Huge amount of misconceptions in the comments. I bought a house and my realtor never suggested a lead test. Basically it’s on the homeowner or the buyer to req

Huge amount of misconceptions in the comments. I bought a house and my realtor never suggested a lead test. Basically it’s on the homeowner or the buyer to request it, because lead is such a low risk to adults, it’s better to be willingly ignorant. This is especially true in urban environments where it’s far less likely that a kid will ever live there. At the same time, you can 100% test for lead as part of an inspection. It’s just that there’s not a lot you can do with the information. If it’s lead free that’s awesome. Likely it’s not though, if it’s old. Sellers won’t really lower the price because older homes are basically guaranteed to have lead, so the test just clarified what should be assumed. Now, I had a test done and there was a lot of lead. I had it mitigated. Lead paint was stripped to bare wood in tons of places, but it’s actually safe to have lead paint in places like intact walls. Walls don’t chip. Windowsills, door jambs, they chip. Even a very strict town in a strict state like Massachusetts won’t make you fully 100% de-lead, you have to remove anything with a risk of a kid eating it, or it sloughing off (like a door or window rubbing). All in all it cost me a few thousand dollars but I feel much better about the place.