Monroe, Michigan
Looking for a Monroe home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Monroe, 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 Monroe 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 Monroe and across Monroe 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 Monroe 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 reportMonroe housing stock
Monroe has roughly 9,011 housing units and about 74% 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 years before 1940: 3,076 homes, about 34% of everything standing today.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $151,700. Around 943 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 Monroe 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 Monroe was built
85% of homes here run on utility gas. Another 167 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Monroe publishes a blight enforcement dashboard — a public map you can search before you make an offer, showing where the City has enforcement activity.
That is worth an hour of anyone’s time in a city where about 34% of the housing predates 1940 and fewer than 400 units have been built since 2000. On a static, old housing stock, the condition of the street matters to your investment as much as the condition of the house, and this is one of the few places you can look that up rather than guess at it.
The second thing to know is where things live. Inspection and code enforcement sits under the Police Department here. Rental registration sits under Neighborhood Services with its own phone line. Building permits sit with the Building Department. Three departments, three numbers — which is worth knowing before you spend a morning being transferred.
And the housing itself: of about 9,011 units, roughly 3,076 predate 1940 and 1,844 date from the 1950s, with around 74% single-family detached.
Before you buy
The dashboard
Most cities will tell you about enforcement on a property if you ask in writing and wait. Monroe puts it on a map.
The City’s blight enforcement dashboard is published as a public geographic application, and it is exactly the kind of thing a buyer should look at before committing — not only for the property you are buying, but for the block it sits on.
Two cautions on how to read it. A record of enforcement is not a judgment about a building: plenty of entries are ordinary maintenance matters that were resolved. And an absence of entries is not a clean bill of health — it means nothing has been reported or acted on, which is a different thing. Treat it as one input among several rather than a verdict.
What it does not tell you at all is the condition of the building. That is a buyer’s inspection: the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and accessible interior, reported as found, with what is failing, what is near the end of its service life and what to plan for — and what could not be seen said plainly.
Who does what
Monroe splits these functions across the organization in a way that is unusual and worth mapping out before you need any of them.
Inspection and code enforcement sits under Public Safety, within the Police Department — the third city we have written about that places it there. Rental registration sits under Neighborhood Services, which publishes a rental registration form and a rental check list and runs its own phone line separate from the Building Department’s. Building, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, sign and zoning permits, contractor registration and the certificate of occupancy form all come from the Building Department.
We did not find a published rental inspection cycle or certificate validity period, so we are not going to state one — the rental line is the place to confirm it if you are buying income property.
The Building Department publishes a set of service commitments, and one of them tells you something about the city: it undertakes to help developers with the adaptive reuse of historic buildings so they are safe and productive for tenants and owners. That is not boilerplate in a place where a third of the housing predates 1940 and the downtown is largely historic.
A century of housing
This is an old and unusually static market. About 3,076 units predate 1940 and another 808 went up in the 1940s, with 1,844 from the 1950s — and only around 388 units have been built since 2000.
On housing that age, nothing you are looking at is original. The roof has been replaced four or five times, the heating twice or three times, the plumbing in sections, the electrical service usually at least once. Additions, enclosed porches, converted attics and finished basements have been added by different owners at different times, and how each was tied into the original structure is where the interesting findings tend to be.
Water is the recurring theme. 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. On a century-old foundation there have usually been several attempts at managing water, and reading which of them are still working is most of the job.
If the property sits in a historic district, there is an additional layer governing what you may do to the exterior — a planning question rather than a condition one, and worth settling before you commit to a renovation plan.
The buried line
On a prewar Monroe house the buried lateral running to the sewer main is the oldest thing changing hands, and no visual inspection reaches inside it.
A hundred 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 Monroe 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 — which in a city with this much historic commercial building 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 Monroe — blight enforcement dashboard · City of Monroe — building safety, inspections and permits · City of Monroe — inspection and code enforcement. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Monroe 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 · Monroe County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Monroe 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
Mitch was great and thorough the our inspection. He provided explanations and suggestions throughout the service. Highly recommend!
Jaynie GMonroe, 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
Yes, and it is unusually easy here. The City publishes a public blight enforcement dashboard as a mapped application, so you can look at the property and the street around it before making an offer. Read it carefully though: a record of enforcement is not a judgment about a building, since many entries are ordinary maintenance matters that were resolved — and an absence of entries means nothing has been reported, not that nothing is wrong.
Three different offices. Inspection and code enforcement sits under Public Safety within the Police Department. Rental registration sits under Neighborhood Services and runs its own phone line. Building, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, sign and zoning permits, contractor registration and the certificate of occupancy come from the Building Department. Knowing which is which saves a morning of being transferred.
Registration, through Neighborhood Services, which publishes a rental registration form and a rental check list and has a dedicated line for arranging rental inspections. We did not find a published inspection cycle or certificate validity period, so we are not going to state one — call the rental line to confirm what applies before you close.
Old, and the stock has barely changed. Of about 9,011 housing units, roughly 3,076 predate 1940 and 808 more date from the 1940s, with 1,844 from the 1950s. Fewer than 400 units have been built since 2000. Around 74% is single-family detached. On housing this age, nothing you are looking at is original — the question is the age and quality of each replacement.
The joints between layers. Additions, enclosed porches, converted attics and finished basements added by different owners at different times, and how each was tied into the original structure. Water is the other constant: grading at the foundation, gutters and downspouts and where they discharge, foundation conditions, the basement or crawlspace, floor drains and any sump equipment. On a hundred-year-old foundation there have usually been several attempts at managing water, and reading which still work is most of the job.
Worth checking. Monroe has a Historic District Commission and a River Raisin Heritage Corridor Advisory Commission, and on a property inside a district there is an additional layer governing exterior work. That is a planning question rather than a condition one, and it is much better settled before you commit to a renovation plan than after.
Nothing we could verify says so. The City publishes a certificate of occupancy form and runs a rental registration program, but we found no point-of-sale requirement for an ordinary owner-occupied sale, and we are not going to import one from a neighboring city. Confirm the current position with the Building Department rather than relying on any web page, this one included.
On housing this age, seriously. The buried lateral on a prewar house has been in the ground a hundred years and no visual inspection reaches inside it. We will not guess a material from a build year — no authoritative source establishes what Monroe 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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Permits, assessing and property records for Monroe are handled by the City of Monroe, not by us.
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Your local Monroe home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
