How home inspectors should tackle re-inspections... featuring Brad Zirlott (AKA @duesouthbrad)

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Matt, I've got a big problem I want to talk about with you.

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no.

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This sounds heavy.

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Go ahead.

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I dude, reinspections, man.

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I I mean, we complain about this on the phone, but they drive me up the wall.

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Right.

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How do you feel about them?

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it's I mean, I think that number one, I think that this is a topic that is not talked
about enough in our industry.

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Uh I definitely have some pain points that I want to discuss in terms of reinspections.

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Uh and uh and I have a feeling our guest is gonna be able to weigh in a little bit on this
today too.

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I think so because he is the king of calling out the uh the absurd and I I mean at at this
stage of his career nothing surprises him.

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Uh so you know, other Brad, welcome back, man.

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Yeah.

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guys?

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What's up?

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Yeah, you're talking about one of my most favorite subjects.

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Uh it's it's what I like to call.

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Yeah, but I like to call this take the money and run.

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Do yourself a favor and don't let the seller fix it.

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Because somehow it ends up more screwed up the second time when you go back.

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And it's like, guys, we should have just left this alone.

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Yeah, that is exactly what happened.

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And that's one of the pain points.

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You know, that's actually, I mean, I think like I I have a hard time directing people to
do this because I feel like I'm doing a realtor's job.

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But when it comes to like resale homes and reinspections, you know, that all that just
means that they've asked somebody who couldn't care less if the repairs are done right or

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quality.

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They just want the cheapest out possible.

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And then you got somebody on the other end buying this house that really is interested in
the quality.

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And you got us inspecting houses and we're inspecting for quality as well.

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And so those things aren't really seeing eye to eye with the person who just went bottom
dollar and got the worst possible uh repairs done, you know, that they could get.

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So yeah, man, that's that's definitely one.

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so many other avenues to this too.

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And guys, sound off in the comments.

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If you first off, if you don't subscribe, if you haven't subscribed to the show, you need
to subscribe to the show.

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If you don't follow us on social media, you need to go there and do that.

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I mean, you know, you've got two of the kings of home inspection social media right here
on the show today.

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But um, but so go follow them, but chime in on this conversation because this is one of
those things, Matt, there's a whole category of things that we talk about on the phone

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when we're just kind of like bitching and complaining about the job.

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But I mean, y'all have had to deal with this.

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If you've been inspecting for for several years, uh, you've had it happen where you've
you're fine with taking the reinspection because you just need the work, but then you get

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too daggum busy and now you're going back for a fraction of the price and that's eating
into what could be another inspection.

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Or you've got builders that uh you know, like like you've brought this up.

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They they don't hardly uh do the repairs that they talk about doing anyway.

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So

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mean, I think, you know, we have to break it down a little bit because, you know,
re-inspections first of all, let's define reinspections.

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Okay.

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Most of the time what that means is that um a client is buying a house, uh, whether it's
new or an existing home.

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And either the builder or the homeowner has taken on doing some repairs.

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And that that means that after those repairs are done.

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These homeowners that didn't know anything about this house before they had us come in
there, now want us to go back and look and make sure those things have been done, or at

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least they've been done as noted as they said they would do them.

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Now, when this comes to new construction, it's a it's significantly different.

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Um, because well, let's start with the the resale stuff.

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So resale stuff, and and this is really to me, this has been the one pain point I've had
here lately.

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resale stuff is pretty easy.

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Because for the most part, the realtors put together an amendment of things that they want
repaired.

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Now, I'm gonna go back to what Brad said because I wish we wouldn't even do these repairs.

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I wish they would just take some money off the house, position themselves financially so
that the buyer can handle these repairs.

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That way they can manage the quality.

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But that's a perfect world, and I'm just not gonna find myself in that anytime soon.

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I understand that.

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I I like to think that we could start shifting that direction, but that's a

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That's another topic altogether.

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But, you know, you get this amendment and it's got four or five things on it.

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Okay.

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We got uh a door that doesn't lock, we got a toilet that doesn't flush, we got a
dishwasher that doesn't work, and we got a hole in the roof next to the chimney.

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These four items, you know, and it's like it's very cut and dry.

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I need you to go back and check these four items.

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Well, that makes sense, you know.

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So I gotta go back for and and this is where it gets complicated, is because we're doing
these re-inspections.

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Well, they're for a discounted fee.

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Well, what's that fee?

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Because most of the time, if we're if we're as home inspectors, you know, we're usually
doing two inspections a day, but there's an awful lot of times where these re-inspections

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can cut right into that second inspection and end up costing us money.

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Instead of making, you know, two $500 inspections, we got one $500 inspection.

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And I'm just paraphrasing, you what just using that as example, and then whatever we
charge for a re-inspection.

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That varies a lot.

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I don't think we talk about that enough in our industry.

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But it's like, okay, so I go here for this discounted rate, and it's like, okay, if I got
an amendment and I got like four or five items on it, that makes sense to do it at a

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discounted rate.

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It's possible that if I'm busy enough that I'm like, all right, that's an easy afternoon.

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I'll take it, right?

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Um, but most of us would rather make a full fee instead of going and making a partial fee.

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But but I digress.

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But when it comes to new construction, and and I think given that um that Brad

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you've been in construction, I think you'll be able to weigh in a lot on this too.

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But like when it comes to like new construction, the these people don't even have a
realtor usually.

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So they don't have anybody to guide them.

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We give them a report and we end up, you know, writing up 30 things.

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And and when we say, well, what did you want me to reinspect?

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They're like, well, everything that was deficient.

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The builder said they're going to fix it all.

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And it's like, well, hold on a minute.

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When I do these for a resale home, I got like four or five items I got to check.

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Now I got 30, 40 items and basically it feels like I'm being punished for doing my my job
well, you know, because I found all this stuff.

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Now I'm being punished.

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Yeah.

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So I know when it comes to the new construction stuff, it's just like you said, they've
got thirty or so items they want you to reinspect.

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And I try to lay the groundwork because in a perfect world we go by there, we get in and
out, right?

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Because we do have full schedule.

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So I'll try to lay the groundwork and tell people like, guys, do you really need me to
look at the missing door?

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Can you not see that they have installed a door now?

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Like

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Right.

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So let's let's stick to the things that you're probably not comfortable looking at, like
the roof, the electrical, the attic, things like that.

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But you know, missing doorknobs and places where there's missing trim, like that's part of
the walkthrough.

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So I try to preface it and tell people that, you know, using 30 items, let's say that 22
of those are punch list items.

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These are things that the builder was going to do anyway.

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It's on somebody's list, they just haven't done it yet.

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And then the other eight items, let me go back and check.

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And then you try to save people from themselves, and they will tell you time and time
again, no, I want you to look at all of it.

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Okay, yes.

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So what I do is I charge $250.

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That's a trip fee.

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And that is good for up to 25 items.

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And then anything additional after that's $8 a pop.

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And then

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What that does though, because I mean I've had houses where they, you know, we're
inspecting 35, 40 things, um, at least I'm not getting just completely obliterated on the

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price.

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Now, in Matt's example, if somebody tells me, hey, can you go back by and check these six
things?

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I might do that for a hundred bucks.

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But the 250 is out there just to let people know that it's 20 up to 25 items.

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If you want me to look at one or you want me to look at all 25, you're better off.

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If we got 25 things to look at, let me look at them.

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But um, that's how I handle it.

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Now, I'd love to tell you that I've got it figured out.

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But there's been days where I look at that fee and think, I should be charging $15 a pop
after I 25.

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I've ruined my life.

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You know, I can't, I can't, I can't make heads or tails of this stuff.

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But let's talk about the other part of this, right?

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Now you're in the middle.

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You've gone back and you've found something that.

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Is not up to par.

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Now, I don't know how you guys are, but for me, when I look at it the second time, I try
to look at it like I've never seen it before.

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Now, if I'm looking at it the second time, would I have a problem with it?

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If the answer is no, we move on with our lives.

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But if the answer is yes, now we got to discuss it.

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Yes.

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Yeah, now we got to drag a contractor.

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But most recently

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this came up with me.

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It was a house.

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Uh the house wasn't bad in itself, but there were a couple issues that were going on that
can uh were related to the electrical.

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One of them was a deteriorated electrical mast, and then the other was a loose outlet.

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And the buyer one of these things corrected.

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So when I go back, instead of replacing the uh metal mast, they cut a piece of conduit.

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PVC conduit and slipped it around the mast and then put flex tape on top of it.

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And then for the outlet, this is I've never seen anything like this.

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They took that same flex tape, it was probably four inches wide, right?

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And they put it over the outlet.

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And they removed the cover plate and put it over the outlet.

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And then they cut out the holes for the actual outlet itself, right?

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And then put the cover plate back on.

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But you could see the edges of the flex tape.

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on the drywall, right?

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So obviously, me being the stickler for details that I am, I say, guys, I think we need to
work on the electoral.

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Now at the time that I say this, I don't know who did it.

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So I don't want to be too critical of the homeowner.

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There's people that still are trying to negotiate and make this deal work.

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But then I get a text from a realtor telling me that this was done by a very prestigious
electrician in the area who's been in business a lot of years

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What exactly do you have a problem with?

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And then I'm not gonna bore you with the details of the whole text, but it went something
like this.

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First off, flex tape.

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And then it got a lot more detailed after that, but it puts inspectors in the middle of a
situation that's unwinnable.

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You know, because a lot of times you don't get to this stage until you're ready to close.

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And now everybody's looking at us, like the seller's looking at us, like, why is this guy
holding us up?

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The buyer's looking at us like, hey, is there anything else that they can do?

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And it's like, guys, if they were interested in doing this right to begin with, they've
done it.

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So it's really hard to find that spot where you can just kind of wipe your hands of it
because a lot of times you get drugged into this thing.

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And there's there's been a couple times where I thought I was gonna have to go to the
closing with photos to make this thing work because it always comes down to the last

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minute.

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So I got some guys that I speak with uh about this kind of stuff on a regular basis.

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And a couple of them have written up some agreements in terms of their their re-inspects
that basically say, look, and I they they go into a a lot of more detail than I'm gonna go

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into right here, but it's basically saying I'm gonna go look at these items and I'm gonna
verify whether or not these items have been repaired, but I'm not verifying the quality of

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the repairs.

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So it's like I and I know that that's kind of a gray area a little bit, but they're just
kind of throwing that disclaimer out there because it's like, like you said, it's like you

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can walk up to something and be like, I mean, yeah, they did it.

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They repaired it.

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Um, and there you go.

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Um, and that's just kind of what they have to do because at what point are we caught
calling out, especially on these uh resale homes, craftsmanship?

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You know what I mean?

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Like that just pins us against some contractor.

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And I don't mind.

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calling out craftsmanship stuff and being pinned against the builder on this kind of stuff
on a new construction house because it's like, hey guys, it's new.

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You know what I mean?

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Like, do it right.

