I INSPECTED HOMES
before I SOLD THEM.
I'm John Byars — a certified home inspector and licensed California Realtor working across Marin County and the greater Bay Area. My job is to tell you what a house actually is, in dollars and risk, before you commit to it or list it.
The inspection side of the work.
Before real estate, I built Sequoia Home Inspections — a Bay Area inspection practice with a 5.0-star rating across 50 reviews, focused on residential and commercial property evaluations.
Certifications held: InterNACHI · CCPIA · NRCIA forensic roof inspector.
The long version.
Under the house
Years spent in crawlspaces, attics, and on rooflines across the Bay Area — foundations, framing, drainage, electrical, roofing, moisture. Thousands of hours reading how houses actually fail.
Watching deals go sideways
Inspecting for buyers, I kept seeing the same pattern: the technical findings arrived too late, and nobody at the table could translate them into price, repairs, or risk. Good buyers overpaid. Good sellers got re-traded.
Moving to the other side of the table
I got licensed (CA DRE# 02446063) to be in the room earlier — at the pre-offer walkthrough, at the pricing conversation, at the repair-request negotiation — with the same eye I brought to inspections.
How I work now
Every engagement starts with a structural read of the property. Then we talk strategy: what to fix, what to disclose, what to negotiate, what to walk away from. No hype, no pressure, no lead resale.
I run Sequoia Home Inspections as a separate inspection practice, but I do not perform the official home inspection on any property where I am also the listing or buyer's agent. My inspection background is a strategic advantage for you — but an independent, third-party certified inspector will always be engaged for the transaction of record. That line is not negotiable, and it's the reason my read is worth something.