What It Takes to Be a Home Inspector: Skills, Service, and Success

Jamie: 00:00:01

Welcome to Thoughts from the Crawl Space, a podcast where our goal as home inspection experts is to support and serve our community.

Whether you're a homeowner, home buyer, real estate agent, or investor, we believe everyone deserves solutions to their homeownership challenges and inspiration along the way. Your path to success starts here. Welcome back to another episode of Thoughts from the Crawl Space.

Today we're going to jump into a little bit about what we do and what it takes to be a great home inspector. I don't say this arrogantly because you're only as good as your last inspection. And I've learned something every year.

I learned something every week on the job. But there are differences in every profession between those that aspire to be the best at what they do and those who are just there to do the job.

You can see that in real estate. You can see that in people that work making RVs. You can see that in construction workers.

You can see that in electricians and plumbers, really, in any walk of life. And so today, I just want to quickly go through some of the points that it takes to be, in my opinion, the very best of what you do.

And, you know, a single overlooked issue in a house can lead to thousands of dollars in damage. And the job we take on as home inspectors is just extremely important.

And I don't want to overstate it, but in some ways, it's one of the hardest and most rewarding jobs that you can possibly do. You're transferring the liability and the risk of that house to you on almost every single inspection.

And so what you do and how well you do it is a reflection on your commitment to being the best at what you do in every area of the profession. So let's talk about what some of those areas are and what I believe it takes. We're there to protect you.

We're there to give you the truth about the home you're trying to buy. We want to give you peace of mind above all. And that peace of mind can be, oh, I'm good with this house, I'm satisfied. Or, you know what?

This house isn't for me and I need to keep looking. So at Gold Key, our goal is to be elite at what we do. We want to be elite in every aspect from answering the phone.

Want to be elite, definitely at inspecting, at customer service, at follow up, and in giving you all the tools that you need to make a great investment decision. So some of the core skills of a home inspector, number one, you need technical expertise, knowledge of building systems.

This seems Rather obvious, right? But the hard truth is there are many states in the country don't even require any kind of licensing.

They don't require any kind of certification or education to get in to be a home inspector. One of those states is Michigan, simply a few miles from our border.

Indiana does require inspectors to be licensed, and so does Illinois and so does Ohio. Michigan does not.

Now, that doesn't mean certification and licensing makes you a good home inspector, but it does at least set a minimum standard whereby inspectors have to attain passing a test, passing a class, et cetera, et cetera. But regardless of all that, you need some expertise in building systems. And your background has a lot to do with that.

If you don't have a background in that, you're just going to flat out have to learn it, right?

And so you need to be able to explain to someone why their plumbing is problematic, why their electrical is problematic, why the support system and the foundation is a problem, why it's causing doors to bind or floors to slope, or why repairs that were done are okay or they're not okay. And so you really need that technical expertise in, let's face it, almost any area of the home.

Now, by rule, a home inspector is considered a generalist. If you go to the doctor, you have a problem, you go to your family physician, they are generalists, they aren't specialists.

But they may find problems they don't know enough about and they will refer you to a specialist. And that's what home inspectors do.

If we find a problem with your electrical and we don't know exactly what's causing it, we're going to refer that to an electrician to fix.

They're not going to do a general all over inspection like we would necessarily, unless you ask one to, but they will fix the problem or diagnose a deeper problem. Same with any component, plumbing, roofing, insulation, H vac, foundation. Inspectors need to be competent and excellent in all of these areas.

Because while we don't know everything and we never will, we need to be able to identify if something is truly a problem or if it isn't, and if it needs to be referred to somebody else for repairs or it's in good shape, maybe not best building practice, but it's acceptable. Another thing that you need to have is certifications and training. I mentioned earlier about licensing in the state.

In: 2003

In my opinion, that does not make you inspection ready.

At our company, we require inspectors to do in the field training with master inspectors for around 100 inspections before they're ready on their own.

So while the average inspector would have around 80 hours and then they're on their own, our inspector is going to have closer to 400 hours or maybe even 500 hours before they're on their own.

And that makes a huge difference in knowledge and how they talk about topics and how they can help keep a real estate deal going just because they know what they're talking about or if they say something crazy and cause a deal to fall apart for no reason. So again, we work for the buyer or for whoever hires us. But the professionalism makes a big difference. The knowledge base makes a big difference.

