What's even worse is the inspectors are about half as good as they think they are, with egos inflated by ignorant buyers.  

I can't tell you how many people ask me to diagnose them on the spot in the grocery store (if they haven't already diagnosed themselves via webMD lol).I'm sure everyone has heard the saying "Better to be thought an idiot then to open one's mouth and remove all doubt", well, when you make statements like you have in this post regarding 99.9% of Realtors being unethical you have removed all doubt.I don't take offense to you insulting a Realtor specifically, I'm annoyed by the ignorance it takes to make a blanket statement as you have done, it sets off alarm bells in my logical mind.Haven't you heard that 100% of all real estate investors are Scum Bags?  

But how do I find out if there is a major problem that I am missing through ignorance?

Although if he says it came in at $150 psf that doesn't sound likely to me that he did it himself.Ok, so now I suggest you simply ignore sunk costs and move forward from where you are now. 

As someone living in Sydney this article is ignoring some realities...

Someone who is ignoring cash reserves is going to have a much better COC return (on paper) than someone who has a really large, conservative reserve fund for a rainy day.

Hey @Joshua Dorkin can we block or ignore certain users?  

@John Thedford I am saying this with no intention of being offensive, but your ignorance is clouding your critical thinking. 

Often I'm simply ignored.

Some ignore failure, other refuse to acknowledge accounting losses as useful stats and other just win from day 1.