We Shift with it: How Smart Home Inspectors Ride the Ups and Downs of a Changing Market

 

Question: Mike, I am not doing as many inspections as I normally do because the market is down. Is there anything that I can do about this, or do I just have to wait for more homes to start selling again?

 

Answer:  If you plan on waiting for the market to correct itself you might have a long wait. The inspection industry, like other industries, has its trends, both good and bad. The difficult part is recognizing the trend and understanding what it means on a larger scale. Without the benefit of twenty years in the industry, many inspectors don’t think about trends until they are already happening largely because they’ve never seen the market behave that way before.

 

For example, I remember being told to invest in real estate because it would “always go up in value.” While this statement can prove true, most people are not aware that there are short time periods (sometimes from two to ten years) when the housing market goes backwards and houses actually go down in price. This dip in the market catches a lot of people unaware; these people were told, like I was, that the good times would just keep getting better. The uninitiated, like I was, quickly realize that real estate does not always go up in value, and even worse, they begin to believe the opposite: A downswing will last forever. The everlasting downswing is just as unreal as the unending upswing.

 

The market inevitably shifts. In fact, we are in the middle of a shift right now, so what do we do? We shift with it. If you’ve put some money away for a rainy day, the day has arrived. Take advantage of the downswing by redirecting your business efforts. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s time to redirect everything. Don’t stop doing what already works for you. Instead, start thinking about how to add pre-sale, maintenance and/or relocation inspections to your business.

 

Most home inspectors wait for a home to be sold before they market their inspection services. This type of marketing is short-sighted. In some parts of the country, more homes are being listed for sale right now than have been listed in the last ten years. Owners are desperate to find a way to sell their homes. Many owners can only think of one way to sell a home when they start feeling desperate; they reduce the price. Price reductions happen when owners don’t understand how else to differentiate themselves from the rest of the homes listed for sale. Smart home inspectors recognize this as an opportunity to market home inspections. A home inspection is not just a way for buyers to see what is wrong with the home. Home inspections can be marketed as a way for the owner to show off what is right with the home.

 

You may have tried marketing pre-sale or pre-listing home inspections in the past. It’s time to try it again. Timing is everything. There are home inspectors whose businesses are growing during this downswing, and doing inspections for sellers is a big part of their growth.  In some cases, twenty percent of their business is made up of pre-sale home inspections. In most cases, homes that are pre-inspected sell faster. On top of that, eighty percent of pre-inspected homes are not re-inspected by the buyer, so it’s important to capture the inspection before it goes to a competitor.

 

I have the opportunity to travel around and meet home inspectors from all over the country. I met a gentleman who slowly began to add maintenance inspections to his business. A maintenance inspection is not performed when a house is on the market. Instead, inspector examines the house in order to determine which type maintenance issues need to be addressed. In this case, the inspector discovered a cracked heat exchanger during his first maintenance inspection. The family was impressed and recommended his services to others. It was difficult at first, but after he did his first maintenance inspection he went on to pick up more than eighty additional maintenance inspections. At $400 per inspection, eighty maintenance inspections adds up pretty fast. Instead of complaining about how bad the market is, this inspector is doing something about it.

 

When the market gets soft like it is right now in many areas, remember that when one part of the industry swings down, another part swings up. When homes stop selling on the open market, relocation companies end up picking up the slack. A relocation inspection is most commonly needed in situations where a company is relocating an employee from one city to another. In order to help make the move easier on the employee, the employer agrees to buy the house if the employee can’t sell it. Of course, the company wants to make sure that they are not buying a home filled with problems, and they also want to ensure that they are paying a fair price. An inspector helps protect the company’s interests by performing a relocation inspection.

 

Adding pre-sale, maintenance and relocation inspections to your business may help you shift with the changing market. When the market shifts, smart home inspectors learn to shift with it.

 

Mike Crow works with inspectors nationwide as a business and systems consultant. You can receive a free CD with more information at www.richhomeinspector.com. If you have a marketing question for Mike Crow, please email DreamTeam@MikeCrow.com.