So you need to have great technical expertise. You need to have certifications and training. You need to be updated on potentially codes.

Now, we don't refer to codes in inspections, but it doesn't hurt to know them. And you also. It doesn't hurt to be a part of a national organization.

There's basically only two of them anymore, but they can help with ongoing education. Every year at Gold Key, we have standards that far exceed their the standards of the normal licensing cycle.

They require 32 hours every two years of ongoing education, and we require around double that, not to mention regular training meetings that don't even count toward that. So problem solving. I think one of the most important characteristics of a home inspector is the ability to solve problems.

You see an initial thing you don't understand, and then you dig into it and you decide, is this really a problem or isn't it? Or why is this not working? Why is this not draining properly? What is this for? What does this do? All those things come up routinely on inspections.

And, you know, a lot of it just comes down to how bad do you want to do the job? I've been in houses where it had been inspected previously by two different inspection companies. For whatever reason, the deal didn't go through.

This was the third buyer, and I went into an area of the crawl space that was difficult to get to but had not been accessed by previous inspectors. And I don't know why. Maybe physically they couldn't do it.

I'm not casting dispersions on them, but the fact is I was able to get in there and I found a problem that saved a buyer potentially $40,000 on repairs. A major foundation problem that has to do with years of experience, training and expertise. And then just how bad do you want it?

And so those are things that are rewarding. There are things that make you feel good about what you do out there to protect the public. And not just, not everybody wants to do it that bad.

So what is a soft skill set? Those are the core skills. Technical expertise, certifications and training and then problem solving. Some soft skills. What about communication?

I've hired inspectors in the past that have been really good technology wise, really good with technical expertise. But we're not great communicators. And if you're not a great communicator, I don't believe you will last very long or be very effective in this job.

So you need to be able to explain complex issues simply. For example, a great inspector translates faulty GFCI outlets into here's why your kitchen's unsafe. We don't need a lot of technical jargon.

We want to just explain it to you in the way that you understand best. So communication is very key. Deliver bad news tactfully.

So in that house I referred to earlier, I came up out of the crawl space and these two buyers were excited. It was their first home. They loved this house.

How do you break the news to them that you have a foundation that needs almost entire replacement and in a tactful way that tells them the truth but leaves it open to this being repaired and then getting their money's worth for it. So you need to have tact, you need to have good communication and you definitely need to have honesty. So communication and then customer service.

We need to be empathetic and responsive. Most of these real estate trash and transactions involve a lot of emotion, especially if it's not just investors. It's first time home buyers.

Is someone moving because they either want to or they have to and maybe they don't want to. And we need to have the customer service that can empathize with a difficult situation.

A mom that maybe has a couple kids, the father has left and now she's in a very tough situation. And can we empathize with that and know how to handle that situation and communicate very, very well with her?

Clear photo Rich reports that the clients love is one of our calling cards.

And this gives them the information in a non threatening way that's very clear to understand and doesn't make them confuse, confused by the inspection report. So I think the last skill that sets great inspectors apart is time management. Inspectors are on a time schedule.

We're doing multiple appointments per day and we have to communicate our findings, find everything that we need to find in A relatively short three hour period of time and then move on to the next one.

So, so you're totally focused on one, you're getting it done, you're communicating, you're moving on, and you start the process over again on the next one. And it takes a certain skill set to do that. So what about the business side of being a great inspector?

Well, you gotta have work ethic and reliability. Like in anything, you gotta show up. You cannot do this job if you don't show up to work. Okay? You can't just not feel like going to work one day.

There is in most transactions, you have a buyer and a seller and a buying agent and a listing agent, at least four people relying on you to show up to that job early, get the job done well, submit the report the same day. At least that's how we emphasize that it needs to be done.

You can't just show up one day and say, hmm, I'm tired, I don't feel like working today, I'm not going in. That's not an option in this profession.

You might be able to get away with that in an office job or in a factory job or certain professions that doesn't work when there's a lot of writing on every job that you do. And so some inspectors just can't handle that. They can't handle the stress of that and they choose not to do it any longer or not get into it at all.

