Ypsilanti, Michigan
Looking for a Ypsilanti home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Ypsilanti, 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 Ypsilanti 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 Ypsilanti and across Washtenaw 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 Ypsilanti 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 reportYpsilanti housing stock
Ypsilanti has roughly 9,232 housing units and about 38% of them are single-family detached. The year a house went up decides more about what an inspection turns up than almost anything else about it, which is why it is where we start rather than where we finish.
More of it dates from the years before 1940 than from any other decade — 2,775 homes, roughly 30% of the town. It is also less detached-house territory than most of the area at 38%, 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 $204,800. Only 34% 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 1,522 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.
This is not a forecast for any one address. It is where a Ypsilanti home inspector starts in a home of this age — and whatever we actually find, it goes in the report with photographs.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Ypsilanti was built
72% of homes here run on utility gas, and 13 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 126 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
If you are buying a vacant house in Ypsilanti, there is a $1,000 rule you need to understand before you move a single box in.
The City can order the water shut off in a vacant building that lacks a Certificate of Compliance. To get it turned back on so you can carry out repairs, you post a $1,000 bond with the water authority. If the property stays vacant until the certificate is issued, the bond comes back. If the structure is occupied before the certificate issues, the bond is forfeited to the City.
In other words: move in early and it costs you a thousand dollars. That is not a penalty buried in an ordinance nobody reads — the City publishes it in plain language in its own frequently asked questions.
The housing behind it is old and largely attached. Of about 9,232 units, roughly 2,775 — some 30% — predate 1940, and only around 38% is single-family detached. And this is not Ypsilanti Township, which is a separate government with a different housing stock entirely.
Before you buy
Vacant houses
This is worth walking through carefully, because the sequence is the whole thing.
Section 18-155 of the City’s ordinances allows the Building Department to order water shut off in a vacant building that lacks a Certificate of Compliance. A buyer who takes on such a property and needs water to carry out repairs posts a $1,000 bond with the Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority, which allows the service to be restored for the purpose of making those repairs.
Then the condition: if the structure is occupied before the Certificate of Compliance is issued, the bond is forfeited to the City. If the property remains vacant until the certificate is issued, the bond is refunded to the owner. So the water can be on, the work can be done, and the one thing you cannot do is live there in the meantime.
For anyone buying a distressed or long-empty property here, that puts the certificate on the critical path. What the City will be looking at is code compliance. What a buyer’s inspection gives you is the condition of the building itself — roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior — which on a house that has stood empty and unheated is a different and larger question. Dry traps, idle heating, unnoticed water entry and frozen or damaged plumbing all show up in buildings nobody has been using.
Getting that report before you commit tells you roughly how long the vacant period is going to last, which is the number the bond turns on.
Certificates of Compliance
The City is unusually broad in how it words the requirement, and the wording is worth reading closely.
Its rental inspections page states that no person, owner or owner’s agent shall rent, lease, or allow occupancy of a dwelling unless a valid Certificate of Compliance has first been obtained from the city building department — and that all residential rental properties in the city must maintain one. Note the phrase "or allow occupancy": the requirement is not limited to a paying tenant. The City’s own list of frequently asked questions includes one from an owner whose family member lives in the house without paying rent. We have not seen the City’s answer to it, so we are not going to summarize one — but if that describes your situation, the Building Department is the call to make.
Rental units are inspected every two years against the 2018 International Property Maintenance Code, with the City’s own additions and changes set out in Section 18-92 of its ordinances. Section 18-131 requires a property registration form from anyone owning a multiple dwelling, a one- or two-unit rental dwelling, or a vacant building.
Two procedural details that matter if you are managing the process: rescheduling an inspection requires a written request to the Building Department at least 72 hours in advance, and the City notes that requests will typically not be granted where there are outstanding safety violations in a common area or an occupied unit. Separately, a tenant complaint requires that the owner or agent has first been notified in writing and given 10 days to correct the problem before the City will schedule an inspection.
Old, dense housing
With roughly 30% of the stock predating 1940 and only about 38% single-family detached, a lot of what sells here is an old building that has been divided, converted or adapted at some point.
