Updated October 27, 2026
An inspection report on a 1980s Germantown two-story can run dozens of pages, with photos of nearly everything and a long list of items flagged in orange or red. Loose toilet. Missing GFCI by the wet bar. Gutters need cleaning. Settlement crack in the garage slab.
Most of that is a house being a house. Usually only a few items on the list are true home inspection red flags, the ones that decide whether you buy at this price, ask for money, or walk away while your earnest money is still protected. And the report doesn’t rank them for you. A five-figure sewer line and a $40 outlet cover can get the same colored box.
Below, we sort them for the homes east-metro buyers are touring this fall: older Germantown and Cordova houses, ’90s Collierville and Bartlett subdivisions, and newer builds out toward Eads and Arlington. It also covers the add-on inspections we’d pay for and how the Tennessee contract limits your time to act.
What makes a finding a red flag
Before you send a single repair request, it helps to split the report into three piles.
Red flags are expensive, hidden, getting worse, or a problem for your insurer. Foundation movement, a broken sewer line, a panel brand insurers avoid, an active leak. Those are worth renegotiating over and occasionally worth leaving over.
Then there are the things that are simply old: a 14-year-old water heater, a roof with a few years left. Nobody hid them from you. Budget for them.
Everything else is maintenance. Caulk, a sticky door, a cracked switch plate. Leave it off the request entirely.
Home inspection red flags by house age
In 1970, Germantown had 3,474 residents. By 1990 it had 32,893. That means a large share of the town’s houses went up in those two decades, and in 2026 they’re 35 to 55 years old. Collierville’s boom came a little later: about 14,400 people in 1990, nearly 32,000 by 2000, almost 44,000 by 2010. The year on the listing tells your inspector where to look first.
1970s and early 1980s
A Germantown house from this era is often on its second or third roof, its third or fourth AC, and its original electrical panel. Get the panel photographed with the cover off. Federal Pacific Stab-Lok and Zinsco panels both turn up in homes from this period, both have a long record of breakers that may not trip when they should, and some insurers won’t write a new policy on a house that has one. That can stall a closing on a panel that’s been “fine for 40 years.”
Homes wired from the mid-’60s to the mid-’70s can also have aluminum branch wiring. An electrician can tell you whether the connections were ever remediated. Your insurer will ask.
Late 1980s and 1990s
Polybutylene country. That gray plastic supply line went into a lot of houses from the late ’70s to the mid-’90s and has a reputation for failing at the fittings, without warning. If the inspector sees it at the water heater, assume it runs through the walls and price a repipe. Plenty of Collierville and Bartlett homes from this window were already repiped, so ask for the invoice first.
2000s and new construction
Fewer surprises behind the walls, more workmanship problems: grading that sends water toward the slab, missing roof flashing, attic ductwork that came apart. On a brand-new house, read our post on why having your own agent matters on new construction. The pre-drywall inspection it describes is the one buyers skip and regret.
Foundation movement and soil
Shelby County sits on a deep layer of wind-blown silt called loess, with clay mixed in and beneath it. It swells in a wet spring and shrinks in a dry August. Forty years of that cycle shows up in almost every older house, and an inspector who treats each crack as a crisis can scare you out of a perfectly good home.
Normal: hairline cracks in the garage slab, small drywall cracks above door corners, a door that rubs in July and closes fine in March.
Not normal: stair-step cracks running through exterior brick, any crack wider than about a quarter inch, cracks wider at one end than the other, floors you can feel slope under your feet, and a whole side of the house where doors won’t latch. Fresh paint or caulk over brick cracks deserves a direct question. So does a past foundation repair the seller didn’t mention until you asked.
If the report says “recommend evaluation by a structural engineer,” get the engineer out during your inspection period. Waiting until after it closes leaves you with an opinion and no leverage. An engineer’s letter calling the movement old and stable is often what keeps a nervous buyer in the deal. If the house was piered before, ask whether the repair warranty transfers. Some end with the original owner.
Then look up. A 50-year-old oak ten feet from the foundation pulls water out of the soil on one side of the house all summer long. Its roots are also the usual suspect in the next section. People pay a premium for Germantown’s tree canopy, and they’re right to. They should also budget for it.
Sewer lines and plumbing
On an older east-metro house, the sewer scope is the add-on we’d put at the top of the list. A plumber runs a camera from the cleanout to the street while you watch on a screen, and in about an hour you know whether roots have broken into a joint, whether a section of old clay or cast iron has cracked, or whether the line sags and holds waste. A standard home inspection can’t see any of it. The inspector runs the faucets, the water drains, and the report says nothing.
