Home inspection in Lovilia.

It means the ground history is part of the picture. Monroe County carried some of Iowa's heaviest underground mining, with country mines working near Lovilia into the early 1900s; an O'Brien Mine dust explosion near town on March 30, 1953 killed two men. Iowa runs a subsidence program through the Mines and Minerals Bureau and the DNR publishes a mine map, so an address check is a sensible records step. Foundations are worth reading for differential movement and repeat-patched cracks, and a crack is not subsidence when ordinary clay shrink-swell explains it.

Plan on two to three hours for an average home; larger, older or multi-unit properties run longer because there is simply more to document.