Costco Article on Home Inspectors

Costco publish an article on how to choose a Home Inspector.

ASHI is mentioned over and over and over again.

No mention of InterNACHI anywhere.

No but they do say a non ASHI member might be qualified also.

That’s how it’s always been. ASHI has always been the leader in promoting themselves, and NACHI has always come in dead last… based upon my observations in my service area(s).

Sadly it has been and still is the norm in most areas. This is one of the reasons I gave up sucking up to realtors a.s…s years ago. All our marketing is to the public and other places, but never to any sgants. Works for us…

Jim

With the ASHI reference issue aside it is just another typical article written by an uninformed writer! :roll:

I am with you, Jeffery. Being a CMI, thousands of inspections, heavily insured, periodic background checks, years in business, BBB A+ for 10 years, all do not help my business here in KC. All you need to do is be an ASHI member, and charge $249 to $299 on any size home. Low priced inspectors here, including franchise companies, move fees around, all get the business. To heck with what the home buyers want, or need. Sad that InterNACHI is not promoting that. There maybe something else going on…

An interesting.

Cause you know if Nachi was mentioned, a certain someone would have links to it plastered all over the place. :D:cool:

Today Costco agreed to publish an article we are submitting. It has to be bland just like ASHI’s though. We have had many articles that actually live link back to InterNACHI from all sorts of magazines, TV reports and newspapers and they generate fewer hits than I have toes… and those were all probably home inspectors. Consumers don’t care about home inspectors until the very rare and very short time in their life between finding out their offer was accepted and ordering a home inspection. The odds of them reading an article about home inspections during those few hours of their life is 1 in zillions. It’s all kind of a waste of time IMHO, but we continue getting InterNACHI published in them and members like it. Honestly, it’s horse s#it.

Stick to target marketing YOURSELF in your local area, not nationally marketing InterNACHI. InterNACHI has all the marketing tools for you to do that well.

Sorry, Nick. I think you need to review your policy. REA’s grab these ASHI articles, collect them, and show them to their clients. REA office brokers get these articles from ASHI members, and promote their association inspectors. I realize that InterNACHI has many marketing tools for us to use locally, but they are not working. See my post above. So far in August, I have had only 8 inspections. It is bad here, and ASHI is flourishing. With all the local marketing that I have done, failures of getting business, I must retire. I will actually be making more money in retirement, since all of my business expenses, taxes, fees, all will go away. Most offices will no longer even let me in to check the dozens of CMI brochure holders that I distributed a year ago. ASHI is coming for you. Do not be fooled.

Thanks for making us aware of this. We are reaching out to Costco about it.

I already did. They want me to submit something that says nothing. You do your thing as well Mark.

Funny this thread should appear today as yesterday I had a ASHI member from Arkansas call me wanting to pick my feeble brain :wink:

I would like to add my two cents to this conversation. Please be aware that I am very fresh to the Home Inspection industry. As of right now, I am exploring it as a possible progression in my career path and a new direction for my company. At this moment, I support my family working as a General Contractor specializing in high end carpentry and remodels with complex structural upgrades.

I want to discuss the InterNACHI members who are crying about the sad state of their business and/or how InterNACHI hasn’t done enough to help them.

I would like to point out, InterNACHI is a tool or a resource. It is a place to get educated, to network with other Inspectors, to get answers to inspection questions, to get discounts on a lot of stuff, to get a lot of really good marketing for “free,” etc. It is not a magical lead and referral service that will make sure you can charge $750 for a small Residential Inspection while in no way convincing the consumer or realtor that you bring much value to the table.

Believing that InterNACHI will assure your business success is like believing that belonging to the Boy Scouts will make you a success. Like Nick said, people aren’t getting referred based on what Association they belong to. But, if you are that convinced that an ASHI membership is vital to getting jobs, THEN JOIN ASHI! There is nothing that says you cannot be a CMI that belongs to ASHI.

The bottom line is, if you have been a Home Inspector for over a decade and you haven’t developed a network of realtors who will recommend you regardless of which Association you belong you, then you have failed as a business owner. You can rant all you want about the $100 dollar inspectors and how they get hired because they provide soft reports.

But let’s think through this:

  1. When I was buying a home, I called a realtor that was recommended to me by my brother-in-law. I’m sure that’s how a lot of you found an agent when you were shopping for a home. A REA is no different than a Home Inspector, their professional reputation and word of mouth referrals are an integral part of their business success.

  2. Some agents won’t care about their reputation or having their clients refer them.

  3. Many will.

  4. Of those that care, wouldn’t it make sense that at least a few would want to make sure that their client didn’t have their home collapse a week after closing? These REA’s would recommend a quality Home Inspector.