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But like, but when you've got these people going, we hired a licensed contractor to do
this.

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And then so it's got to be my word against their word.

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Like I'm not into that.

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so yeah, that I I I know I know what you mean.

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But I I've oftentimes thought about like adding some verbiage like that to my reinspect uh
form just to so that people know like

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I mean, you know, yeah.

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I mean, there there's gotta be a line drawn here because I c I mean, if you send me in to
go uh sorry, you you you hire the cheapest people in the world to go do this work and then

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you're allowing me to come back and reinspect it.

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I mean, w I'm gonna tell you it's wrong.

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It's all and it's almost always wrong.

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How many times have you walked into a reinspect, new or old, and been completely satisfied
walking out of one?

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Honest question.

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It's never happened.

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a time.

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But you

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you're at risk of seeing something that not that you missed it the first time, but you're
gonna catch something like the more times you you view something, the more like the worse

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it looks, right?

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The harder you look at it, the worse it gets.

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But

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there the first time, you're doing like this broad spectrum of stuff.

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When you narrow that down, things look different.

209
00:13:41,179 --> 00:13:42,661
And I mean, it just is what it is.

210
00:13:42,661 --> 00:13:47,206
Yeah, there's been certainly been times where I walked in and I found something that I
didn't see the first time.

211
00:13:47,206 --> 00:13:47,827
Was it there?

212
00:13:47,827 --> 00:13:48,668
I don't know.

213
00:13:48,668 --> 00:13:49,579
But it's like that now.

214
00:13:49,579 --> 00:13:51,260
And I feel like I gotta say something.

215
00:13:51,564 --> 00:13:54,216
Now, where's the line between customer service?

216
00:13:54,216 --> 00:13:59,260
You know, because you you got your agent, your buyers, they'll they'll call you for these.

217
00:13:59,821 --> 00:14:04,244
and I've had it happen where an agent's called me multiple times about the same house,
right?

218
00:14:04,244 --> 00:14:11,269
So you charge, you charge that fee, but like, I mean, Brad, you work out in the middle of
nowhere too.

219
00:14:11,269 --> 00:14:16,934
I I mean, I've been to properties that are an hour, hour and a half away from me, and they
want me to go back.

220
00:14:16,934 --> 00:14:19,156
And I'm like, okay, well, for a reinspect, I will.

221
00:14:19,156 --> 00:14:21,377
But now you're going a second time.

222
00:14:21,377 --> 00:14:23,841
third time, you thought it was fixed, you thought it was fixed.

223
00:14:23,841 --> 00:14:25,945
So I at some point can you just say no?

224
00:14:25,945 --> 00:14:27,577
Are you just sorry, I'm booked, I'm busy.

225
00:14:27,577 --> 00:14:33,767
Like, do you just or do you keep honoring that agent in the relationship and keep going?

226
00:14:33,985 --> 00:14:36,876
Well, I keep charging them the two fifty.

227
00:14:37,337 --> 00:14:40,619
So every time I go is two fifty minimum.

228
00:14:40,659 --> 00:14:52,546
And um, you know, new construction, which I hate to throw builders in the area under the
bus because for the most part, you know, we we've all seen this before.

229
00:14:52,546 --> 00:15:00,411
Subcontractor tells the builder one thing, builder takes it as, you know, oh the truth and
then we show up and find out that it's not done.

230
00:15:00,411 --> 00:15:01,151
So

231
00:15:01,941 --> 00:15:07,097
I know that that kind of stuff goes on, but yeah, there's been some new builds I've had to
go to three or four times.

232
00:15:07,097 --> 00:15:11,340
I made more on the re inspection than I ever did on the original inspection.

233
00:15:11,882 --> 00:15:12,514
Yeah.

234
00:15:12,514 --> 00:15:17,980
those subcontractors, they work at the same rate as a as a husband when the wife gives
them a project.

235
00:15:17,980 --> 00:15:23,733
You know, it'll get it'll get done by uh EOY, not EOW, you know, I guess.

236
00:15:23,827 --> 00:15:33,913
and then the other thing that goes on, you know, talking about like the driving and stuff,
like if we do have a full schedule, how many of these are we doing at the end of the day?

237
00:15:33,913 --> 00:15:36,080
You know, like there was one a few months ago.

238
00:15:36,080 --> 00:15:38,676
I I didn't get finished with it until nine thirty at night.

239
00:15:38,676 --> 00:15:40,437
So I didn't get home until ten.

240
00:15:40,437 --> 00:15:47,622
And then it's not that you don't want to help your clients because obviously they hired
you to do the initial inspection, they trust you.

241
00:15:47,622 --> 00:15:52,795
But it is hard to find that balance of, you know, okay.

242
00:15:52,881 --> 00:16:01,087
my position in this is starting to become abused versus, you know, I'm trying to help
these guys do something, you know, and I it's it's tough.

243
00:16:01,087 --> 00:16:10,213
Like that's, you know, talking about like my prices going back to earlier, that was
something like when I got started, this is how naive I was, I was doing reinspects for

244
00:16:10,213 --> 00:16:10,974
free.

245
00:16:10,974 --> 00:16:12,720
that's something I want to talk about.

246
00:16:12,720 --> 00:16:18,382
Until everybody had me reinspecting things and it's like, okay, you know, reclaiming my
time.

247
00:16:18,423 --> 00:16:19,183
Right.

248
00:16:19,183 --> 00:16:21,564
And then I was doing them for a hundred dollars.

249
00:16:21,564 --> 00:16:26,826
And, you know, it wasn't like I was getting completely uh beat up on the hundred dollar
point.

250
00:16:26,826 --> 00:16:33,089
But when, you know, I would do the new construction houses and they're making you go back
two and three times.

251
00:16:33,449 --> 00:16:36,891
And I hate to sound like this was malicious, but I thought, you know what?

252
00:16:36,891 --> 00:16:40,742
If I make this cost enough to where people complain.

253
00:16:41,160 --> 00:16:46,464
Then they're not gonna be bringing me out here nickel and diming me, taking up my time to
do these.

254
00:16:46,564 --> 00:16:53,410
And you know, like I said, I wish I could tell you that that's the perfect formula, but I
don't know that it is, you know.

255
00:16:53,410 --> 00:16:55,381
I mean, there there's a lot that goes into that.

256
00:16:55,381 --> 00:16:58,534
And like Matt said, sometimes you're looking at three or four things.

257
00:16:58,534 --> 00:17:04,628
And then sometimes like I did an inspection last week where the guy said, This is no joke,
we're talking on the phone.

258
00:17:04,628 --> 00:17:10,727
And you you mentioned like blurring the lines between being an inspector and a realtor,
because obviously, you know.

259
00:17:10,727 --> 00:17:17,552
We're not trying to give real estate advice to people, but I had a client recently that
said, 60 something items on this house.

260
00:17:17,973 --> 00:17:21,975
It wasn't a bad house, just a lot of junk deficiencies, small stuff.

261
00:17:22,016 --> 00:17:25,939
But he says, Am I crazy to ask them to fix all of it?

262
00:17:25,939 --> 00:17:27,440
And I said, Yeah, certifiable.

263
00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:28,351
They're not gonna do it.

264
00:17:28,351 --> 00:17:29,792
They're not gonna do it.

265
00:17:29,792 --> 00:17:37,308
I said, What you need to do is pick probably 10 or 15 things that you're adamant about and
then work backwards from that.

266
00:17:37,308 --> 00:17:40,530
But that's the other thing is is you know.

267
00:17:40,634 --> 00:17:53,923
when you ask the seller to fix things, your money ahead trying to focus on like the big
picture stuff, then trying to spause let's just say for example, a seller has a number in

268
00:17:53,923 --> 00:17:55,604
their head that they're willing to do.

269
00:17:55,604 --> 00:17:58,626
Let's say it's three thousand dollars worth of repairs.

270
00:17:58,626 --> 00:18:02,909
You don't want that spread, you don't want them fixing a loose doorknob as part of that
three thousand.

271
00:18:02,909 --> 00:18:06,832
You want 'em just spending that money on the roof or spending that money on the HVAC.

272
00:18:06,832 --> 00:18:10,214
And I think too like, you know

273
00:18:10,274 --> 00:18:21,707
obviously agents have to do the bidding of the buyers, but buyers would be better served
if they would focus on like what's extremely important to them and then let everybody

274
00:18:21,707 --> 00:18:31,060
focus their effort and money on that and then just deal with the small stuff than trying
to get the seller to do twenty things because obviously they don't want to spend money to

275
00:18:31,060 --> 00:18:35,141
do twenty things and that's when a lot of the DIY gets involved.

276
00:18:35,141 --> 00:18:39,250
And the DIY was why we were in this boat to begin with, you know.

277
00:18:39,250 --> 00:18:40,931
So that part of it's tough.

278
00:18:40,940 --> 00:18:43,561
Yeah, DIY and deferred maintenance for sure.

279
00:18:44,384 --> 00:18:50,968
It's it's difficult for me because it's like I I I want to help a uh a buyer as as much as
possible.

280
00:18:50,968 --> 00:18:55,021
And so if I get that many callbacks, it's like if they're willing to pay, that's great.

281
00:18:55,021 --> 00:18:59,519
But like the very definition of our job is to help as many buyers as possible.

282
00:18:59,519 --> 00:19:05,729
Cause that's the only way that we can be profitable and continue to do what we do for as
many people going forward.

283
00:19:05,729 --> 00:19:07,950
So it's like you can't get too bogged down.

284
00:19:07,950 --> 00:19:13,942
But uh the only other person that definitely doesn't want to get bogged down with this,
like you're saying, Brad, is the seller.

285
00:19:13,942 --> 00:19:20,250
So it's just a higher risk of it uh getting done incorrectly at all, which takes us right
back to your original point.

286
00:19:20,250 --> 00:19:25,717
Just let the buyer deal with it as soon as as soon as the transaction's done.

287
00:19:25,818 --> 00:19:26,274
Yeah.

288
00:19:26,274 --> 00:19:28,515
number we can all agree on and move on.

289
00:19:28,515 --> 00:19:32,439
Because that's the other thing is dealing with people's expectations.

290
00:19:32,439 --> 00:19:34,180
Going back to Matt's point.

291
00:19:34,420 --> 00:19:35,340
Right?

292
00:19:35,381 --> 00:19:38,303
I want to go back and look at this and I want to see if it's fixed.

293
00:19:38,303 --> 00:19:40,445
Now I've got a different word for craftsmanship.

294
00:19:40,445 --> 00:19:42,266
I call it craftsmanship.

295
00:19:42,266 --> 00:19:48,511
But if Yeah, well Yeah, the tail end of that one.

296
00:19:48,511 --> 00:19:50,752
But you know, when

297
00:19:50,798 --> 00:20:01,223
You're dealing with that, it's like now not only are you having to judge whether or not
this is an acceptable repair, because not only does it have to be acceptable to me, it has

298
00:20:01,223 --> 00:20:03,314
to be acceptable to the person buying it.

