A pre-purchase renovation consultation costs $495 to $1,500 in New Jersey depending on the size of the house and how fast you need it, and we credit it back in full against the job if you hire us within a year. We meet you at the house — usually the same morning as your home inspection — and hand you a written renovation budget with real 2026 numbers: what comes out, what a beam costs, what the kitchen and the bath and the basement run, and what the seller should be paying for. You can take that number into attorney review and use it.
Often out within 48 hours · written budget, not a sales pitch · credited back if you hire us
Licensed & insured · 2,000+ NJ projects · 7 years · a real person answers 24/7
A pre-purchase renovation consultation costs $495 to $1,500 in New Jersey depending on the size of the house and how fast you need it, and we credit it back in full against the job if you hire us within a year. Typical price: $495 – $1.5K. Licensed & insured, written itemized price before work starts, no deposit, one dedicated crew. Serving all 21 New Jersey counties from Paramus. Call (201) 676-3099 or book a free estimate.
A home inspector is a good investment and you should absolutely hire one. But an inspection reports condition, not cost, and not possibility. Your inspector will write that the roof is at the end of its serviceable life. He will not tell you whether it's $11,000 or $19,000, whether the decking is going to need replacing when it comes off, or whether doing it in the same month as the siding saves you four thousand dollars.
He also will not tell you whether the wall between the kitchen and the dining room is carrying the second floor, because that's outside the scope of a standard inspection and he'd need to be in the basement with a tape measure and a flashlight thinking like a framer. That one question decides whether your open-concept kitchen is a $38,000 project or a $52,000 project, and it's the single most common thing buyers guess wrong about.
And a standard New Jersey home inspection excludes a long list by default: the inside of the sewer line, the condition of a cast iron stack inside a wall, knob-and-tube behind plaster, asbestos and lead unless you pay for them separately, mold behind finishes, septic, and buried oil tanks. Those are exactly the items that turn a $60,000 renovation into a $95,000 one.
This is worth the fee on its own. New Jersey towns keep permit records, and an open permit from 2011 that nobody ever closed out will stop your closing cold or land in your lap as the new owner. So will a finished basement, a deck, a dormer or a converted garage that was never permitted — and once you own it, it's your problem, your fine, and your cost to bring it up to current code.
The tells are usually visible if you know what you're looking at: a basement bathroom with no visible vent, a deck with no footings and no ledger flashing, a third-floor bedroom with a window too small to climb out of, a panel with double-tapped breakers and no inspection sticker, or a kitchen island with an outlet arrangement that no inspector ever signed off on. We flag all of it, and we tell you what it would cost to make legal.
We check the town's permit history as part of the consultation where records are available online, and we tell you what to ask the seller's attorney to produce. A certificate of continued occupancy and a clean permit history are things you can make a condition, but only if you know to ask before your contingency expires.
North Jersey is full of houses that were heated with oil before they were converted to gas, and a lot of those tanks are still in the ground. An abandoned underground tank is a real environmental liability with real remediation costs, and it can derail a mortgage. The tells are a vent or fill pipe on an exterior wall, a capped copper line stubbed through the foundation, or a patch in the basement floor near an old burner. We flag them and tell you to bring in a licensed tank sweep company before your contingency runs.
The sewer line is the other one. From a 1930s or 1950s house, the lateral out to the street is often clay or cast iron, and a camera run costs a couple hundred dollars while a replacement can run $8,000 to $20,000 with excavation and street restoration. Get the camera. Same logic on asbestos and lead in a pre-1978 house: a few hundred dollars of testing before you close beats finding out on demo day, and we'll tell you which materials in this specific house are worth sampling.
New Jersey contracts run on a schedule that's tighter than most buyers realize. Attorney review is three business days from delivery of the signed contract, and it's the window where changes to terms are easiest. The inspection contingency is usually ten to fourteen days after that, and it's the one that actually gives you leverage — a documented repair cost is how you renegotiate or walk away without losing your deposit.
So we work on that clock. Call us as soon as you're under contract and we'll usually be out within 48 hours, often the same morning as your inspection so you only have to be at the house once. The written report comes back inside two business days after the walkthrough. If you're bidding on something and want a read before you even make an offer, we'll do that too — a walkthrough at an open house is less thorough but it's often enough to tell you whether the number in your head is anywhere close.
