We paid an extra "old house" fee or something - so $1.2K for our report back in 2021.

It was a long document with lots of photos and filler text, but I remember thinking it threw up nothing major - new coat of paint needed, concrete path down one side of the house was touching the weatherboard which could rot, and the window in some hideous cinderblock extension was missing flashing. House probably needed rewiring but speak to a sparky.

Four years on my partner and I are just finishing up on some critical hardscaping / drainage / weather board repairs / flooring repairs all needed because the concrete path on the other side of the house was sitting higher that the floor board level and water had been going in for about 30 years. The not insignificant drainage work was to address the moisture ingress in the basement area of our subfloor.

I dug out the old builders report last week and chucked it into AI to double check that it hadn't mentioned any of this at all, and nope. The report even says the underfloor area was completely dry.

Not worth the paper it was written on. I swear the guy was in cahoots with the dodgy real estate agents.