299
00:20:03,314 --> 00:20:05,295
I don't know what they're looking for here.

300
00:20:05,295 --> 00:20:06,096
And it really does.

301
00:20:06,096 --> 00:20:07,447
It puts us in a tough spot.

302
00:20:07,447 --> 00:20:18,902
And like, you know, Matt said, which I agree with, there probably should be more talk
about certain verbiage or things that we can put in our agreements or things that we put

303
00:20:18,902 --> 00:20:20,217
in the report itself.

304
00:20:20,217 --> 00:20:26,434
to kind of set the groundwork for, look, I'm not here to make sure that this meets your
expectations.

305
00:20:26,434 --> 00:20:28,997
We're trying to answer questions like, is it functional?

306
00:20:28,997 --> 00:20:30,199
Is it still a problem?

307
00:20:30,199 --> 00:20:31,520
Does this work?

308
00:20:31,520 --> 00:20:34,453
Now once those things are met, we're done.

309
00:20:34,656 --> 00:20:40,650
If anybody watching has any verbiage that they use, drop it in the comments or send it to
us.

310
00:20:40,790 --> 00:20:49,857
we'd like to have this conversation because I think that needs to be talked about amongst
industry people here so that we can kind of get on the same page a little bit.

311
00:20:49,857 --> 00:20:58,614
And we're never going to completely be there, but if we can just kind of start working our
way a little bit closer, I mean, like, look, we're all um doing things to some degree a

312
00:20:58,614 --> 00:20:59,824
little bit differently, right?

313
00:20:59,824 --> 00:21:02,732
And we all have our own pricing and stuff like that, but

314
00:21:02,732 --> 00:21:08,764
There is a lot of common ground, but I think like when it comes to reinspects, it's just
all over the map.

315
00:21:08,764 --> 00:21:15,027
Now I feel like we've got to uh like focus a little bit of attention on the elephant in
the room, which is price.

316
00:21:15,027 --> 00:21:20,329
Okay, because I think it all it that that really solves everything, right?

317
00:21:20,329 --> 00:21:24,431
How much we're getting paid, um, ac actually fixes the whole thing.

318
00:21:24,431 --> 00:21:30,073
And and to me, like, okay, so let's go back to when you said you used to do them free,
Brad.

319
00:21:30,073 --> 00:21:32,662
I was doing a class, I was giving a uh

320
00:21:33,639 --> 00:21:40,951
a class for some realtors recently and one of the realtors in there said uh that you know
she asked me about re-inspects and I told her yeah we do them and I told her what we

321
00:21:40,951 --> 00:21:44,358
charge and she goes, well the guy I'm using right now, he does them for free.

322
00:21:44,358 --> 00:21:47,731
And I and I I don't want to throw dirt on any inspector.

323
00:21:47,731 --> 00:21:48,711
Okay.

324
00:21:48,831 --> 00:21:55,636
But that's an indication to me that you're probably doing dealing with an inspector that's
probably not very experienced.

325
00:21:55,637 --> 00:21:59,880
Because if they're if they're experienced, then they're not giving their time away for
free.

326
00:22:00,341 --> 00:22:02,242
And so it makes me kind of question

327
00:22:02,651 --> 00:22:03,952
you using them to begin with.

328
00:22:03,952 --> 00:22:05,824
Now I don't want to throw any dirt at any inspector.

329
00:22:05,824 --> 00:22:07,275
They might do a fine job.

330
00:22:07,275 --> 00:22:10,788
And maybe they just feel that maybe that's built into their price somehow.

331
00:22:10,788 --> 00:22:14,341
I don't know how you yeah, it could be that too.

332
00:22:14,341 --> 00:22:17,844
And I mean we all do things like that to kind of get our foot in the door.

333
00:22:17,844 --> 00:22:21,327
But at the very least, that's temporary, right?

334
00:22:21,327 --> 00:22:23,068
I mean this person's doing this now.

335
00:22:23,068 --> 00:22:24,530
That's not going to last forever.

336
00:22:24,530 --> 00:22:28,313
Now when I started, I started doing them for about 150 bucks.

337
00:22:28,313 --> 00:22:30,214
I think that was my bottom dollar.

338
00:22:30,250 --> 00:22:33,912
And and I had some confusion because it's hard to figure out like what people are charging
for this.

339
00:22:33,912 --> 00:22:36,033
So I think I did them for like 150 bucks.

340
00:22:36,094 --> 00:22:41,450
What I found um was that at that price, I was doing a lot of them.

341
00:22:41,450 --> 00:22:50,362
I'm not every one of them, but it's like, you know, when people uh have some stuff wrong
with their house, new or old, and for 150 extra dollars they can have you come back,

342
00:22:50,362 --> 00:22:52,123
they're gonna do it a lot of times.

343
00:22:52,123 --> 00:22:56,025
And so I was finding that I was overrun with it and I had to figure out a new game plan.

344
00:22:56,025 --> 00:22:57,484
And so you know.

345
00:22:57,484 --> 00:23:02,617
When we do houses, I mean, of course everyone has prices that are per square foot, right?

346
00:23:02,998 --> 00:23:05,720
But like everyone also has a bottom dollar usually.

347
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:10,704
Like mine is four seventy-five, but there's a lot of guys that'll do it go a little bit
cheaper than that.

348
00:23:10,704 --> 00:23:20,280
But like at some point, and even if you're talking about, let's just say for for you know,
uh to make it s simple here, let's just say everybody was at four seventy five, or let's

349
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:24,413
just talk about a four hundred and seventy-five dollar inspection for whatever square
footage that is.

350
00:23:24,413 --> 00:23:25,388
Sometimes

351
00:23:25,388 --> 00:23:28,939
That's a really easy house with very few things wrong with it.

352
00:23:28,939 --> 00:23:36,081
Sometimes it's a absolute nightmare, but it's still 475 or whatever, you know?

353
00:23:36,081 --> 00:23:44,143
And so I took that approach when it came to re-inspects and I was like, okay, I've got to
have a bottom dollar that I can get out there for and that's it.

354
00:23:44,193 --> 00:23:46,384
and then it kind of goes up, maybe up from there.

355
00:23:46,384 --> 00:23:50,591
Um, but I chose half of the inspection fee.

356
00:23:50,591 --> 00:23:54,016
So it's kind of weird because like my bottom dollar is like 475.

357
00:23:54,016 --> 00:23:54,627
So it's like,

358
00:23:54,627 --> 00:23:57,508
$237.50 or something like that.

359
00:23:57,508 --> 00:23:58,528
But that's what I charge.

360
00:23:58,528 --> 00:24:02,489
It's just 50% of what the original inspection fee was.

361
00:24:02,489 --> 00:24:05,690
And the thing is, is yeah, sometimes I go and do five things.

362
00:24:05,690 --> 00:24:10,231
Sometimes I was finding myself doing 25 things, but the fee is the same.

363
00:24:10,231 --> 00:24:13,032
And it's like, yeah, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

364
00:24:13,032 --> 00:24:15,933
I get that like, you know, the person on the other end of that is paying for it.

365
00:24:15,933 --> 00:24:16,910
But that's just kind of what I found.

366
00:24:16,910 --> 00:24:21,564
And when I did that, the number of them I got was drastically lower.

367
00:24:21,564 --> 00:24:22,995
And I want to help everybody too.

368
00:24:22,995 --> 00:24:24,355
If they want.

369
00:24:24,449 --> 00:24:27,520
A reinspect, I want to try to help them.

370
00:24:27,561 --> 00:24:34,225
I mean, they're a little bit annoying for a lot of reasons that we've already talked
about, but I do still want to try to help them if they are truly wanting it.

371
00:24:34,225 --> 00:24:40,948
But if they want me to help them, it's going to cost a little bit of money because it is
my time.

372
00:24:40,948 --> 00:24:46,115
And also, it is usually taking the place of what would be a full inspection fee.

373
00:24:46,115 --> 00:24:49,933
So I'm already losing whenever I show up to do this reinspect.

374
00:24:49,933 --> 00:24:53,225
I don't like to bring that up to the client because that sounds kind of

375
00:24:53,455 --> 00:24:57,798
Crappy, you know, but it's like I'm already losing by by doing this.

376
00:24:57,798 --> 00:25:03,592
And so I've got to at least get it to, you know, a point where I can like feel comfortable
with that.

377
00:25:03,592 --> 00:25:07,585
And that's what I chose to do, which has helped me a great deal.

378
00:25:07,585 --> 00:25:12,948
But lately, when it came to new construction, I just felt like we were getting taken
advantage of.

379
00:25:12,948 --> 00:25:22,505
And you know, another pain point I feel like, you know, it's one thing when we're single
man operators, but when we got other people working for us, that complicates things quite

380
00:25:22,505 --> 00:25:23,393
a bit.

381
00:25:23,393 --> 00:25:27,235
And so, you know, what was happening was I felt like we were getting taken advantage of.

382
00:25:27,235 --> 00:25:29,707
My guys, I man, it's fine.

383
00:25:29,707 --> 00:25:31,988
I ran the company, I was the only inspector for years.

384
00:25:31,988 --> 00:25:32,848
You want to run over me?

385
00:25:32,848 --> 00:25:33,689
No problem.

386
00:25:33,689 --> 00:25:40,833
But now all of a sudden, when you start running over my guys and you're like, well, can
you look at these 50 items in this, you know, because they said they're gonna fix it all.

387
00:25:40,833 --> 00:25:44,415
And it's like, no, we need to set some ground rules, you know.

388
00:25:44,415 --> 00:25:52,867
Um, and so my ground rules have you know, just like we get an amendment from realtors, I
have started, this has only been about

389
00:25:52,867 --> 00:25:58,078
30 days in in the works, but we've started to force buyers.

390
00:25:58,078 --> 00:26:03,950
Look at no offense here, but if you want me to go back out for half the cost, I need a
list of what you want done.

391
00:26:03,970 --> 00:26:07,821
And and don't just tell me everything because I know the builder's not going to fix
everything I put in my report.

392
00:26:07,821 --> 00:26:10,752
I need a list of things that negotiated repairs.

393
00:26:10,752 --> 00:26:14,853
What they said they're going to fix, I need a list of those and we'll go back and look at
those.

394
00:26:14,853 --> 00:26:18,954
Sometimes that's five things, sometimes that's 25 things, but I won't argue it anymore.

395
00:26:18,954 --> 00:26:21,535
That means now I don't have to go back and

396
00:26:21,535 --> 00:26:28,449
find all the defects in the report, spend all that extra time finding the defects in the
report and then make myself a list.

397
00:26:28,449 --> 00:26:30,210
I just go off of the list that you gave me.

398
00:26:30,210 --> 00:26:31,360
There's a paper trail.

399
00:26:31,360 --> 00:26:32,101
We're good to go.

400
00:26:32,101 --> 00:26:33,221
They don't like doing it.

