Home Inspection in Unionville

I've been doing home inspections in Unionville for a long time now, and honestly this area is one of my favourites to work in. There's something about the character of these homes, the old village core, the mature trees lining the streets, that makes every inspection feel a little different. But that character also comes with some real things to pay attention to, especially if you're about to spend over a million dollars on a property here. Let me just talk you through what I actually look at when I'm walking through an Unionville home, and what the market looks like right now in July 2026. The average property age here sits around 30 years, which puts a lot of homes right in that window where the original systems are getting tired. We're talking about HVAC units that were installed in the mid-1990s and have been quietly doing their job ever since, but they're running out of road. A furnace or air conditioner replacement can easily run you eight to twelve thousand dollars once you factor in labour and permits, and that's before you even start talking about ductwork. I always check the manufacture date on the equipment first thing, because in Unionville specifically I find end-of-life HVAC in probably a third of the homes I inspect. The older village properties near Main Street Unionville are a different animal altogether. Some of those homes have heritage designations, which is beautiful from a curb appeal standpoint but it creates real complexity during an inspection. Heritage structural concerns show up fairly often, things like original timber framing that's been modified over the decades, additions that weren't tied in properly to the original structure. I've seen situations where repairs to a heritage property ran anywhere from twenty thousand to sixty thousand dollars depending on what was behind the walls. That's not to scare you, it's just what you need to know going in. Foundation settling is another thing I watch closely in the village core and in older neighbourhoods like Berczy Village on the east side of Unionville. When I say settling I don't automatically mean disaster, but I do mean you need someone experienced to assess whether what you're looking at is historical movement that's been stable for years or something that's still actively shifting. Stair-step cracks in brick, gaps at window frames, doors that won't close properly, these are all things that tell a story. Foundation repairs can range from a few thousand dollars for minor crack injection up to thirty or forty thousand for proper underpinning if it's more serious. Aging plumbing comes up constantly in Unionville homes from this era. A lot of these properties still have original copper that's doing fine, but some have galvanized steel in portions of the system that's corroding from the inside out. You won't know it until water pressure starts dropping or you cut into a wall. Replumbing even a portion of a house can cost you twelve to twenty thousand dollars, and if there's any poly-b pipe hiding in there from a previous renovation, that becomes a priority conversation with your insurance company right away. Window seal failures are almost universal in homes that are pushing thirty years old. Double-pane windows lose their seal and you get that foggy haze between the glass. It's not a structural emergency but it does affect energy efficiency and it adds up fast when you're replacing windows across a whole house. Budget roughly three hundred to five hundred per window depending on size, and in a larger Unionville home that can be a ten to fifteen thousand dollar project if the windows were never replaced. The original roofs on homes built in the mid-90s are at or past their lifespan right now. I'd say in July 2026 I'm flagging roofs on about half the older Unionville properties I walk through. A full roof replacement on a typical two-storey detached here runs between twelve and eighteen thousand dollars. It's not something you want to discover after you've moved in and you get your first heavy rainstorm. Now let me talk about the market for a second because it really does matter when you're deciding how hard to push on findings from an inspection. Right now in Unionville there are the current inventory, and homes are sitting on the market an average of 66 days before selling. The average price is sitting around 1.08 million, but if you're looking at detached homes specifically you're closer to 1.45 million. That 66-day average tells me buyers have time. This is not the environment where you waive your inspection to compete, not when you're spending this kind of money. With homes spending that much time on the market, sellers are generally motivated to work with you. I've seen buyers in Unionville use inspection findings to negotiate price reductions, to get credits for deferred maintenance, or to require repairs before closing. That leverage exists right now but you have to actually do the inspection to use it. The high-risk designation sits at 5.7% of properties, and that's not a small number when you're talking about a purchase at this price point. July is actually a really good time for an inspection in Unionville because we can stress-test the air conditioning properly, which matters a lot with these older HVAC systems. I can walk the roof and check flashings in dry conditions, look at the grading around the foundation while the ground is dry and see how drainage is set up, and check window seals in full daylight. Attic ventilation is another July priority because heat buildup in poorly ventilated attics accelerates sheathing deterioration faster than almost anything else. I had a client last summer buying in Unionville Village, a lovely century-plus home that had been updated cosmetically. Everything looked great on the surface. When we got into the inspection we found the main beam in the basement had been notched improperly during a renovation to run some plumbing, and it had compromised the load path. That was a thirty-two thousand dollar structural repair that nobody had disclosed. My client used that finding to renegotiate and they ended up with a price reduction that more than covered the repair. That inspection paid for itself about forty times over. If you're buying in Unionville right now, just get the inspection done. This neighbourhood is genuinely wonderful, great schools, walkable, beautiful character, and the homes here hold their value. But that value is only protected when you know exactly what you're buying. Call me before you close and we'll walk through it together properly.