  5. There are ~4,000 brokers in Missouri. I assume that there are close to that number of brokers in Kansas.

  6. So of the ~7,000 REA’s in the two states where there are ONLY 12 CMI’s, you can’t find enough honest brokers to keep you busy?

To me that sounds more like a business owner failure than it does a Inspector Association failure.

Something else I want to think through:

  1. Say you’ve been an Inspector for 10 years.

  2. Say you average 4 inspections a week. 50 working weeks a year. Comes out to 200 inspections a year. Times 10 years. You’ve done at least 2,000 inspections. That is 2,000 clients who all have friends, co-workers, family, church acquaintances, gym buddies, favorite baristas, etc. According to the NY times ([ the average American knows 600 people.

2,000 x 600 = 1.2 million people.

  1. If you provided a service that your client could not stop talking about, you could have a network of 1.2 million potential clients.

  2. Yes that number is completely ridiculous. But it proves a point. You don’t need REA’s to recommend clients. If you’ve been in business long enough, you should be swamped with Inspections due to referrals. If you’re not, it’s not InterNACHI’s fault. It’s yours.

In conclusion,

I know I’m going to get hate because I’m new and I don’t know what I’m talking about. But hear me out. I may be new to Home Inspection but I’m not new to the world of marketing or client referrals. I promise you, there are a lot of low-cost, low-skill Carpentry Contractors in my market area. Oregon is on it’s Contractor license number 200,000+. There are a lot of less honest builders who would never dream of hiring me because I cost too much. I charge a lot of money for what I do. Double and sometimes triple what a cheap contractor would cost. And yet I am swamped with calls from homeowners who I’ve been referred to, and builders who I have worked for.

My point is, if you want a steady paycheck with minimal effort and risk, go work for a multi-inspector firm. If you want to be a business owner, accept responsibility and do what it takes to succeed.

But that’s just my two cents.](“goo.gl/6vM7UK”)

[quote=“rmotyko, post:13, topic:109073”]

I would like to add my two cents to this conversation. Please be aware that I am very fresh to the Home Inspection industry. As of right now, I am exploring it as a possible progression in my career path and a new direction for my company. At this moment, I support my family working as a General Contractor specializing in high end carpentry and remodels with complex structural upgrades.

I want to discuss the InterNACHI members who are crying about the sad state of their business and/or how InterNACHI hasn’t done enough to help them.

I would like to point out, InterNACHI is a tool or a resource. It is a place to get educated, to network with other Inspectors, to get answers to inspection questions, to get discounts on a lot of stuff, to get a lot of really good marketing for “free,” etc. It is not a magical lead and referral service that will make sure you can charge $750 for a small Residential Inspection while in no way convincing the consumer or realtor that you bring much value to the table.

Believing that InterNACHI will assure your business success is like believing that belonging to the Boy Scouts will make you a success. Like Nick said, people aren’t getting referred based on what Association they belong to. But, if you are that convinced that an ASHI membership is vital to getting jobs, THEN JOIN ASHI! There is nothing that says you cannot be a CMI that belongs to ASHI.

The bottom line is, if you have been a Home Inspector for over a decade and you haven’t developed a network of realtors who will recommend you regardless of which Association you belong you, then you have failed as a business owner. You can rant all you want about the $100 dollar inspectors and how they get hired because they provide soft reports.

But let’s think through this:

  1. When I was buying a home, I called a realtor that was recommended to me by my brother-in-law. I’m sure that’s how a lot of you found an agent when you were shopping for a home. A REA is no different than a Home Inspector, their professional reputation and word of mouth referrals are an integral part of their business success.

  2. Some agents won’t care about their reputation or having their clients refer them.

  3. Many will.

  4. Of those that care, wouldn’t it make sense that at least a few would want to make sure that their client didn’t have their home collapse a week after closing? These REA’s would recommend a quality Home Inspector.

  5. There are ~4,000 brokers in Missouri. I assume that there are close to that number of brokers in Kansas.

  6. So of the ~7,000 REA’s in the two states where there are ONLY 12 CMI’s, you can’t find enough honest brokers to keep you busy?

To me that sounds more like a business owner failure than it does a Inspector Association failure.

Something else I want to think through:

  1. Say you’ve been an Inspector for 10 years.

  2. Say you average 4 inspections a week. 50 working weeks a year. Comes out to 200 inspections a year. Times 10 years. You’ve done at least 2,000 inspections. That is 2,000 clients who all have friends, co-workers, family, church acquaintances, gym buddies, favorite baristas, etc. According to the NY times ([

Good post.](“goo.gl/6vM7UK”)