After 35 years and 21,000 inspections, Greg Terry talks wild finds, pre-listing inspections, and what every SLO County buyer and seller needs to know.

By Hal Sweasey

Hal Sweasey is a highly respected Broker and REALTOR® serving California’s Central Coast, bringing more than 35 years and 3,300 successful property sales.

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Someone on our team recently mentioned that his wife spotted a home that dropped $100,000 just three or four days after it hit the market. Her first reaction was the one most people have: something must be wrong with it. But a fast, dramatic price drop usually isn’t a red flag, it’s a signal worth reading.

A big early price drop has plenty of explanations. Maybe the sellers started at an aspirational number, got quick feedback from showings, and realized the market didn’t agree. Maybe their timeline changed. Maybe their agent warned them the price was high, and they tested the water anyway. A price drop doesn’t mean something’s wrong with the house, but it does raise a fair question: how do you actually know what you’re dealing with when you buy or sell?

That’s why we sat down with Greg Terry. Greg, of Terry Home Inspection, has been inspecting homes in San Luis Obispo County since 1989, and he and his son have completed well over 21,000 inspections between them. After 35 years of opening every panel, climbing every roof, and crawling under every house in the county, there’s not much he hasn’t seen.

The Templeton home that was quietly failing underground. Greg once inspected a multi-million-dollar home with an entire hydronic floor-heating system failing beneath the slab, the underground piping connections corroding out of sight. The sellers had no idea, because the heat was still turned on. They just kept topping off the water. It was going somewhere, just not where it was supposed to.

The brand-new house with a cracked elevator shaft. Then there was the four-story new build in San Luis Obispo with an elevator running from the garage to the top floor. When the specialist ran the carriage up to check the cables, there was a crack running the full height of the shaft, bottom to top. The construction superintendent, in Greg’s words, just about dropped his shorts.

The takeaways that matter for your home. Beyond the wild stories, Greg gets into why more SLO County sellers are getting inspected before they list, how that shift is changing the way deals come together, and what every buyer and seller should understand about non-permitted work and sewer laterals in our area.

The full conversation is worth your time. Jump to the topics that interest you using the timestamps below:

00:00 — The Price Drop

01:03 — Aspirational Pricing

02:44 — Price Drop Stigma

04:35 — Meet Greg Terry

05:26 — Wildest Inspection Finds

11:57 — Old SLO Foundations

16:37 — Pre-Listing Inspections

20:22 — Buyer Review Inspections

23:29 — Non-Permitted Work

25:40 — SLO Sewer Laterals

28:30 — Reaching Greg Terry

If you have questions about buying or selling in San Luis Obispo County, or you want to talk about whether a pre-listing inspection makes sense for your home, give us a call at 805-781-3750 or email us at hal@teamsweasey.com. You can find more from us at teamsweasey.com.

And if you’re looking for a home inspection, you can reach Greg Terry and his team atterryhomeinspection.com. We love connecting people with the right folks, so don’t hesitate to reach out.