Half the people who book this aren't in New Jersey. We'll do the walkthrough on a video call with you live, or record a full narrated walkthrough you can watch twice and send to your spouse. The written budget comes the same way it does for everyone.
typical fixed-price range — your exact number goes in writing after a free visit
$495 for a condo, a townhouse or a small single-family under about 1,500 square feet. $795 – $1.2K for a typical New Jersey single-family — two to four bedrooms, a basement, and a list of things you want to change. $1.5K for a large house, a multi-family, a gut-job flip, or anything that needs an engineer's eye on a structural question. Rush turnaround inside 48 hours is included when you're in attorney review; we know the clock you're on. The whole fee is credited back against any project over $10,000 if you hire us within 12 months.
How we beat the big chains: Design-build firms charge $1,500 to $5,000 for a feasibility study and take three weeks to deliver it. You don't have three weeks — you have an inspection contingency. No franchise fees, no commissioned salesmen, no rented subcontractors — that's typically 15–30% under national-brand quotes for the same or better spec. Bring us any written quote and we'll match the scope line by line.
“My inspector handed me a 62-page report full of yellow highlights and I still had no idea what any of it cost to fix.”
“I called four contractors and not one of them would walk a house I didn't own yet.”
“I bought it assuming the kitchen wall would just come out. It was carrying the second floor and the beam and posts came to fourteen thousand dollars.”
You found a crew that is actually near you. First Call Contracting is based in Paramus, in Bergen County, and our own licensed techs handle pre-purchase consults in all 21 New Jersey counties — no call center, no subcontractor sent from two states away. Most of Bergen, Passaic, Hudson and Essex is 15 to 30 minutes from our shop, and emergencies go to the nearest crew, 24/7.
Closest to us: Bergen CountyPassaic CountyHudson CountyEssex CountyMorris CountyUnion CountyAll 21 counties & 219+ towns →
Call (201) 676-3099, text us a photo, or book a free in-home estimate — you get a written price before any work starts.
$495 for a condo or a small house, $795 to $1,200 for a typical single-family, and $1,500 for a large house, a multi-family or anything with a structural question. The entire fee is credited back against your project if you hire us within 12 months.
That's the ideal way to do it. The house is already open, your inspector is finding things in real time, and we can price them while everyone is standing there. It also means you only have to take one morning off work. Tell us the inspection date when you book.
Usually within 48 hours, and the written report comes back within two business days of the walkthrough. We know a New Jersey inspection contingency is ten to fourteen days and that attorney review is three business days — the schedule is built around that, at no rush charge.
Almost always, when it's scheduled through your agent alongside the inspection. We show up in a marked truck, we're licensed and insured, and we behave like guests — we don't open sealed systems, we don't make holes, and we don't talk numbers in front of the listing agent. Occasionally a seller says no, in which case we do what we can from the inspection report, the photos and the listing.
It's a real budget with real numbers, not a contractor's guess — but it's a budget, not a signed contract, because we can't see inside walls we don't own. Once you close, we come back, open what needs opening, and turn it into a fixed itemized price under the Price-Lock Guarantee. In our experience the budget and the final price land close, and we'll tell you at the walkthrough which items carry the most unknown.
Then you paid a few hundred dollars to not buy a house with a $40,000 problem in it, which is a good trade. If you're looking at several properties we'll do additional walkthroughs at a reduced rate — most buyers use this on the second or third house they get serious about.
If you're anywhere in New Jersey, yes. First Call Contracting is based in Paramus and handles pre-purchase consults across all 21 counties with our own licensed crew. Most of Bergen, Passaic, Hudson and Essex is 15 to 30 minutes from our shop, and emergencies are dispatched to the nearest crew 24/7. Call (201) 676-3099 or book a free in-home estimate.
Walked with a builder · written budget with photos · out within 48 hours · credited back if you hire us
Or call Alex direct: (201) 676-3099
A real person picks up every hour of every day. We tell you what to shut off first, then send the nearest crew.