Meaghan Darrach and her husband bought their home just north of Grafton, Ont., last August for just over $500,000 with no strings attached.
“We were faced with two other offers,” Darrach said.  At the time, the market was “crazy” and he said they had already looked at about 20 other houses.  This was their third bid.
“Everyone has been bidding so far [asking] and the houses stayed on the market for two days.  If you wanted it, you had to jump it now,” he said.
After seeing their current home, that’s what they did.
The single-family home has four bedrooms, one and a half bathrooms, an attached garage and a yard on half an acre of land.
It was just what Darrah, 28, and her husband, 30, needed for their growing family of three with a baby on the way.
“We really wanted this particular house,” he said.
They knew it would “need some love,” since Darrach said it was built around 1987, but they didn’t expect the “construction zone” they’d be living in for more than a year and still do.
First, there was the kitchen floor, which they tore up after the dishwasher leaked.  Then the drywall started to split at the corners and the foundation started to rot.  “That was the beginning,” he said.
Darrach said she has no idea how long it will take to build the entire house or how much it will cost them.
But even so, he said they would “do it all over again” for the price they paid.
Leigh Gate, president of the Ontario Association of Home Inspectors, said over the past year and a half, intense competition among buyers in the real estate market has forced many to follow the same path as this Ontario couple.
“To make an offer more attractive, the buyer would leave out as many conditions as possible,” he said.
The cost of a home inspection varies across the province based on the location and size of the home, but Gate said it typically costs between $450 and $650.
“The number one goal is for buyers to know what they’re buying,” he said.  As the housing market shows signs of cooling, Gate said, buyers are “very slowly” starting to return to home inspections.
As a Toronto real estate agent, Davelle Morrison said she always encourages clients to get home inspections before making an offer, but the challenge can come after a few viewings.
“After they spend that $600 on two houses, they don’t want to spend any more,” he said.
Even after home inspection, he said many houses in the province were built more than 100 years ago and have stories that no one can reveal.
“I think the challenge is that people don’t buy a Lego box with a set of instructions,” Morrison said.