401
00:26:33,221 --> 00:26:34,742
I can tell you that right now.

402
00:26:34,742 --> 00:26:41,246
But the way we've been putting it to them, and we say this from the beginning, when they
when they call and say, how much is a reinspect, we're like, well it's half the cost of

403
00:26:41,246 --> 00:26:42,086
the inspection.

404
00:26:42,086 --> 00:26:44,418
But we have to have a list for this.

405
00:26:44,418 --> 00:26:47,349
And if we don't have a list, it's a full fee.

406
00:26:48,390 --> 00:26:50,380
So far no one's paid the full fee.

407
00:26:50,380 --> 00:26:51,961
Yeah, I mean, that's fair.

408
00:26:51,961 --> 00:26:56,925
Um, I know it's like you said with the abuse and then of course your time.

409
00:26:57,426 --> 00:27:04,642
You know, going back to Brad's point, the when you're new, right, you're just starving for
anything, right?

410
00:27:04,642 --> 00:27:12,098
You're trying to build relationships with realtors, you're trying to build relationships
with clients, and you you will over-leverage yourself.

411
00:27:12,098 --> 00:27:16,402
You'll put yourself in positions where it will affect your bottom line.

412
00:27:16,402 --> 00:27:17,175
Now

413
00:27:17,175 --> 00:27:24,068
My advice to uh new inspectors maybe that are doing something like that is is okay, that's
great.

414
00:27:24,068 --> 00:27:31,432
And that works out good for the agents and it works out good for the clients, but how do
you get from free to getting paid?

415
00:27:31,432 --> 00:27:32,172
You know?

416
00:27:32,172 --> 00:27:33,312
And that's the big thing.

417
00:27:33,312 --> 00:27:41,056
And that's you know, I I help guys get licensed and, you know, uh kind of do the mentor
thing here in Alabama.

418
00:27:41,537 --> 00:27:42,369
And

419
00:27:42,369 --> 00:27:52,417
One thing that consistently comes up with these people that want to do these ride-alongs
is they want to uh undercut pricing to get work.

420
00:27:52,417 --> 00:27:54,598
Everybody's done it and I get it.

421
00:27:54,598 --> 00:28:04,495
But what I always try to tell them is it's like, okay, but you can't just all of a sudden
wake up one day and you're the $350 guy, and your agents are used to that, and your

422
00:28:04,495 --> 00:28:09,750
clients are used to that, and they're recommending you to their friends: hey, he did this
inspection for $350.

423
00:28:09,750 --> 00:28:14,064
And then their friend calls, and you're all of a sudden the 475 guy, right?

424
00:28:14,064 --> 00:28:18,387
Now they're going to feel like you're trying to rip them off or take advantage of their
clients if you're the realtor.

425
00:28:18,387 --> 00:28:26,554
So my only advice to people would be is obviously everybody's in charge of setting their
own prices, but you have to think big picture.

426
00:28:26,554 --> 00:28:30,528
A lot of times, people, contractors do it, home inspectors do it.

427
00:28:30,528 --> 00:28:35,222
I mean, every trade does it, but you never want to be beholden to the short money.

428
00:28:35,222 --> 00:28:37,203
You have to think big picture.

429
00:28:37,203 --> 00:28:41,886
And um I think, you know, and like I said, I fell into that trap when I first got started.

430
00:28:41,886 --> 00:28:43,705
There were no mentors around here.

431
00:28:43,705 --> 00:28:45,329
I went to a meeting.

432
00:28:45,329 --> 00:28:51,673
I tried to get some advice from a few home inspectors, and they're like, yeah, man, that
I'd love to help you with that if you pay for an inspection.

433
00:28:51,673 --> 00:28:54,695
And um, you know, I was kind of in the weeds with it.

434
00:28:54,695 --> 00:28:56,136
I didn't really know which way to go with it.

435
00:28:56,136 --> 00:28:57,698
And a lot of it was figuring it out.

436
00:28:57,698 --> 00:29:05,663
But luckily, I started talking to some people throughout the state, not just in my area,
and a lot of people smarter than me.

437
00:29:05,663 --> 00:29:11,364
really kind of guided me towards kind of to Matt's point, charging for your time.

438
00:29:11,364 --> 00:29:18,026
So, you know, I do live in an area where it's not uncommon for me to drive 120 or so miles
a day.

439
00:29:18,026 --> 00:29:19,986
I cover two two counties.

440
00:29:19,986 --> 00:29:21,607
That's a lot of driving.

441
00:29:21,827 --> 00:29:28,468
And you know, if I do a house an hour away, well that's two hours of drive time now.

442
00:29:28,588 --> 00:29:32,039
Two hours of drive time plus whatever I'm doing with the inspection.

443
00:29:32,039 --> 00:29:35,550
And then kind of going back to Matt's point, some days you're the hammer.

444
00:29:35,550 --> 00:29:39,752
Some days you're the nail, but somewhere in the middle is where you need to be.

445
00:29:39,752 --> 00:29:45,834
You know, we can't always get the good houses and then we don't ever want to be just where
we're stuck doing bad houses.

446
00:29:45,834 --> 00:29:54,878
But to be profitable, you have to kind of position yourself to where on the easy days that
helps you make up for the hard days.

447
00:29:54,958 --> 00:30:03,592
And kind of like Matt's saying, whether you're doing half the fee or you've got a price
structure similar to mine, you know, you have to be thinking big picture with that

448
00:30:03,592 --> 00:30:04,802
because.

449
00:30:04,958 --> 00:30:08,939
If you're the low price guy or you're the free guy like I was, guess what?

450
00:30:08,939 --> 00:30:10,900
Everybody wants a reinspection.

451
00:30:10,900 --> 00:30:14,641
And before you know it, your days are 14, 15 hours long.

452
00:30:14,641 --> 00:30:24,604
And then we haven't even talked about the amount of phone calls that comes with these
reinspections where you have to start talking to the listing agent, talking to the buyer's

453
00:30:24,604 --> 00:30:26,224
agent, talking to the buyers.

454
00:30:26,224 --> 00:30:33,033
You know, all of that's yeah, all that's 45 minutes to an hour that's added into that that
you didn't even see coming.

455
00:30:33,033 --> 00:30:35,755
So it is it there's a lot of nuance to it.

456
00:30:35,755 --> 00:30:46,264
And I really think it's something that as an industry probably doesn't get talked about
enough because it's a pitfall.

457
00:30:46,264 --> 00:30:55,671
Like you said, you want to help your clients, you want to maintain your relationships with
these agents, but there has to be a happy medium to where you're not hemorrhaging time

458
00:30:55,671 --> 00:31:00,494
because when you get successful, you've got the money.

459
00:31:00,675 --> 00:31:02,716
Time is then the commodity.

460
00:31:02,772 --> 00:31:04,123
You just don't have the time.

461
00:31:04,123 --> 00:31:06,384
You're you're struggling to find time for stuff.

462
00:31:06,384 --> 00:31:14,419
And, you know, we've all been in situations where um, you know, we're trying to get enough
money for things, whatever it is, what we want to do.

463
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:18,453
And uh years ago I had this old man, he tried to explain some stuff to us.

464
00:31:18,453 --> 00:31:20,664
We were dumb kids, we didn't know any better.

465
00:31:20,664 --> 00:31:30,131
But this guy worked for my dad, he was like 90 years old, and he said, Son, I've seen
people chase money, and it's like a a hill that you climb.

466
00:31:30,131 --> 00:31:32,752
And he said, At the top of that hill, it's a point.

467
00:31:32,871 --> 00:31:33,671
Right.

468
00:31:33,671 --> 00:31:38,394
And at the top of that point, you have the perfect amount of time and the perfect amount
of money.

469
00:31:38,594 --> 00:31:42,696
But once you start going down the other side of it, now you're running out of time.

470
00:31:42,696 --> 00:31:44,857
It doesn't matter how much money you have.

471
00:31:44,857 --> 00:31:54,222
And he said that at 90 years old, he had never met anybody that was able to stay on top of
that point for very long because you end up going over the other side.

472
00:31:54,222 --> 00:32:02,756
And once your business starts to become successful, like there is no substitute, like you
can't replace that time.

473
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:06,104
And if you're not managing it properly, it will slip away from you.

474
00:32:06,104 --> 00:32:11,661
I mean, anybody that I've ever talked to, small business owners, that is their biggest
problem.

475
00:32:11,661 --> 00:32:12,853
It's managing time.

476
00:32:12,853 --> 00:32:14,044
It's not money anymore.

477
00:32:14,044 --> 00:32:16,928
The money takes care of itself, but it's the time.

478
00:32:16,928 --> 00:32:19,170
And it's something you really have to protect.

479
00:32:19,714 --> 00:32:20,961
No, that's good, man.

480
00:32:20,961 --> 00:32:21,322
Now

481
00:32:21,322 --> 00:32:23,008
words of wisdom right there.

482
00:32:23,726 --> 00:32:24,346
Two things.

483
00:32:24,346 --> 00:32:26,937
So you're talking about business growth.

484
00:32:26,937 --> 00:32:34,519
Is it possible that you could save that time by outsourcing the reinspection to one of the
slower guys on your team?

485
00:32:34,519 --> 00:32:39,550
Not slower as in process, but he's not his book of business isn't fully developed yet.

486
00:32:39,550 --> 00:32:42,191
Say he's a newer inspector, newer hire, whatever.

487
00:32:42,191 --> 00:32:51,574
Is it possible to task him with that re-inspect or would you prefer for it to be your eyes
uh or the inspector who inspected it the first time that goes out and does that

488
00:32:51,574 --> 00:32:52,255
re-inspection?

489
00:32:52,255 --> 00:32:53,226
gotta weigh in on this.

490
00:32:53,226 --> 00:32:56,955
This is actually um one of the things I wanted to talk about for sure.

491
00:32:56,955 --> 00:33:02,953
Um, but I mean I f I feel like first of all, I just wanna address like I love that you
were talking about think the big picture.

492
00:33:02,953 --> 00:33:11,960
And I just wanna um just dial back to that for one second and talk about like and we've
said this, but I wanna say it in these terms, like if you're the guy that's doing

493
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:16,533
re-inspection free, you're super cheap, you're doing that to get business, to get
realtors.

494
00:33:16,674 --> 00:33:18,875
And all of a sudden, whenever you say

495
00:33:19,329 --> 00:33:21,380
I I'm not sure they're not free anymore.

496
00:33:21,380 --> 00:33:22,511
They're actually $250.

497
00:33:22,511 --> 00:33:25,122
You just lost a realtor.

498
00:33:25,122 --> 00:33:34,803
So all that work you did to get them, it it actually you didn't do anything because it's
just gonna go away the second you and then you gotta rebuild again at that 250.

499
00:33:34,803 --> 00:33:37,059
So anyway, I just want to say that, just throw that in there.

500
00:33:37,059 --> 00:33:44,173
But but yeah, so so when you got a when you got a team, it starts to complicate things a
little bit.