The scope typically costs a few hundred dollars. Digging up and replacing the line between the house and the street can run five figures, and on most residential lots that pipe belongs to the homeowner, not the utility. Most of Germantown and the older half of Collierville have the mature trees that cause this. On those streets, it’s hard to justify skipping it.
Inside, watch for polybutylene, active leaks under sinks or at toilet bases, and a water heater past about 12 to 15 years old. That last item is a budget line, nothing more.
Crawlspaces and termites
Many older Germantown and Cordova houses are built over crawlspaces, and that’s where Memphis humidity does its slowest damage. Look at every crawlspace photo in the report, or go under with the inspector if you’re willing to get dirty. Standing water, a torn or missing vapor barrier, dark soft wood, insulation hanging off the joists, and jacks or shims someone added to hold up a sagging floor are the findings to push on. Wiping off mold on the subfloor is cheap. The moisture behind it, whether that’s drainage, the barrier, or a dehumidifier or full encapsulation, is the bill.
Termites live in the same dark, damp space. Get a separate wood-destroying insect (WDI) inspection from a licensed pest control company. If you’re using a VA or other government-backed loan, ask your lender early, since many lenders require one. Then ask the seller about the termite bond. Which company holds it, when the house was last treated, whether it covers repairs or only retreatment, and what it costs to transfer. A repair bond that transfers is worth real money. A retreat-only bond won’t pay for old damage the WDI finds in the sill plate.
The rest of the report
Roofs and HVAC systems rarely end a deal by themselves, but both feed your insurance quote. An older roof can raise the premium, cut coverage to depreciated value, or make a policy hard to find, which we covered in our post on home insurance costs for Memphis-area buyers. Get a quote during the inspection period. Many larger east-metro homes have two HVAC systems, so read both data plates. And a cracked heat exchanger or carbon monoxide note on a gas furnace goes to the top of your request.
A pool needs its own inspection. General inspectors often give it a visual check and move on.
Radon is a judgment call. Shelby County is in the EPA’s lowest-risk radon zone, Zone 3, but the EPA still recommends testing every home, and a test is inexpensive if you want the certainty.
If there’s an HOA, the inspection period is also your window to read the covenants and reserve numbers. Our guide to HOA fees in Germantown and Collierville lists what to request.
How Tennessee rules shape your options
The seller’s disclosure statement isn’t a warranty. Under Tennessee’s Residential Property Disclosure Act, most sellers must give you a disclosure of defects they know about, or an “as is” disclaimer if you agree to waive the disclosure. Certain types of sales are exempt, so it’s worth asking whether yours is one of them. Either way, the seller only has to disclose what they know, and the disclosure doesn’t replace your own inspection.
Your clock is short. In a typical Tennessee purchase contract, the length of the inspection period and the resolution period after it are set in the offer, not by law, and they tend to be measured in days, not weeks. Let it pass without a written response and you’ve generally accepted the house as it is. Book your inspector the day your offer is accepted, and book the sewer scope and WDI the same afternoon.
Check the inspector, too. Tennessee requires a home inspector license, which means 90 hours of approved training, a passing score on the National Home Inspector Examination, and at least $500,000 in general liability coverage. You can look up any inspector on the state’s license verification site in a minute. Then ask to see a sample report.
What to ask for after the report
Keep the request short. A 40-item list gets skimmed, and you lose credibility on the three items that matter.
On anything over a few thousand dollars, it’s often smarter to ask for a credit or a lower price instead of a seller repair. A seller who’s moving out has every reason to hire the cheapest contractor who’ll sign an invoice. With a credit, you choose the plumber and you control the scope. Our guide to real estate negotiation strategies walks through how that post-inspection round usually goes.
Keep the inspection contingency, even in the Germantown and Collierville pockets where the best houses still draw more than one offer. There are better ways to strengthen an offer, which we cover in how to win a multiple-offer situation without overpaying. Waiving the inspection on a 40-year-old house with a crawlspace and a big oak out front is a bet we’d strongly advise against.
Point your money at what you can’t see
Picture two buyers on the same 1986 house. One sends a 30-item request: the cracked tile, the dripping hose bib, the fogged window in the guest bath. The other skips all that, pays for a sewer scope and a structural engineer, and asks for one credit. Six months later, only one of them is paying a plumber to dig up the front yard.
If you’re touring in Germantown, Collierville, or anywhere else in the east metro and want help making sense of an inspection report, reach out to us.