That is where the interesting questions live. How were units separated, and what did that do to the original structure? Where do the mechanical systems run, and how many are there? Is there adequate egress from every sleeping room, particularly on upper floors and in below-grade space? What is behind finishes installed over the top of a century of earlier work?
Water is the other constant on housing this age. 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 — and we say plainly what could not be seen, which on a converted building is often a great deal.
The City has a Historic District Commission, so on a property inside a historic district there is an additional layer governing what you may do to the exterior. That is a planning question rather than a condition one, and worth settling before you commit to a plan.
Practical note on the Building Department: it handles plan review and building inspections alongside housing inspections, so it is a single point of contact for most of this.
The buried line
On a prewar Ypsilanti building the buried lateral running to the sewer main is usually the oldest thing changing hands, and no visual inspection reaches inside it.
Ninety years or more 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. On a building that has been divided into units there is a second question: how many laterals serve it, and where do they run. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Ypsilanti 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, which in a city with this much rented housing 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 Ypsilanti — rental inspections and Certificate of Compliance · City of Ypsilanti — rental inspection FAQs, including the $1,000 water bond · City of Ypsilanti — Building Department inspections. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Washtenaw County
Zone 1 is the highest of the three EPA categories — the predicted average indoor level across the county is above the 4 pCi/L action level. What a zone cannot tell you is anything about one house: 38% of tests actually run in Washtenaw County still came back at or above the EPA’s 4 pCi/L action level. The zone describes a county. The only result that describes your basement is the one measured in it.
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 · Washtenaw 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 Ypsilanti 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
Mr. Cahoon was very thorough inspecting the home I am interested in purchasing. He explained everything clearly as he went along. Went above and beyond crawling into the very small crawl space! Thank you!
Amy CaragayYpsilanti, 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
Section 18-155 of the City’s ordinances allows the Building Department to order water shut off in a vacant building that lacks a Certificate of Compliance. Posting a $1,000 bond allows the utilities authority to restore water so that repairs can be made. If the property remains vacant until the certificate is issued, the bond is refunded. If the structure is occupied before the certificate is issued, the bond is forfeited to the City.
Not without losing the bond. The City is explicit that occupancy before the Certificate of Compliance is issued forfeits the $1,000 to the City, and that remaining vacant until it issues gets the money refunded. The water can be on and the work can be done — the one thing that costs you is living there in the meantime. Confirm the current position with the Building Department before you plan around it.
Ask the Building Department, because the City’s wording is broad and it lists exactly this question in its own FAQs. The ordinance says no owner or owner’s agent shall rent, lease, or allow occupancy of a dwelling without first obtaining a valid certificate — and "allow occupancy" is not the same as "rent". We have not seen the City’s answer to that specific question, so we are not going to guess at it.
Every two years, against the 2018 International Property Maintenance Code with the City’s own additions and changes set out in Section 18-92 of its ordinances. Section 18-131 requires a property registration form from anyone owning a multiple dwelling, a one- or two-unit rental dwelling, or a vacant building.
In writing, at least 72 hours in advance. The City reviews requests against the certificate expiration date, the number of past requests and the nature of any outstanding violations — and notes that requests will typically not be granted where there are outstanding safety violations in a common area or an occupied unit.
No, and the difference is substantial. They are separate governments with separate ordinances and quite different housing: the City is about 30% prewar and only around 38% single-family detached, while the Township is roughly 60% detached with its largest decade in the 1970s. Rules do not carry across — confirm which one an address falls in before relying on anything you have read about either.
Old. Of about 9,232 housing units, roughly 2,775 — some 30% — predate 1940, with 1,532 from the 1960s, 1,430 from the 1970s and 1,156 from the 1940s. Only around 38% is single-family detached, so much of what sells here is an older building that has been divided, converted or adapted, which raises questions about how units were separated, how many mechanical systems there are and whether egress is adequate throughout.
On housing this age, seriously. The buried lateral on a prewar building has been in the ground ninety years or more and no visual inspection reaches inside it. On a converted building there is a second question — how many laterals serve it and where they run. 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.
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From the blog
October 22, 2017
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