Perry, Michigan
Looking for a Perry home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Perry, 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 Perry 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 Perry and across Shiawassee 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 Perry 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 reportPerry housing stock
Perry has roughly 970 housing units and about 76% 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: 184 homes, about 19% of everything standing today.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $132,600.
None of this says anything about the specific house you are buying. It is the shortlist a Perry 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 Perry was built
82% of homes here run on utility gas, and 8 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.
Local knowledge
Perry is the rare town where you cannot guess the house from the town. Its housing is spread almost evenly across nine decades — around 184 units predating 1940, 137 from the 1940s, 179 from the 1970s, 132 from the 1980s, and roughly a hundred each from the 1990s and 2000s. No single decade accounts for even a fifth of the city.
That matters practically. In a town that is mostly pre-1940 we arrive expecting layered alterations; in a town that is mostly 1990s we arrive expecting a first replacement round. In Perry the house next door may be sixty years older than the one you are buying, so we come without assumptions and let the building tell us.
The second thing is a genuine oddity, and it is worth knowing before you plan any work. Two official sources describe who handles building inspection here differently. The City’s own page describes a 2003 ordinance transferring that authority from the county to the City, and it lists a City building inspector with an office and published hours. Shiawassee County’s current jurisdiction list, updated in early 2026, shows building as a county function for the City of Perry.
We are not going to tell you which is right, because we do not know and we have found no source that settles it. What we would do is start with the City, because that is where a named inspector, published permit applications and actual office hours are — and ask them to confirm the position for the work you have in mind.
And on those hours: the City’s building inspector is in the Perry office from one until two on Mondays and Wednesdays. Two hours a week. Plan around it.
Before you buy
Permits
The City’s building inspector page is unusually candid, and it explains something about small-town Michigan that is easy to miss. The inspector serving Perry also serves multiple other communities across Genesee, Saginaw and Shiawassee counties.
That is not a criticism of anyone. It is simply how building inspection works in a lot of places this size: a qualified individual under contract to several municipalities, moving between them. But it does explain why the Perry office hours are one hour on a Monday and one hour on a Wednesday, and it is why lead time is the thing to manage on any project here.
The page sets out when a permit is needed: new construction, some repair work or alteration to an existing structure, and any remodel or enlargement. It also states plainly what does not need one — cosmetic projects such as wallpaper, carpet, paint, cabinets or trim work.
That explicit exemption is more helpful than it sounds. Communities vary enormously on where the permit threshold sits, and we have covered places where even repairing a roof or replacing a fence requires one. Perry telling you clearly what is exempt saves a phone call and a wasted trip.
Ask the City for the permit history on the specific address before you buy. A home inspection is not a permit search and we do not present it as one, but it will tell you what is physically there to ask about — and on a town with housing from every decade, unrecorded alterations are common. A buyer’s inspection is the usual starting point, and commercial building inspections to the CCPIA standard are available where a building is commercial.
Two answers
Shiawassee County publishes a jurisdiction list setting out, for every community in the county, whether zoning, building, electrical, mechanical and plumbing are handled locally, by the county or by the state. For the City of Perry it shows zoning as local and building and all three trades as county functions.
The City’s own building page, meanwhile, records that in May 2003 the city council approved an ordinance transferring building inspection responsibilities from the Shiawassee County Building Department to a City of Perry Building Department — and the City staffs and publishes that department today.
Both are official publications. We have found nothing that reconciles them, and inventing an explanation would be worse than useless, so we are simply reporting both and telling you to confirm.
For a buyer the practical route is short. Call the City first and ask three things: who issues a permit for the work you are contemplating, who performs the inspection, and where the permit history for this address is held. If any of those turns out to sit with the county, you will be told so, and you will have lost nothing but a phone call.
It is worth resolving before you commit rather than after, particularly if part of why you are buying is what you intend to do to the property.
The ordinances
Perry publishes its complete codified ordinances online, current through the middle of 2026, which is more than a lot of small cities manage.
Two parts of it are the ones a property owner is most likely to need. Part Ten covers streets, utilities and public services, which is where questions about water, sewer and the public right-of-way live. Part Fourteen is the building and housing code.
We have not read either part in detail and we are not going to characterize what they say. In particular we will not tell you where responsibility for a buried service line divides between the City and the owner, because that is exactly the sort of thing that varies between communities and exactly the sort of thing it would be irresponsible to guess at.
