Good morning, seeking some feedback from Inspectors in the East Texas (Tyler) region. Is there sufficient business that you stay busy and can generate a decent income? I’ve been looking into uprooting to move to that area, but would like to know if there’s a strong enough market that it makes sense for my family and I. Please let me know if there’s any insight you can share! Much appreciated…
What is your experience as a Home Inspector, and where do you currently operate?
I’m in SW Washington State, and brand-spanking new to Home Inspections; 4 months since licensed.
Have you been successful with inspections in Washington State. Is business trending upward?
I subcontract for a company, they provide the clients for me, and I will be sharing a majority portion of the inspection fee with them once I’m on my own. As of now, I stay busy being a sidekick to the other experienced Inspectors, but get paid peanuts for not being on my own. However the company has a great reputation here and is well known, so clients aren’t hard to come by.
To obtain a good idea on your own I would recommend you do the following actions.
Obviously you will have much competition from already established Inspectors and Multi-Inspector firms in the area. Also you will need to realize that Inspectors here in Texas will travel away from their own location for inspections if the fee is paid. I routinely travel 50 - 120 miles ONE WAY for inspection jobs and the center of Tyler is only 80 miles from me and I would have no issues traveling there. So the first thing to know is how much competition would you potentially have.
The Texas Real Estate Commission (TREC) has what they call “High Value Data Sets” which are located here High Value Data Sets | TREC . These are CSV files you can import into a spreadsheet program and manipulate many ways. There are files for Inspectors as well as RE Salespeople if you are considering supplementing income by obtaining multiple licenses. You can sort these by counties and run a total of Inspectors that are within a 120 mile radius of you to see how many you might be competing with.
The next thing is to know sales information for your region. For that you can go to The Texas A&M Real Estate Research Center located here https://trerc.tamu.edu/ . They offer a lot of information with some break downs by area. You should keep in mind that not everyone who buys a home whether new or used has an inspection. Nobody really keeps numbers to tell how many but it is, from experience, fairly low on new homes.
The last thing to do obviously is understand what you must do to legally perform inspections here in Texas. For that you would go to the TREC WEB site and obtain the Inspector licensing requirements. Requirements are not heavy but depending on their requirements you may have to start from scratch with training, ride alongs, etc. You can contact TREC directly and ask if they will accept any license you have to reduce the requirements.
The last thing you would need to know you will only find out by being here and actually inspecting. That is what are the typical fees Inspectors in that area are charging. I will guarantee you that no Inspector will open their accounting books to you to validate any claims they are making. I will also guarantee you there are many Lowballers out there.
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