Basic Costs associated with simple assignments

Hi,

As I read and read I was wondering if you people that do assignments on a regular basis do you use the services of a "home inspector".

Why I ask is lets say for example I find an ideal house that is run down, I can see it needs a new roof and maybe some new siding, I see this from the outside but have no idea what the inside looks like or what the true shape of the house is in structurally.

So I hire the services of an inspector, around here it's about $300.00, he/she goes thru it and gives me the list of troubles, I use that with other info. to determine "my price", then I hit the sellers with it, they in turn say no to my offer after many discussions, so that deal goes south on us, and were out the $300.00 inspection fee and it's on to the next property.

What I'm getting at is how or when do you call in the experts, seeing as the basic feature of finding a good assignment property is looking for the uglyist rundown piece of junk house in the good neighborhoods, that would in turn set you up for a home that is not in "sound" condition and would lead to underestimating your repair costs to the "buyers" at the time of setting up the deals.

So when or do you use a home inspector when dealing in these properties that are rundown, because if so $300.00 a pop on the houses you are digging into and losing them with no deals would get very costly in time.

Sorry if this has been posted somewhere else by someone else but I could not find any info here on this.

What do the pros do for what they will spend on researching a property for assignment? Including paperwork needed to get all the info. on the home and property, I'm assuming that the tax record copies and other real estate info. will not be free copies to be given away to just anyone.

A total newbie here on this, but continually reading and searching to get on track so we can get started:)

Thanks