501
00:33:44,173 --> 00:33:44,463
Okay.

502
00:33:44,463 --> 00:33:49,095
When you've got if you if it's one thing if you're a solo man operation, you're it's your
time.

503
00:33:49,133 --> 00:33:50,364
But it's your guys' time.

504
00:33:50,364 --> 00:33:56,706
Now, this is where I think it gets complicated because your guys are going to get uh a cut
of the inspection, usually.

505
00:33:56,706 --> 00:34:02,749
You know, some people do hourly rates or whatever, but like usually guys get a cut,
whether it's 30, 40, 50%, whatever it is.

506
00:34:02,749 --> 00:34:10,792
Um, and so it's like, you know, your your company stands to to do better if they're out
there doing full inspections.

507
00:34:10,792 --> 00:34:12,803
Your company's not doing great if they're doing re-inspections.

508
00:34:12,803 --> 00:34:15,274
And let me tell you, your guys ain't doing great either.

509
00:34:15,274 --> 00:34:18,275
Because if they gotta make a cut, let's say it's even if it's

510
00:34:18,275 --> 00:34:25,577
50% of $250 to go out and do a job in lieu of a full job.

511
00:34:25,577 --> 00:34:26,777
That's like $125.

512
00:34:26,777 --> 00:34:27,978
That's like nothing.

513
00:34:27,978 --> 00:34:30,718
You know, they go out there and make $125.

514
00:34:30,718 --> 00:34:36,780
They got to drive to who knows where, spend an hour and a half or something like that, and
drive to who knows where back.

515
00:34:36,910 --> 00:34:38,591
you know, this is a bit of a problem.

516
00:34:38,591 --> 00:34:41,241
And I found like it wasn't lucrative for them.

517
00:34:41,241 --> 00:34:42,502
And and they weren't making that.

518
00:34:42,502 --> 00:34:48,183
So I had to actually I I ended up raising their cut significantly so that.

519
00:34:48,811 --> 00:34:55,036
My company was making enough to cover the overhead of that job and they were basically
making the rest.

520
00:34:55,287 --> 00:34:58,620
and that seems to have solved that problem for me.

521
00:34:58,620 --> 00:35:11,111
But the way that I tried to solve that problem, the way I I try to solve it even still
today, is instead of ditching the reinspects off on my guys, I try to take them on myself.

522
00:35:11,111 --> 00:35:15,214
Um, and that way that cuts down on my workload.

523
00:35:15,214 --> 00:35:16,109
And now

524
00:35:16,109 --> 00:35:24,556
I don't have to worry about what cut they make of that low cut and I I get the lighter
workload uh and you know and I'm okay with that.

525
00:35:24,556 --> 00:35:31,432
Cause I mean, like if they go out and let's like I say for simplicity, let's just say they
make 50% uh of a regular job.

526
00:35:31,432 --> 00:35:35,875
Well, if I go and do their re-inspect, then I'm getting that s the company's getting that
same cut.

527
00:35:35,875 --> 00:35:36,526
You know what I mean?

528
00:35:36,526 --> 00:35:40,359
So it seems like that's way I felt like it was best for me to handle it.

529
00:35:40,359 --> 00:35:43,061
Now, problem is I get booked up pretty fast.

530
00:35:43,061 --> 00:35:45,987
So I don't oftentimes have the availability to do that.

531
00:35:45,987 --> 00:35:47,448
But I have been trying to do that.

532
00:35:47,448 --> 00:35:58,397
And and as of late in the last several months, um since we things have been quite busy,
I've been trying to do one a day instead of two a day, which allows me that flexibility in

533
00:35:58,397 --> 00:36:00,898
my schedule to take on some of that stuff.

534
00:36:00,898 --> 00:36:06,202
Um, but we don't have a great deal of it because our prices are not exactly cheap.

535
00:36:06,243 --> 00:36:07,063
So

536
00:36:07,697 --> 00:36:16,216
Now are you saying the base for your guys, their split is fifty percent already on a job
or okay.

537
00:36:16,216 --> 00:36:18,430
using that as as an example.

538
00:36:18,452 --> 00:36:19,439
but uh

539
00:36:19,439 --> 00:36:20,140
it makes sense.

540
00:36:20,140 --> 00:36:28,862
There's a lot of companies out there that because the company provides the car, the the
benefits, the everything, that the the split that goes to the inspector is like thirty

541
00:36:28,862 --> 00:36:30,194
five percent.

542
00:36:30,194 --> 00:36:30,565
So

543
00:36:30,565 --> 00:36:33,276
doing a re inspect at thirty five percent?

544
00:36:34,137 --> 00:36:36,158
I mean, th they're not gonna wanna do it.

545
00:36:36,158 --> 00:36:38,939
I know I know that like it comes with the territory, right?

546
00:36:38,939 --> 00:36:39,709
We gotta do it.

547
00:36:39,709 --> 00:36:48,446
But it's like, how do you convince somebody to do that well and to stay in enthusiastic
about their job when they're making such little money?

548
00:36:48,446 --> 00:36:48,996
Exactly.

549
00:36:48,996 --> 00:36:53,499
That was the point I was gonna say is is that for morale, right?

550
00:36:53,499 --> 00:37:01,603
If you've got a guy that's taking a cut, you know, for something like that, sure, they
might look at the occasional easy afternoon as a plus.

551
00:37:01,603 --> 00:37:05,114
They didn't make as much money, but I'm not working until six, seven o'clock.

552
00:37:05,114 --> 00:37:14,069
But if you start piling it on them, then that percentage better be considerable because
now, you know, they're taking home less.

553
00:37:14,069 --> 00:37:15,730
And it is that's a tightrope.

554
00:37:15,730 --> 00:37:17,201
I mean, it really is a tight rope.

555
00:37:17,201 --> 00:37:18,311
Now kind of like

556
00:37:18,343 --> 00:37:21,825
um you know Matt was talking about doing them himself.

557
00:37:21,825 --> 00:37:27,537
The other thing is is, you know, this is we could all do the same house, the three of us.

558
00:37:27,537 --> 00:37:31,889
We could inspect the same house and see things differently between the three of us.

559
00:37:32,549 --> 00:37:38,052
And I have gone back before to do a reinspection on a house and I'm like, I'm not seeing
it.

560
00:37:38,072 --> 00:37:45,745
But it's not that, you know, the first inspector missed it or whiffed on it or didn't
inspect it right, but now that it's different,

561
00:37:45,835 --> 00:37:54,788
Like I can't tell what was done because, you know, I see the other photo, but without the
context actually being there, I might not be looking at this thing the way that I'm

562
00:37:54,788 --> 00:37:55,338
supposed to.

563
00:37:55,338 --> 00:37:56,678
So that's tough too.

564
00:37:56,678 --> 00:38:03,210
It doesn't come up a lot, but with certain things when they've gone back and repaired
stuff, it's like, where on this wall did you see this wet spot?

565
00:38:03,210 --> 00:38:06,521
Because now everything's been painted and I'm lost.

566
00:38:06,521 --> 00:38:11,132
You know, so when it comes to that, sometimes continuity is a plus.

567
00:38:11,132 --> 00:38:13,333
And then too, you know, clients

568
00:38:13,382 --> 00:38:18,864
If they're happy with the inspector the first time, sometimes they want that inspector
back regardless.

569
00:38:18,864 --> 00:38:20,694
You know, they just don't trust other people.

570
00:38:20,694 --> 00:38:22,945
But that that's a tightrope and it's tough.

571
00:38:22,945 --> 00:38:29,317
I mean, I've I've dealt with it as a single person operator and then as having other
inspectors working for me.

572
00:38:29,317 --> 00:38:37,309
But um that's one of those things where again, I wish I could tell you like here's the
balance, but it's just tough to find.

573
00:38:37,463 --> 00:38:38,583
It really is.

574
00:38:38,583 --> 00:38:46,498
I wanna clarify because we do have some negative Nancy's out there that will probably
listen back to if they only heard this one portion.

575
00:38:46,498 --> 00:38:52,782
Because some of the keyboard warriors, they don't listen to anything at all, as we
discovered this past week with some comments, Matt.

576
00:38:52,782 --> 00:39:02,619
But uh but if if if y'all if y'all listening and and you know want to immediately come
after, you know, Matt Brad or me and just be like, Well, if you hadn't missed it the first

577
00:39:02,619 --> 00:39:04,300
time, you wouldn't need to reinspect.

578
00:39:04,300 --> 00:39:05,681
We ain't talking about that.

579
00:39:05,681 --> 00:39:07,448
We're talking about s yeah.

580
00:39:07,448 --> 00:39:14,920
We're talking about specifically when there's been repairs that have been done and and
we've been asked to come back and check the work, you know.

581
00:39:15,001 --> 00:39:16,842
Yeah, and I can see that continuity.

582
00:39:16,842 --> 00:39:22,796
Like if you if your eyes didn't see it the first time, then it might be difficult for you
to navigate the second time.

583
00:39:22,796 --> 00:39:35,145
I think that that's a risk I'm personally with my company and with my communication with
my guys and with as infrequently as this comes up for us because of our prices, that's a

584
00:39:35,145 --> 00:39:36,035
risk I'm willing to take.

585
00:39:36,035 --> 00:39:44,491
Um there's very little, like you said, it's kind of a rarity anyway, very little that I'm
gonna show up at and be like,

586
00:39:44,973 --> 00:39:46,590
So where was this problem?

587
00:39:46,590 --> 00:39:47,182
You know what I mean?

588
00:39:47,182 --> 00:39:49,320
Like I I've seen thousands of homes.

589
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:51,485
So it's like I can pretty much pinpoint them.

590
00:39:51,515 --> 00:39:55,017
well I tell you where it really comes into play for us is like a roof.

591
00:39:55,478 --> 00:39:57,749
So let's say you've got a worn damage shingle.

592
00:39:57,749 --> 00:40:03,703
Well obviously you're not taking some big wide angle photo of the whole roof because now
you can't see the damage.

593
00:40:03,703 --> 00:40:06,045
So the photo is kind of close up.

594
00:40:06,045 --> 00:40:12,329
And then you just find out that it's on the right side of the roof, and then you show up
and it's like, it's a pretty big roof.

595
00:40:12,410 --> 00:40:14,011
We're on this right side.

596
00:40:14,011 --> 00:40:14,491
But

597
00:40:14,491 --> 00:40:21,636
When I've done the inspection, you know, a lot of times you're going back within a week or
two weeks, you know, after the inspection, I can remember.

598
00:40:21,636 --> 00:40:25,808
But I've even done it to some of the houses where I've inspected, you know, I'll go back
like a month.

599
00:40:25,808 --> 00:40:29,680
There was one uh last year that was a bank owned property.

600
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:31,962
It took them two months to get it sorted out.

601
00:40:31,962 --> 00:40:35,394
And when they called me back to do the reinspection, I was like, Jesus, y'all bought that
thing?

