Actually, you’ll never be done with it.
It’s a living, expanding thing that you’ll change/add to, or edit constantly over time.
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Kudos to you. Every few months, I sit down and go over my report making edits and changes, often prompted by commentary here.
Somewhere on the InterNACHI website they have examples of real reports by real inspectors and mine is there. I’ll try to attach a report from last month to show my approach. I get several calls a year from inspectors asking me about it.
It’s Word based. I have all my generic commentary in it so I never have to go to a separate place to look for a comment. Then I have a place to customize commentary.
1234 Somewhere.pdf (594.8 KB)
I then delete the unnecessary commentary. I finish and clean up a report in minutes that way. I use a real camera. I download the photos into my PC and then drag the ones I use into the report. I don’t like to try to finish a report on site. I like to finish them, add essays, if necessary, in the calm of my office. I recently separated my inspection agreement from the report. My style isn’t for everyone, but (so far) the dozens of attorney clients that I’ve had over the years have never said a bad thing about my report and happily about me, either.
If we had the industry et a minimal fee for all members? starting at no less then 300 would this help and can this be done? Being a member you must charge no less then 300 ?
Sounds a bit like price fixing.
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What Brian said.
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Not sure on the legality of that but all it would accomplish is to have the low priced guys drop their membership so as not to be bound by those rules.
In a free market, prices are usually set by supply and demand economics. The elephant in the room is that in many markets, there is simply more supply than demand, which causes prices to drop.
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Yes, that is true for the public in general, but it is a two-way street.
For inspectors in need of work, the demand is high and supply is low, having the exact same effect… LOWBALLERS!
The only real way to solve this problem, is to be the very best inspector you can be and drive the lowballers out of business. Unfortunately, in states with Licensing, that makes it a very difficult thing to do.
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Welcome back to our forum, Dale…Enjoy participating. 
That and the fact there are multiple new inspectors waiting in the wings to replace the one’s that drop out.
Here is a pretty cool page on the NACHI website. According to these stats and the number of existing homes sales in 2021 (6.49 million per Google), we currently sit at 221 existing home sales per member per year. It would be interesting to see this data charted out over the past 20 years.
Incidentally, it looks like Guam could use a few more inspectors if anyone is looking to relocate, lol.
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I’m leaning this direction. I am a big fan of many of the newer reporting softwares but agree that much of the information we often include in our reports, and the information that is so easy to add because of this new technology makes it easy to include superfuous information of which most is covered in our inspection agreements.
This year I plan on streamlining much of what I’ve spent years adding because when I go through my reports and read them as objectively as possible, most of it is worthless information in an effort to “cover” my ass my repeating stuff thats already included in my agreements.
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Use your marketing skills, Nachi credentials, continuing education, etc. Also, let the client know at those prices they may not be performing a thorough inspection. Throw things like the below at the client:
New roof $15,000 - my fee $375
New Electrical panel $1,500 - 3,500 - my fee $375
Structural issue $15,000 to $100,000 - my fee $375
Plumbing issue. Typically not too expensive, but the damage it could do $25,000 - my fee $375
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Just curious, what are others in central Florida using as a base price? My wife & I were just having this pricing discussion yesterday. Have tried to use the Nachi calculator, but our base price is any home up to 1,000 sq ft. The Nachi calculator adds the multiplier even up to 1,000.
Me too, but it didn’t seem to be relative.
It varies widely from market to market.
If Google home inspection in Atlanta, I will look at the low ball advertised prices and add $150, lol.
Stick to your guns, Brian. People will find you and the others will be found out. 
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In my 22 years in this business I have never found racing for the lowest price to be an advantage. Its easy to lower your price but much harder to bring the back up. If the low rate guy is just inspecting as a hobby, is retired and inspecting for fishing money, etc… he will NEVER be actual competition. A fare market rate says “value” to those who understand the benefit of a professional home inspector.
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I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with new inspectors starting out $100-200 below more seasoned inspectors, especially new inspectors with very little background experience in construction, remodeling, or anything related to a house. Think of any other profession. Do you expect an entry level position in let’s say IT get paid as much as a senior or management level position? Of course not, so why would you expect an inspector that just entered the field to charge the same price as someone who has been in the inspection field for many years. For newer inspectors that have previous relevant experience, they can charge somewhere in between obviously, but they may want to charge lower to get the ball rolling as getting started is a very steep hill to climb depending on experience and people skills.
The result is the newer inspector is potentially going to end up with a handful of beat up older homes and maybe a few new construction. Along the way, the inspector will likely figure out inspecting an old beat up house is likely to actually cost him money and time, is likely going to be much higher in potential liability, and he needs to figure out what is reasonable to him to charge for inspecting something like that. Also, the new inspector is going to figure out pretty fast that advertising requires money, additional training requires money&time, tool/vehicle/insurance/etc upkeep requires money, and basically everything requires money to be put in before you can actually make money. It’s not like you can teach experience, it has to be experienced ya know?
This is likely one of the reasons most inspectors fail within the first few years. They come into the field thinking bam big money, loads of quick money when they find out that they could be potentially making very little money or losing money the first few years. It is a heavy grind for the start up years, but does get easier as you go along.
As the inspector gains more experience, he can raise his prices slowly, not unlike a promotion. What’s wrong with that? When you are providing a better and more superior product(inspection) than you provided previously, why wouldn’t you be able to raise prices reasonably?
There is no need get mad over low ballers taking some of your inspections. I promise you that customers that use these low baller inspectors but are not willing to pay for your superior product are not customers you want. Sometimes you make more money from inspections not performed. Also, the low ballers are very likely to drive themselves out of business if they keep their prices so low.
For agents/realtors that use low ball inspectors, they are either new or completely planning to throw the inspector under the bus when shit hits the fan. Obviously, you want to work with agents/realtors that understand the importance of a good home inspection and that such an inspection will tend to cost some money.
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I disagree. That’s like advertising that “I’m not very good, but I’m cheap.” Either be good enough to do a good job for your client and get paid accordingly, or don’t get in the business until you get the education and training to be that good. Few of us start out being great, but all of us should start out being competent enough to provide a good quality inspection for our clients.
The other thing is, if you start out charging less, then you get a reputation as the cheap guy and overcoming that reputation can be a long process.
Some years ago, I made the mistake of offering a limited 5-point inspection at a substantially lower cost for a client of a productive realtor. Next thing I know, all of that agent’s clients only wanted the 5-point inspection…hmmmm.
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In Denver as I’m sure in other places there is Real Estate company that charges a low flat rate fee to buy or sell with them. A lot of the commissioned realtors don’t like working with them for various reasons. But you get what you pay for. If I go with the low flat rate fee company there is absolutely no hand holding and I as a buyer or seller actually do most of the work looking for or getting a house ready for the market. Then there are realtors who are commissioned and go the whole nine yards and you barely lift a finger. (Yes there are others all along that spectrum). You get what you pay for.
Only you can decide what business model you will operate.
There are inspectors that only market their services to the high end areas of their market.
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@gkaras2 im located in Tampa. My base price is $375 up to 1,000 sqft. From there every 500 sqft I add to it as well as depending on age of the home, pool, crawl space… etc. What are your prices like for four points and wind mitigation? Many around here are doing them for as low as $75 ! Many realtors lately are also only asking for a four point and wind mitigation instead of the full inspection.