location to be registered and returned to the City Clerk’s Office with a photocopy of the owner’s or applicant’s driver’s license or state identification card, with the initial registration payment due on return. An inspection appointment is then scheduled, and in the City’s words, when the unit complies it may be rented.
The line to write down is the renewal. Fees are due each year by the fourth Friday in February, and the City states there is a 100% penalty for late payments — a penalty equal to the fee itself. Across every town we have researched, nobody else doubles the bill for missing a date.
The City also lists what its inspectors respond to on complaint: no heat or no water in a rental, unregistered rentals, missing smoke alarms, infestation, overcrowding, trash and debris, and parking on the lawn.
None of that is a condition report. The City inspects to its housing code so a unit can lawfully be rented. A buyer’s inspection is independent, commissioned by you, and covers the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and accessible interior — what is failing, what is near the end of its service life, and what to plan for.
Houses that have been sitting
In a city with this much old housing, a proportion of what comes to market has been empty for a while — and the City has a program specifically about that.
Under the Dangerous Building Ordinance, the code enforcement division inspects and catalogs properties that are abandoned or partially destroyed by fire or neglect, and prepares them for rehabilitation or demolition through the proper channels. It also handles complaints about activity in abandoned buildings and emergency fire demolition.
For a buyer looking at a cheap property, that is the first question to settle: where does this address stand with the City, and is there an existing order attached to it? That is a conversation with the City and your title company, not something an inspection answers.
What an inspection does answer is what condition the building is actually in — and a house that has stood empty, unheated and unused behaves differently from an occupied one. Plumbing that has been dry, heating that has not run, a roof nobody has been under, and water that has been getting in unnoticed all show up in ways that reward a careful look. Fire damage in particular tends to be partly hidden, and we report what is accessible and say plainly what is not.
Budgeting for the city, not just the house
Two practical things that shape what owning here actually costs and how quickly you can get work done.
The first is that Saginaw has a city income tax, administered under a Uniform Income Tax Ordinance adopted in 1964. The rate is 1.50% for residents, 0.75% for non-residents and 1.50% for corporations, with returns due on or before 30 April. It has nothing to do with the building and everything to do with the budget you are building around it.
The second is capacity. The City states that its building inspections are headed by the Chief Building Inspector and include building, electrical, mechanical and plumbing inspectors — and that the mechanical and plumbing inspectors are the same person. That is an honest thing for a city to publish and a useful thing for a buyer to know: if your plan for a property depends on getting several trades inspected quickly after closing, plan the sequence rather than assuming it.
On the property itself, the drainage questions are the ones that matter most on older stock. We record how the ground slopes at the foundation, where gutters and downspouts discharge, foundation conditions, the basement or crawlspace, floor drains and any sump equipment, along with staining, efflorescence and evidence of past repairs.
The buried line
On a house that predates 1940 — nearly two in five here — the buried lateral running from the building to the public sewer main is the oldest thing you are buying that nobody has ever seen.
Eighty or ninety years is long enough for roots to find a joint, for ground movement to displace a section, and for repairs to have been made and forgotten by everyone involved. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Saginaw laterals are generally made of, and guessing from an era is how people buy the wrong repair.
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 Saginaw — building permits, inspection and enforcement · City of Saginaw — community public safety and code enforcement · City of Saginaw — income tax. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Saginaw 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
A shout out to Noah for the inspection of our new house. He was very professional and thorough. He is also accessible after the fact — I have called him twice for clarification on our roofing issue and he has been so friendly and answered all of my questions.
Susan LawhonBridgeport, MII 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, MIWhat happens
Questions
Older than almost anywhere else in the region. About 7,871 of roughly 20,744 housing units — some 38% — predate 1940, with 4,290 from the 1950s, 2,863 from the 1960s and 2,552 from the 1940s. Around 78% is single-family detached. Age on its own is not a fault: a building that has stood for a century has demonstrated something newer construction has not. What it means is that every major system has been replaced or altered at least once by someone, and the inspection is about which.
Register it. The City requires a separate Non-Owner Occupied Residence Form for each location, returned to the City Clerk’s Office with a photocopy of the owner’s or applicant’s driver’s license or state ID, with the initial registration payment due on return. An inspection appointment is then scheduled, and the City states that when the unit complies it may be rented. Note the renewal deadline carefully — see the next question.
100%. The City states that renewal fees are due each year by the fourth Friday in February and that there is a 100% penalty for late payments — a penalty equal to the fee itself. Of every town we have researched, no other city doubles the bill for missing the date. Put it in the calendar the week you close.
Where it stands with the City. Saginaw runs a Dangerous Building Ordinance program that inspects and catalogs properties abandoned or partially destroyed by fire or neglect and prepares them for rehabilitation or demolition. Whether an order already attaches to an address is a question for the City and your title company. Separately, a building that has stood empty and unheated inspects differently from an occupied one — dry plumbing, idle heating, unnoticed water entry and any fire damage all deserve a careful look, and fire damage in particular is often partly concealed.
Yes. It is administered under a Uniform Income Tax Ordinance adopted in 1964, at 1.50% for residents, 0.75% for non-residents and 1.50% for corporations, with returns due on or before 30 April. It does not affect the condition of the building, but it does affect what owning here costs, and it surprises buyers moving in from a township.
Plan the sequence rather than assuming it. The City states that its building inspections are headed by the Chief Building Inspector and include building, electrical, mechanical and plumbing inspectors — and that the mechanical and plumbing inspectors are the same person. That is a useful thing to know if a renovation plan depends on several trades being signed off quickly.
Nothing we could verify says so. The City’s published inspection programs are rental registration and the dangerous building ordinance, not a point-of-sale certificate, and we are not going to import a requirement from another city that does have one. Confirm the current position with the City rather than relying on any web page, this one included.
On stock this age it is worth serious consideration. The buried lateral running from the house to the public main is the one component no visual inspection reaches, and on a prewar house — nearly two in five here — it has been in the ground eighty or ninety years. We will not guess a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Saginaw 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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Your local Saginaw home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