602
00:40:35,394 --> 00:40:36,545
Okay, sure.

603
00:40:36,545 --> 00:40:37,245
I'll go back.

604
00:40:37,245 --> 00:40:39,427
But then when I went back, it was like, hold on a minute.

605
00:40:39,427 --> 00:40:40,547
Now let me think.

606
00:40:40,773 --> 00:40:42,034
Where did I see this?

607
00:40:42,034 --> 00:40:49,577
You know, so that it's the context of the photos too, because that's the other thing is
is, you know, I've had builders gripe about this before.

608
00:40:49,577 --> 00:41:00,012
They don't want me putting chalk on the roofs or doing blue tape on things, but it's like,
how do I show you the defect from far away when I couldn't see it unless I was five feet

609
00:41:00,012 --> 00:41:00,673
from it?

610
00:41:00,673 --> 00:41:04,304
Do you really, you know, how can we how can we find that middle ground?

611
00:41:04,304 --> 00:41:06,351
But sometimes that's tough.

612
00:41:06,351 --> 00:41:08,091
I got two th I got two things about that.

613
00:41:08,091 --> 00:41:08,752
Okay.

614
00:41:08,752 --> 00:41:19,635
So one, so uh when it comes to when I go back to the do these reinspects, first of all, I
do a lot of times just try to look at it with a fresh set of eyes.

615
00:41:19,635 --> 00:41:23,656
So as if I was the first one inspecting, okay, you had damaged shingles on the right side
of the roof.

616
00:41:23,656 --> 00:41:25,111
I'm just gonna look at the right side of the roof.

617
00:41:25,111 --> 00:41:26,817
I don't see damaged shingles.

618
00:41:27,357 --> 00:41:28,677
All okay, everything's okay.

619
00:41:28,677 --> 00:41:31,838
Everything was performing fine, everything was fine on the day of inspection, whatever.

620
00:41:31,838 --> 00:41:33,439
So I try to do that for one.

621
00:41:33,439 --> 00:41:34,599
Number two.

622
00:41:34,747 --> 00:41:40,669
Uh I actually have a we have we have the way we do, especially roofs.

623
00:41:40,810 --> 00:41:45,512
Maybe nothing else, but the way that we do roofs and defects with roofs is pretty
specific.

624
00:41:45,512 --> 00:41:46,812
And I learned to do this.

625
00:41:46,812 --> 00:41:48,473
This was really for me.

626
00:41:48,513 --> 00:41:54,065
But I actually do take a wide angle shot and then I s and then a um a close up shot.

627
00:41:54,065 --> 00:41:57,297
So we find nails that are out of place a lot.

628
00:41:57,297 --> 00:42:01,358
You know, a nail that's lower on a shingle than it's supposed to be and it's exposed.

629
00:42:01,358 --> 00:42:03,201
Well, I mean that's an

630
00:42:03,201 --> 00:42:08,114
a literal needle in a haystack if you just tell them, hey, you see this picture of this
nail right here and that's it.

631
00:42:08,114 --> 00:42:17,859
So what I do, uh, and this is my strategy, I go and I take a wide angle shot and I make
sure that nail, I can see it from afar, but you just can't see it in the picture.

632
00:42:17,859 --> 00:42:20,180
But I make sure it's in the center of the screen.

633
00:42:20,180 --> 00:42:25,023
So when I take that picture, that nail's right in the center of that wide angle shot.

634
00:42:25,023 --> 00:42:30,486
Then I go in for a wide uh a close shot and show what the problem is, put an arrow on it
and put close up view.

635
00:42:30,486 --> 00:42:32,537
And so we actually do that.

636
00:42:32,537 --> 00:42:33,700
in an attic, right?

637
00:42:33,700 --> 00:42:37,036
Like I mean it's i you can take one spot like a a bare area.

638
00:42:37,036 --> 00:42:39,632
It's like how do you how are you gonna find that up there?

639
00:42:39,632 --> 00:42:41,204
Like if you're going back, you know?

640
00:42:41,508 --> 00:42:55,737
it and so there if you try to think about it like whenever you're doing the inspection,
like if I had to track this down, what can I do to make that like easier?

641
00:42:55,737 --> 00:43:03,481
And so there's oftentimes something like on the roof, I will try to make sure because even
the wide angle shots, like, okay, you got a wide angle shot, but still a bunch of

642
00:43:03,481 --> 00:43:04,202
shingles.

643
00:43:04,202 --> 00:43:06,445
Well, I'll make sure there's a furnace floor.

644
00:43:06,825 --> 00:43:10,586
Or or there's a you know, a this or that, or you can see the house in the background.

645
00:43:10,586 --> 00:43:12,757
And I'm like, Okay, that gives me my angle.

646
00:43:12,757 --> 00:43:19,709
Um, I do the same thing when I'm in the attic or when I'm taking thermal pictures
sometimes, especially occupied homes.

647
00:43:19,709 --> 00:43:24,190
I go in there, I'm scanning here, there's a bunch of missing insulation above that cow
picture.

648
00:43:24,190 --> 00:43:26,790
I'll make sure that cow picture is in that picture.

649
00:43:26,790 --> 00:43:27,411
You know what I mean?

650
00:43:27,411 --> 00:43:29,441
Like and that I I try to do that.

651
00:43:29,441 --> 00:43:35,163
Even if it's a if it's a new construction house, I'll make sure windows or like a corner
of a door or something is there.

652
00:43:35,163 --> 00:43:36,065
And that way

653
00:43:36,065 --> 00:43:38,960
if I had to track it down, I can go track it down.

654
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:46,161
So I actually do approach my photos in my report with the idea that I might have to track
this down again.

655
00:43:46,161 --> 00:43:47,598
Only because I have had to.

656
00:43:47,598 --> 00:43:48,293
That's smart.

657
00:43:48,293 --> 00:43:52,015
well, you know, that's when you how many times have you done this?

658
00:43:52,015 --> 00:43:53,508
I know you got guys that work for you.

659
00:43:53,508 --> 00:43:55,509
You're training guys, right?

660
00:43:55,689 --> 00:43:59,492
And they're in a room, let's just say there's a loose receptacle.

661
00:43:59,493 --> 00:44:00,153
And what do they do?

662
00:44:00,153 --> 00:44:02,715
They take a close up picture of that receptacle.

663
00:44:02,715 --> 00:44:05,458
And it's like, that's not the money shot, dude.

664
00:44:05,458 --> 00:44:09,861
I need to see a corner, a door, a window, something, so I know where this is at.

665
00:44:09,861 --> 00:44:12,299
We got three plugs on this wall, you know.

666
00:44:12,299 --> 00:44:15,220
So yeah, frame of reference is good for that.

667
00:44:15,220 --> 00:44:19,121
And it like to your point, it's uh sometimes it's a needle in a haystack.

668
00:44:19,121 --> 00:44:26,303
But I do the same thing on a roof where I've had to talk to builders before, okay, I'm
looking at this picture now, right?

669
00:44:26,303 --> 00:44:29,264
If we look in the background, we can see a plumbing vent.

670
00:44:29,264 --> 00:44:31,794
And he's like, Well, we got plumbing vents all over this house.

671
00:44:31,794 --> 00:44:33,655
And it's like, I'm just trying to get you close, brother.

672
00:44:33,655 --> 00:44:35,145
I can't do it for you.

673
00:44:36,746 --> 00:44:37,706
Right.

674
00:44:38,126 --> 00:44:38,686
Yeah.

675
00:44:38,686 --> 00:44:40,637
I'm just trying to get you into ballpark.

676
00:44:40,637 --> 00:44:42,527
I can't hit it out of here for you.

677
00:44:42,776 --> 00:44:52,631
Man, I want to, Brad, I want to touch on something that you said recently or just a bit
ago in the conversation, which was when you uh when the buyer calls you back, you go,

678
00:44:52,631 --> 00:44:54,512
Wait, you really bought that place?

679
00:44:54,512 --> 00:45:00,035
See, this is something that the World Cup has given me some appreciation for, right?

680
00:45:00,035 --> 00:45:08,720
The the VAR review intervention, right, where you've got that referee that's in the booth
watching the replay back, and he's like, wait, wait, I'm calling a late penalty on that,

681
00:45:08,720 --> 00:45:12,512
and it's five minutes later in the game, but he's been watching in slow motion back here.

682
00:45:12,512 --> 00:45:14,604
I wish we could do that for buyers, dude.

683
00:45:14,604 --> 00:45:21,772
I wish we could intervene with some of these people and just be like, No, no, V A R
review, you are not getting that piece of crap.

684
00:45:21,772 --> 00:45:23,388
Like, absolutely not.

685
00:45:23,388 --> 00:45:31,254
know, I just so recently within the past week, I did a second house for this couple.

686
00:45:31,254 --> 00:45:32,794
They're really nice.

687
00:45:33,055 --> 00:45:39,939
But they got hung up on some things with the first house that I did that they shouldn't
have got hung up on.

688
00:45:40,060 --> 00:45:48,025
And, you know, I'm not trying to talk somebody into buying a house, but whenever they tell
me their concerns and they're, you know, if if you're looking at houses within a certain

689
00:45:48,025 --> 00:45:52,150
price range, built within a certain time or in a certain area.

690
00:45:52,150 --> 00:45:57,132
There's deficiencies that are going to come up at this house, the neighbor's house, every
house on the street, right?

691
00:45:57,132 --> 00:45:59,482
Just based on age or location.

692
00:45:59,602 --> 00:46:05,524
And I really tried to tell them, guys, these are not big problems.

693
00:46:05,524 --> 00:46:06,985
This is the house.

694
00:46:07,645 --> 00:46:10,406
Well, I do the second house for them.

695
00:46:10,406 --> 00:46:11,266
It was worse.

696
00:46:11,266 --> 00:46:12,426
And I knew it would be.

697
00:46:12,426 --> 00:46:13,647
It was worse.

698
00:46:13,767 --> 00:46:17,738
And when they called, I don't have a filter, but when they called.

699
00:46:17,919 --> 00:46:20,371
They were like, hey, we wanted to talk to you about that house.

700
00:46:20,371 --> 00:46:23,043
And I said, Yeah, you should have bought the first one, shouldn't you?

701
00:46:23,043 --> 00:46:25,184
You know, that was the first thing I said.

702
00:46:25,265 --> 00:46:29,478
Because, you know, and then they're like, Well, what do you think about this neighborhood
or this house?

703
00:46:29,478 --> 00:46:33,081
And it's like, guys, I can already tell you that house was built in the 60s.

704
00:46:33,081 --> 00:46:34,962
I'm looking at the listing photos right now.

705
00:46:34,962 --> 00:46:36,073
Nothing's been updated.

706
00:46:36,073 --> 00:46:42,508
So we're gonna have cast iron plumbing, we're gonna have older electrical, we run the risk
of having older equipment, older roof.