What we will say is that the answer is published, it is current, and it is searchable — which is not true everywhere. If a specific question matters to your purchase, the text is there to be read rather than inferred.
The city clerk’s office is the point of contact for water and sewer permit inquiries, and the City also runs assessing, a food bank, bulk item collection and links to regional public transport.
The housing
Because Perry has no typical house, we look at each one on its own terms. But the decades do bring characteristic questions with them, and it is useful to know which ones apply.
On the pre-1940 stock — around 184 units — the exercise is reading accumulated change. Electrical rebuilt in stages by different hands, with mixed wiring types meeting in the same box, ungrounded receptacles, overfilled panels and overfused circuits. Plumbing renewed in part rather than in whole, so material transitions at the joins are where trouble concentrates. Several generations of roof covering. Foundations of stone or early block whose condition depends far more on water management than on original construction.
On the 1940s and 1950s houses, original service capacity is often the practical limit on what a modern household wants to run, and galvanized supply pipe where it survives corrodes internally, showing up as reduced flow long before it leaks.
On the 1970s and 1980s stock, aluminum branch wiring is a live question in the earlier part of that range and we report it wherever we find it. Roofs, furnaces and water heaters will be two or three replacements deep, and how well each was fitted matters more than how new it looks.
On the 1990s and 2000s houses the questions flip to first-replacement timing: original roof coverings reaching the end of their service life, failed double-glazing seals showing as clouding between panes, and decks whose ledger connections, flashing, fasteners and post bases need genuinely examining rather than glancing at.
About a quarter of the stock is not a detached house, which in a small city usually means converted upper floors and small multi-unit buildings. Tell us what the building actually is and we will scope the visit properly. Radon testing and mold inspection and testing can be added to any visit.
The buried line
Whatever the ordinances say about who owns which length of pipe, one thing does not change: no visual inspection reaches inside a buried drain line, and the only way to know its condition is to look.
On a town with housing from every decade, the age of that pipe varies as much as the houses do. Under a pre-1940 house it may be the oldest untouched component on the property. Under a 1990s house it is young enough that people assume it is fine and old enough that it often is not.
We will not name a material from a build year. Nothing published establishes what Perry lines are generally made of, and a guess in a report is worse than no statement at all.
A sewer camera inspection records what is actually in there: roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and a clear run where they do not. In an established town with mature street trees, roots are the common finding and they give no warning until the day the drains back up.
On the newer stock there is a second reason to look: a line laid during a 1990s or 2000s build can carry construction debris or a settled section from the day it went in, and nothing about the house above it suggests anything is wrong.
A camera inspection is added to the same appointment rather than booked separately, and we deliver a full written report with photographs, generally the same day. You can read what our clients say, browse answers to common questions, or get in touch about a specific address in Perry.
Local information from City of Perry — Building Inspector, office hours and permit FAQ · Shiawassee County — 2026 Jurisdiction List · City of Perry — codified ordinances, current through June 2026 · City of Perry — departments. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Perry 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
Ask the City, and ask before you plan work. The City’s own page describes a 2003 ordinance moving building inspection from the county to a City department, while the county’s current jurisdiction list shows building as a county function here. We have found nothing that reconciles the two.
The City states he is in the Perry office from one until two on Mondays and Wednesdays. He also serves multiple other communities across Genesee, Saginaw and Shiawassee counties, so lead time is the thing to manage.
The City lists new construction, some repair or alteration to an existing structure, and any remodel or enlargement. It states that cosmetic projects — wallpaper, carpet, paint, cabinets, trim — do not require one.
Perry publishes its full codified ordinances online, current through the middle of 2026. Part Ten covers streets, utilities and public services; Part Fourteen is the building and housing code.
That is answered in the city code rather than by us. We have not read those sections and will not guess at them, because the division varies between communities and getting it wrong would cost somebody money.
No. They are separate municipalities with separate arrangements — the county’s jurisdiction list gives them different rows entirely. Confirm which one an address sits in.
Any of them. Perry’s housing is spread almost evenly across nine decades, with no single decade accounting for even a fifth of the city. We come without assumptions.
Yes, and for different reasons depending on the house. Under older stock the line may be the oldest thing on the property; under newer stock it can hold construction debris or a settled section. A camera inspection goes on the same visit.
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 Perry home inspector and not sure we reach you? Call 734-331-3269 and we will tell you.
Permits, assessing and property records for Perry are handled by the City of Perry, not by us.
From the blog
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Your local Perry home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