Another part of the business is marketing and networking. You have to be able to build relationships. And this can be, you know, other inspectors out there listening to this.

You got to be able to build relationships and network.

And it's not my, the strongest thing I have going for me, but it's something I've had to learn how to do to, well, grow the business and build things along the way. So another thing you have to do do is be adaptable. Things happen in this business. Deals get canceled, things get moved.

You have to be able to adapt your schedule.

The inspectors that have struggled the worst with us over the years are ones that are inflexible and they demand that their schedule not be changed and that they need to know what's going on at all times. And that just doesn't happen in this profession. Things change and you have to be adaptable to it so quickly.

Some of the challenges and rewards of this job, physically, you have to be crawling in attics, you're climbing ladders, you're walking on the roof, you're working in extreme weather. As I record this episode today, outside it's about 50 degrees and the wind is blowing and it's raining and it's blowing the rain sideways. Guess what?

The job still needs to get done. So there's a lot of extreme conditions you're working in, and the summer heat, I mean, roofs are extremely hot, addicts are extremely hot.

And it just, it has a lot of potential. And then you go in the winter and you can get extreme cold when you're outside doing the job.

So you got the physical demands and you got the emotional demands. And this honestly gets more inspectors than the physical part.

Most men are fairly capable physically of enduring the cold and the heat and the walking and the crawling and all that. But emotionally you are balancing client stress. You're debating on whether an issue is worth calling out.

You're deciding if it's worthy of a summary page item, which is the more important items. You're delivering information to the buyer many times with the real estate agent right there.

So a lot of relationships are depending on you right there. And that can have an take an emotional toll on you over time.

Some of the rewards, I mean, protecting families, there's nothing like knowing that your inspection saved somebody thousands of dollars. That's just an awesome feeling. And really why we do this. A lot of houses, it doesn't rise to that level, but many times it does so.

which was me in, starting in: 2005

Now we have 10 inspectors and the opportunity to work with a lot of great men, a lot of great ladies in our office. And it's just been a rewarding experience. So some advice for inspiring aspiring inspectors. Maybe you're driving along listening to this.

You don't know what you want to do with your life. You, you don't really have any direction. You haven't found something you really like. I was a little bit like that before I started this.

This just has so many aspects to it that make it attractive.

And I think if you're not an entrepreneurial type of it probably would be best to go with a company, work for a company rather than on your own if you want to be able to eat. Because it does take a little work to get rolling in it. Start with training.

We recommend internachi or ashy courses or shatter shadowing experienced pros just to see if it's something you'd like to do.

We have, we have people call us probably at least three or four times a month that want to just check it out and we, we offer that we'll give people permission under the right circumstances to shadow us, just to see what if it might be the right profession for them. And so for clients, choose certified thorough inspectors. Look for someone with credentials and five star reviews.

I believe we're now up over: 1500

It goes to the customer satisfaction and it goes to just the consistency with which we run our company. So Gold Key, we offer detailed reports, follow up support.

We want to be there for you after you may have been in the event that you don't have all your questions answered or something arises after you move in. So there's times in this business where it's not a whole lot of fun like any business.

But the nuts and bolts of this is inspecting houses and serving clients. And I don't think there's any greater reward than what I do, what I get to do, seeing my fellow inspectors do the same thing.

And if you have any aspirations about doing this, feel free to give us a call. We could talk to you about it. Let's see what your background, how it lines up with how it be to be a great inspector.

I would encourage you as a home buyer, if you're looking for an inspection company to do an inspection, don't necessarily go with that realtor recommend recommendation of their guy. It could be a family friend they're just feeding business to and he can't, he might not be very good.

I think about what I knew in: 2005

And it's amazing, the transformation and so can be a lot of good guys or gals that are new and starting out, but I don't know that you often want to trust their expertise at that level when you could get somebody that's been in the business 20 years and has seen a lot more and has that experience. So give us a call, we can help you out in any way. We'd love to. We relish every call, every opportunity.

Thanks for watching and listening and we'll talk to you next time. Thank you for listening.

This week you can catch up on the latest episode of the Thoughts from the Crawl Space podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. For more information about Gold Key inspection services, go to goldkeyinspect. Com.