I"m hoping someone in the Creative Design department at NACHI can improve on the 11th Month Warranty cards to mail to prospective clients. The overall quality of the cards is excellent. But I think the “Protect your Dream Home” theme should be tweaked to say “Protect your Investment”. The current theme seems to be aimed at Generation Z, as implied by the photo of the young couple in the field; and not at the majority of home purchasers in today’s market. The true market participants today are purchasing their homes out of necessity, complete with unknown defects and deficiencies, because they can’t find another liveable home in the same general location. And many more of the homes are being purchased simply because the buyer is of the mindset that he or she will be able to sell the home in the foreseeable future at a profit; or rent it out for a positive cash flow. In most cases, “dream home” is an invalid concept in today’s market. It would be more helpful to the Inspector for the lead-in to begin with: “I am not your builder’s representative sending you a reminder about your One-Year Warranty Inspection walk-through for nail pops and hairline cracks in the walls. I am an independent home inspector here to protect you from your builder’s mistakes that no one else will point out.” (Or maybe something a little more tactful. Anything but “Dream Home”.)
It happened again today. I got a phone call from a prospective client, who was actually mistaking me for a representative of the builder who wanted to schedule a walk-through for nail pops and other cosmetic issues. This is quite an obstacle to overcome: going from suggestions of a “dream home” via a mailer that I sent to her, to the abrupt suggestion that there might be significant flaws in the home. I had to explain to her that I am an independent inspector, and that my purpose is to find the mistakes that her builder might have made during construction of her home. I even detailed a few of the biggies that I have found in new builds over the past couple of years, such as no roofing or siding underlayment, and no perimeter footings for the slab floor. She will now have to talk to her husband and I will probably not hear back from them.
All of the financial guru’s I’ve read agree that a home is not an investment. Thinking about a home purchase as an investment can be a big mistake.
A Wharton Professor Explains Why a Home Isn’t an Investment (businessinsider.com)
With all due respect, Bert: they’re full of guru s**t. The immediate tax shelter benefit from the mortgage interest deductiion (especially on a fully amortized loan in the first several years) should show anyone that it’s the best investment decision they ever made.
Yes, you are right.
The problem with that tidbit is you have to itemize to claim the mortgage interest deduction, and less than 10% of returns have itemized deductions (the rest are standardized).
According to taxpolicycenter.org, about 30% of taxpayers itemize deductions.
If not for the mortgage interest deduction, people wouldn’t buy those glorified apartments known as condominiums, many of them for half a million to a million dollars or more.
Are you sure that’s a current statistic? I found the article that you referred to and it was from 2017. That changed dramatically since they increased the standard deduction.
The cap is at $750,000.
11.4% in 2019
11% according to NOLO
Familiarize yourself with Canva and Vistaprint. Those two tools make it very easy to design and print your own mailer. I bet NACHI might even provide you with the graphics of their mailer to use as a starting point.
Thanks for getting back to the point of the OP, Ryan. I hadn’t thought of printing my own mailers. The ones from NACHI are expensive, but they are excellent quality on good heavy stock. Apparently they convince the recipients they are coming from the builder, though.
Home ownership is indeed in decline thanks to Blackrock, Zillow, and a few other unscrupulous investment entities. Not to mention the WEF’s Klaus Schwab: “You will own nothing. And you will be happy.”
Interesting topic. A primary home is both home and an investment. The Wharton prof is wrong. Both things can be true at the same time.
My home has tripled in value providing me with equity to invest in another property. I used the equity in my previous primary home to buy this one.
As far as the flier made by nachi, even if it said “investment”, people would still get confused. You may not hear from that caller again, mostly because she didn’t fully read the flier and was looking for a free inspection from the builder.
Thanks, Lon, for your input. But the point is that I am getting not one, but multiple calls mistaking the mailout as something put out by the builder, to remind homebuyers of their nail-pop inspection. It makes me wonder how many other buyers see the slick “dream home” card, also perceive it as being from the builder, and stick it in the round file.
And you’re right. A home purchase IS an investment: not only a financial investment, but also a personal investment in your family’s security and well-being if you can buy into the right location and neighborhood.
There is a big difference between the sales price of the home and what you actually pay for it. Actual profit is not always apparent.
To really understand how wrong this statement is, when you consider the reason as to why it is impossible for America to construct low-cost housing is exactly because homes today are only investments. Up until recently home ownership was the one vehicle whereby workers could in fact grow wealth for their family, unfortunately today you must first be wealthy to purchase a home.
Yes, you are right.
How do you personalize these to mail out? Are you putting on a sticker or something and adding a stamp? Personally, I would be more concerned with the fact that it sends the potential client to NACHI to find an inspector, which might not be you. Or do you put your sticker/postage over this area?
I always staple my business card over that line. But, as you and Dave Fetty have pointed out, that may not be enough. And I seriously don’t think people read that far most of the time. There are too many three and four-syllable words. Their attention span and time constraints just won’t allow it. And many don’t even dare to entertain the possibility that there are unseen defects in their home that the builder may not agree to fix.