707
00:46:42,508 --> 00:46:44,880
I'm looking at the photos of the roof, right?

708
00:46:44,880 --> 00:46:47,522
This is the same issues.

709
00:46:47,582 --> 00:46:49,404
just in an older package.

710
00:46:49,404 --> 00:46:52,086
You know, and I tell people that all the time.

711
00:46:52,086 --> 00:46:55,048
Like I'm trying to save you from yourself.

712
00:46:55,088 --> 00:47:04,916
Because the one thing that, you know, I don't think that buyers and real estate agents
even appreciate about home inspectors is that we see a lot of houses.

713
00:47:05,277 --> 00:47:09,180
And it's not like we just look at them and say, this is pretty, this is cute.

714
00:47:09,180 --> 00:47:11,221
We see them for what they are.

715
00:47:11,282 --> 00:47:16,862
You know, and I can look at a photo in a listing and I know

716
00:47:16,862 --> 00:47:18,964
What I'm gonna find when I get to that house.

717
00:47:18,964 --> 00:47:22,906
I could probably fill out a third of that report before I ever get there.

718
00:47:23,367 --> 00:47:26,490
And you know, this is not to discredit agents.

719
00:47:26,490 --> 00:47:30,773
I know that they look at a lot of houses too, but they don't look at them for as long as
we do.

720
00:47:30,773 --> 00:47:37,759
So on average, you know, if I'm doing 400 or 450 inspections a year by myself, right?

721
00:47:37,759 --> 00:47:42,632
That means I'm spending four hours in these houses, on average.

722
00:47:42,887 --> 00:47:46,919
And you multiply that by 450, my God, that's a ton of hours.

723
00:47:46,919 --> 00:47:52,903
I'd love to sit here and spring that number on everybody, but spoiler alert, I'm not great
at math.

724
00:47:52,903 --> 00:47:58,686
But you know, real estate agents and then buyers too, they're only there for 30 minutes.

725
00:47:58,686 --> 00:48:06,810
And then of course, like the people buying these houses, they're looking at them from the
perspective of who's gonna whose room is this gonna be, who's, you know, where are we

726
00:48:06,810 --> 00:48:08,021
gonna put the Christmas tree?

727
00:48:08,021 --> 00:48:09,916
Like, is everything gonna fit?

728
00:48:09,916 --> 00:48:12,137
They don't have time to look at this stuff like we do.

729
00:48:12,137 --> 00:48:20,852
And it really like I think that that's part of our job is trying to save these people from
either making bad decisions.

730
00:48:20,852 --> 00:48:28,786
Or like, you know, I can't tell you how many times I've tried to talk somebody into a
house just because I know that based on their price point, I haven't seen a lot of other

731
00:48:28,786 --> 00:48:31,047
houses out there that's gonna be better.

732
00:48:31,108 --> 00:48:34,109
But again, it's not my job, you know, and it's just that's tough.

733
00:48:34,109 --> 00:48:39,149
That's the toughest part of this because we're not qualified to give that real estate
advice.

734
00:48:39,149 --> 00:48:40,019
Right.

735
00:48:40,281 --> 00:48:50,968
You know, much like you were saying in in regards to builders, I've I've said the same
thing for years, you know, builders, how many houses, like completed homes, does a builder

736
00:48:50,968 --> 00:48:52,029
see in a year?

737
00:48:54,211 --> 00:48:57,392
I mean, I can tell you right now it's not four hundred.

738
00:48:57,392 --> 00:49:03,485
You know, like like so I mean like, you know well, I mean like finished finished homes.

739
00:49:03,485 --> 00:49:04,095
You know what I mean?

740
00:49:04,095 --> 00:49:10,098
Like how how many times and and especially okay, how many times have they spent four hours
in a finished home?

741
00:49:10,098 --> 00:49:14,159
Like it's it's not anywhere close to what we're doing.

742
00:49:14,159 --> 00:49:20,642
And so like, you know, I I remember having this conversation early on with some people and
they like, Well, the builder says this, the builder says that, yeah, I know.

743
00:49:20,642 --> 00:49:22,811
But like, and I'm not trying to, you know,

744
00:49:23,149 --> 00:49:32,757
I'm not necessarily just trying to be the builder's worst enemy here, but it's like w
well, I mean, maybe I am, but I'm not trying to act like I know more than them.

745
00:49:32,757 --> 00:49:35,690
But I mean like experience does mean something.

746
00:49:35,690 --> 00:49:43,256
I see four hundred homes at at the rate of about four hours uh each a year, and a builder
can't say that.

747
00:49:43,396 --> 00:49:46,398
They can't say that in about maybe five years, you know?

748
00:49:46,443 --> 00:49:52,184
like a spec builder or custom builder that's you know doing two or three homes a year at
best.

749
00:49:52,184 --> 00:49:58,686
You know, now when you're you're talking about the bigger builders, maybe 40 or 50 a year
for per superintendent.

750
00:49:58,686 --> 00:50:08,515
And then that's briefly though, you know, because if they're finishing a house maybe, you
know, once a month, if they've got two a month going or something like that, but still it

751
00:50:08,515 --> 00:50:11,279
it's for you know the context of it.

752
00:50:11,279 --> 00:50:12,953
That's something, you know, like.

753
00:50:12,953 --> 00:50:13,833
Builders around here.

754
00:50:13,833 --> 00:50:26,379
Now, I know it's easy to beat up on builders, but around here over probably the past three
years, a lot of these builders have like really taken great strides to be better.

755
00:50:26,379 --> 00:50:35,632
Not that they are their business model was so bad before, but like weeding out uh
different contractors, subcontractors and stuff working on these jobs, actually taking

756
00:50:35,632 --> 00:50:42,645
feedback from home inspectors, not just me, and you know, applying that moving forward so
that we're not.

757
00:50:42,741 --> 00:50:43,602
Groundhog's Day.

758
00:50:43,602 --> 00:50:48,125
We're not looking at the same things that's wrong every single day that we do these.

759
00:50:48,125 --> 00:50:59,074
And um, you know, I really think, especially like even, you know, going back to the topic
of the whole thing, like the reinspection part of it, we're made out to be bad guys

760
00:50:59,074 --> 00:51:06,461
sometimes because we'll go back and look at these things and then the homeowner doesn't
know because they've never had a water heater installed correctly.

761
00:51:06,461 --> 00:51:08,642
How do they know it's not installed right?

762
00:51:08,642 --> 00:51:12,044
And they just don't have the same context as us and then

763
00:51:12,044 --> 00:51:14,786
You know, it's it's like, well, that's not a big deal.

764
00:51:14,786 --> 00:51:18,108
So I posted a photo on Facebook the other day.

765
00:51:18,108 --> 00:51:26,763
It was a one point four million dollar house that had a tankless water heater on the
exterior and there was like five or six deficiencies just inside that tankless water

766
00:51:26,763 --> 00:51:27,593
heater.

767
00:51:27,853 --> 00:51:33,736
And, you know, I remember when I did that inspection, the agent was like, Well, it's been
like that for five years.

768
00:51:33,737 --> 00:51:34,447
Well, right.

769
00:51:34,447 --> 00:51:37,983
But I've also seen houses that had water damage because they didn't

770
00:51:37,983 --> 00:51:40,375
Seal up the enclosure on this tankless water heater.

771
00:51:40,375 --> 00:51:42,366
And when it leaked, it flooded the house.

772
00:51:42,366 --> 00:51:49,671
And that's the other thing is we're we're we're up against a wall where people like to say
things like, well, it's not that bad.

773
00:51:49,671 --> 00:51:53,494
And it's like you just haven't seen when it was that bad.

774
00:51:53,494 --> 00:51:59,258
Because if you had that context, you would know that yes, this is a very simple fix.

775
00:51:59,258 --> 00:52:04,012
But if it ever goes sideways, it's not going to be a hundred dollar fix anymore.

776
00:52:04,012 --> 00:52:06,243
It's going to be a ten thousand dollar fix.

777
00:52:06,283 --> 00:52:10,125
And that's just the kind of stuff that we we end up kind of getting pushback on.

778
00:52:10,125 --> 00:52:15,289
And I get it, but at the same time, like we just see a ton of houses.

779
00:52:15,289 --> 00:52:20,712
You know, I've done at this point, you know, over the past nine years, over three thousand
inspections.

780
00:52:20,772 --> 00:52:26,255
I mean, in a real estate agent's lifetime, they'll probably never sell or purchase three
thousand houses.

781
00:52:26,255 --> 00:52:32,237
And that's not a knock against them, you know, because their their processes when they're
working on these things is, you know.

782
00:52:32,237 --> 00:52:36,672
three weeks to a month, you know, and they're they're working that deal a whole lot
differently than we are.

783
00:52:36,672 --> 00:52:41,819
But when you really look at what we do on paper, I mean, we see a lot.

784
00:52:41,819 --> 00:52:45,643
And it, you know, the other thing is too, is we're not hired to look for the good things.

785
00:52:45,643 --> 00:52:47,455
You know, we're not hired to look for the positives.

786
00:52:47,455 --> 00:52:49,288
We're only there to look for the problems.

787
00:52:49,288 --> 00:52:52,214
And that in itself is draining sometimes.

788
00:52:52,214 --> 00:52:57,539
can we do can we do a series of videos where it's it's just on the good things?

789
00:52:57,539 --> 00:53:04,204
I want to see where where Brad Zerlot actually goes in and and it's not tongue in cheek at
all.

790
00:53:04,204 --> 00:53:08,748
It's just actually like that's actually some really great cabinetry.

791
00:53:08,748 --> 00:53:11,535
Man, look, look at how smooth that drawer opens right there.

792
00:53:11,535 --> 00:53:12,805
So I did that one time.

793
00:53:12,805 --> 00:53:15,336
So people kept telling me, Show us what it's supposed to do.

794
00:53:15,336 --> 00:53:17,417
Show us what it's supposed to do.

795
00:53:17,417 --> 00:53:19,586
So I did I did it on April Fool's Day.

796
00:53:19,586 --> 00:53:21,228
It like five years ago.

797
00:53:21,228 --> 00:53:22,418
And I replay it every year.

798
00:53:22,418 --> 00:53:28,480
And it's like I walk up and I'm just like, I open a drawer and I'm like, This drawer
works.

799
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:31,220
You know?

800
00:53:31,260 --> 00:53:40,973
But hey, my favorite one was when I was on the roof and dude, I'm sitting there selfie
with the phone and I go, This roof.

801
00:53:41,385 --> 00:53:41,875
Okay.

802
00:53:41,875 --> 00:53:46,580
uh It's just like I just I did that through the whole video.

803
00:53:46,580 --> 00:53:49,863
It's like, yeah, that's that's a t it's a terrible video, you know.

804
00:53:49,863 --> 00:53:53,436
Like I I mean don't get me wrong, I do a bunch of videos on good stuff.

805
00:53:53,436 --> 00:53:56,899
So you go to my YouTube channel, check out videos on good stuff.

806
00:53:56,899 --> 00:53:58,511
I actually have good stuff videos.

807
00:53:58,511 --> 00:54:03,965
But like when it comes to like uh social media entertainment, man, the bad stuff wins all
the time.

808
00:54:04,042 --> 00:54:08,934
Well, you know, I've been a smart ass for so long on my TikTok and things like that.

809
00:54:08,934 --> 00:54:14,475
Like, I don't know that if I told people it was a good house that they'd believe me.

810
00:54:14,475 --> 00:54:18,857
They would treat it like, yeah, I know he's saying that, but there's got to be something
wrong.

811
00:54:18,857 --> 00:54:27,059
Like I would I would probably have to I'd probably have to sit down with a lawyer and sign
an affidavit that says, No, seriously, guys, this is this is a good house.

812
00:54:27,239 --> 00:54:28,040
Yeah.

813
00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:29,349
I know I'd I'd

814
00:54:29,349 --> 00:54:34,561
made a video a long time ago about it and I I started out with like this mocking voice.

815
00:54:34,561 --> 00:54:36,432
Show me a good house, Brad.

816
00:54:36,432 --> 00:54:37,512
And I'm like, well, here it is.

817
00:54:37,512 --> 00:54:38,363
This is it.

818
00:54:38,363 --> 00:54:39,443
Isn't this entertaining?

819
00:54:39,443 --> 00:54:40,123
Look.

820
00:54:40,123 --> 00:54:41,154
Floors look good.

821
00:54:41,154 --> 00:54:42,024
The walls look good.

822
00:54:42,024 --> 00:54:43,224
The ceilings look at this door.

823
00:54:43,224 --> 00:54:43,765
It works.

824
00:54:43,765 --> 00:54:45,205
Isn't this great, everybody?

825
00:54:45,205 --> 00:54:46,826
This is what you wanted.

826
00:54:46,826 --> 00:54:53,628
But um but yeah, I mean, you know, at the end of the day, it you know, I'm doing a
presentation tomorrow for some realtors.

827
00:54:53,628 --> 00:54:56,029
This is my first time doing a presentation.

828
00:54:56,610 --> 00:54:57,982
How many have you done?

829
00:54:57,982 --> 00:54:59,635
'Cause I might need some tips after this.

830
00:54:59,635 --> 00:54:59,905
But

831
00:54:59,905 --> 00:55:01,306
done one in like six years.

832
00:55:01,306 --> 00:55:03,317
This is the first well, I take that back.

833
00:55:03,317 --> 00:55:08,360
This is like the first time I've gone to buy breakfast at a real estate office in like six
years.

834
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:12,993
But um but I've done a bunch of presentations for realtors and stuff, but mostly it's been
like classes.

835
00:55:13,234 --> 00:55:21,440
Well, this one, that's pretty much what I'm going to talk to them about is is they can't
stand these long reports.

836
00:55:21,440 --> 00:55:26,844
And for anybody that doesn't know, we can't stand writing them.

837
00:55:26,905 --> 00:55:27,825
Right.

838
00:55:27,825 --> 00:55:39,506
And I'm going to talk to them about five areas of the house that the seller could pay
attention to before somebody like us shows up that could probably eliminate.

839
00:55:39,506 --> 00:55:44,239
You know, so I go through like the roof, the plumbing, the electrical, the mechanical, the
interior, things like that.

840
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:49,692
And, you know, I'm calling it death by a thousand cuts because sometimes that's what these
reports are.

841
00:55:49,692 --> 00:55:58,387
It's not that the house is bad, but it's just when you're overwhelmed by literally
everything being wrong where you can't even look at kitchen cabinets without a drawer

842
00:55:58,387 --> 00:56:01,949
that, you know, is missing guides or a door that's hanging off the hinges.

843
00:56:01,949 --> 00:56:06,407
And that's what I'm trying to talk to them about is is it's just you could eliminate.

844
00:56:06,407 --> 00:56:13,359
half of what goes in these reports with these junk deficiencies if you just do a little
TLC on the front end, right?

845
00:56:13,359 --> 00:56:14,619
But I don't know.

846
00:56:14,619 --> 00:56:22,641
That that to me, if if we could normalize that, my God, we could probably transform the
industry.

847
00:56:22,881 --> 00:56:30,323
Because if I knew that on the front end that the seller was taking care of a lot of things
before we ever got there, that's what I'd tell my clients.

848
00:56:30,323 --> 00:56:32,103
Guys, they've done a lot of work to this place.

849
00:56:32,103 --> 00:56:36,546
But you know, I unfortunately we go into these things and that's never the case.

850
00:56:36,546 --> 00:56:38,037
Now I will say this is

851
00:56:38,037 --> 00:56:40,756
like our reinspections wouldn't be twenty five items.

852
00:56:40,756 --> 00:56:44,255
They'd literally be five items and we wouldn't have to have this conversation.

853
00:56:44,255 --> 00:56:44,798
Right.

854
00:56:44,798 --> 00:56:45,729
Yeah.

855
00:56:45,787 --> 00:56:55,315
Now and on that, there there are some great agents and I'm friends with some of them where
I know that they will almost hand hold with the sellers, bring in their own tools, their

856
00:56:55,315 --> 00:56:59,598
own contractors, whatever, and and they will get the house up to snuff first.

857
00:56:59,598 --> 00:57:01,379
It's it's few and far between.

858
00:57:01,379 --> 00:57:02,870
Props to those of you that do it.

859
00:57:02,870 --> 00:57:03,431
Seriously.

860
00:57:03,431 --> 00:57:04,997
It it helps a ton.

861
00:57:04,997 --> 00:57:09,079
that, you know, it's I mean, obviously the veterans, right?

862
00:57:09,079 --> 00:57:12,461
I mean, we can't always, you know, dictate.

863
00:57:12,461 --> 00:57:14,242
I mean, we always had to start somewhere.

864
00:57:14,242 --> 00:57:17,063
So that's not a knock against anybody that's new.

865
00:57:17,063 --> 00:57:21,486
But yeah, I've got some agents like that where it's like, I've run into this problem
before.

866
00:57:21,486 --> 00:57:24,227
Let me just go ahead and we're not g no, don't worry about it.

867
00:57:24,227 --> 00:57:25,848
I know I know a plumber.

868
00:57:25,848 --> 00:57:28,780
You don't you don't have to worry about replacing this water heater yourself.

869
00:57:28,780 --> 00:57:29,990
I know a guy.

870
00:57:29,990 --> 00:57:33,072
And uh those transactions don't do

871
00:57:33,072 --> 00:57:37,874
go smoothly as opposed to the ones where everybody's just trying to figure it out.

872
00:57:37,874 --> 00:57:44,227
And, you know, I've I've try to work with some agents in the area just to kind of let them
know and like tell them things.

873
00:57:44,227 --> 00:57:47,198
This is how I would fix it whenever I was doing that kind of stuff.

874
00:57:47,198 --> 00:57:49,039
But it's tough, man.

875
00:57:49,039 --> 00:57:51,120
You know, and they're they're in the same boat.

876
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:59,484
Imagine your job, everything's going smoothly, you've got this house under contract and
then along comes somebody like us.

877
00:57:59,609 --> 00:58:03,623
And we just blow it full of holes and then all of a sudden we're like, what happened?

878
00:58:03,623 --> 00:58:06,075
It was did he he looked at the right house?

879
00:58:06,075 --> 00:58:06,875
How long was he there?

880
00:58:06,875 --> 00:58:08,867
This report's so long.

881
00:58:09,027 --> 00:58:19,156
And um, you know, so I do feel for agents because, you know, I wish we were talking about
this earlier with another inspector, but you know, I would love to just go into a house

882
00:58:19,156 --> 00:58:22,219
and nod my head and be like, I'll be damned.

883
00:58:22,219 --> 00:58:24,160
This looks good.

884
00:58:24,160 --> 00:58:26,265
But unfortunately, that's just never the case.

885
00:58:26,265 --> 00:58:27,326
Not gonna happen.

886
00:58:27,552 --> 00:58:32,160
Well, thoughts and prayers for the brokerages that have to put up with both of you guys
tomorrow.

887
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:36,486
But I wanna hear some stories afterwards, seriously.

888
00:58:37,048 --> 00:58:37,930
That's it.

889
00:58:37,930 --> 00:58:38,359
And

890
00:58:38,359 --> 00:58:41,315
to just like introduce myself and buy people breakfast.

891
00:58:41,315 --> 00:58:44,901
This time I don't have to do any of the uh of the dirty work.

892
00:58:45,243 --> 00:58:47,691
Mine mine's all just bringing them breakfast.

893
00:58:47,691 --> 00:58:50,192
Well, guys, help Brad out at the very least.

894
00:58:50,192 --> 00:58:56,054
Post in the comments what what you would be sharing at Lunch and Learns or presentations
with brokerages.

895
00:58:56,054 --> 00:59:00,505
And uh, you know, sound off of what you guys are doing for tackling the the reinspect
issue.

896
00:59:00,505 --> 00:59:01,775
Are you doing them at all?

897
00:59:01,775 --> 00:59:05,296
Are you doing like I do with septics and just don't do them?

898
00:59:05,396 --> 00:59:07,617
It just let somebody else handle that.

899
00:59:07,617 --> 00:59:10,547
Or or do you have a yeah.

900
00:59:10,547 --> 00:59:13,739
if you guys and because we can have this conversation again.

901
00:59:13,739 --> 00:59:21,473
I think you know, we've said this many times throughout the show tonight, that this is a
topic that doesn't get brought up enough in the industry.

902
00:59:21,473 --> 00:59:25,106
And so if we need to talk about this again, let's talk about this again.

903
00:59:25,106 --> 00:59:27,047
Let's hear your comments, your thoughts.

904
00:59:27,047 --> 00:59:34,251
Um, let's hear everything that that you have to say about re inspects, because I, you
know, I'm I'm not an expert at it, Brad.

905
00:59:34,275 --> 00:59:37,127
Uh I mean y you said you don't have it all figured out.

906
00:59:37,127 --> 00:59:39,303
I don't think any of us do, so let's get together.

907
00:59:39,566 --> 00:59:41,769
Yeah, it's like trying to hit a moving target.

908
00:59:42,077 --> 00:59:42,959
It is man.

909
00:59:42,959 --> 00:59:44,431
Dude, do South Brad.

910
00:59:44,431 --> 00:59:45,983
It's always good having you on the show.

911
00:59:45,983 --> 00:59:46,604
Seriously, man.

912
00:59:46,604 --> 00:59:48,326
We appreciate your being here.

913
00:59:48,326 --> 00:59:48,987
Yep, awesome.

914
00:59:48,987 --> 00:59:51,130
And thank guys, everybody, so much for watching.

915
00:59:51,130 --> 00:59:54,414
We look forward to seeing you right here next time on

916
00:59:54,605 --> 00:59:55,956
The right along.