I was just looking for comments about Home Advisor. Also seeing if anyone had gotten any trial service with them or anything or if there is such a thing.
Thank you all for comments.
Use the magnifying glass, on the top right go this page, to inform yourself about Home Advisor. I think you will be glad you did.
For instance:
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Yes! LMAO …
# Class Action Lawsuit Alleges RICO Violations By IAC/InteractiveCorp (NASDAQ: IAC) and HomeAdvisor
Complaint details how IAC and HomeAdvisor hard-sell the service to unsuspecting home service professionals so as to charge them for thousands of leads that are actually illusory and the product of a systemically defective process that is incapable of producing project-ready and quality leads
I don’t mind that you gave Larry credit for my post 
David RUN not walk but RUN fast and far from Home Advisor. Just one man’s opinion though.
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I’ve been with them since April. In my area (North Alabama) the lead quality is poor. The majority of people using HA here for inspections are bargain-hunting. HomeAdvisor is designed to generate three options for the user, and the user will typically go with the cheapest inspector, even if he’s $25 less. That’s not good for the industry. It’s a race to the bottom. Most of those people view HI as a commodity and yet another nuisance expense, instead of the valuable service that it is.
You will receive a lot of leads where the submitter never replies to you (having already chosen someone else, or changed their mind, etc), for which you still get charged nearly $30 for the “lead”. Then there’s the steady stream of people looking for municipal building inspectors or some other service…for which you still get charged. You are forced to beg for refunds on a case-by-base basis.
In short, I get a lot of junk inspections from HA…small, crappy little houses out in the county, with a ton of defects that suck up more time than they’re worth.
I decided to cancel three times. Each time the account managers plied me with five free leads and a request to give it more time.
My ROI is very poor with them. If it weren’t for the free leads, I would have lost far more money than I made through HA. I most likely will not be sticking with them once my free leads are used up. Their entire process is not really compatible with a professional service like HI. There’s a reason you don’t shop for oral surgeons or CPAs on there.
All of that said, I’ve heard that in certain regions, such as Brooklyn, inspectors get more work than they can handle from HomeAdvisor. Maybe it works in some places.
Personally, I’d rather pay a percentage of every job to them rather than a “lead”. If they actually generated a decent-paying inspection job, I think this could work.
What we need is a group of inspectors, software guys, and investors to create our own professional services site to compete with them, with the job-percentage fees structure instead of the lead.
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I appreciate all you guys
I just left them it cost me $107 per inspection on average based on the leads i won over all leads i paid for.
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You could join Amazon’s service.
You only pay if you get the job. Infact, the client pays through Amazon & Amazon passes 80% on to you. They keep 20%. You have to carry 1million in liability insurance. I don’t know any more, nor have I used their service.
Todd , I used them years ago for a short time nearly every lead was a no response when I called them. Stay away!
Home Advisor is a pain in my wallet after only a month! 22 leads and only 8 actually answer some form of contact and I’ve only gotten 5 credits returned! That’s the biggest problem! If the HA users would just answer the phone, text or email I agree having to pay for the lead. That meets HA’s policy for having to pay… you made contact… you have to sell yourself and pay for that lead. Understandable. BUT… if I can’t make any type of contact then there should be no question that I get my money back for that lead!
I sent in a big piece of advice two days ago to HA over their feedback page… it went something like this: “Home Advisor could exponentially make more money as well as the Pros. After the user enters their inspection info, add a mandatory I AGREE button (they must hit the button) before the final Get a Quote button appears and a statement saying they understand their Quotes are free but the Pros providing them are paying to make contact with you. By clicking the Agree button below you understand you will be contacted by one or more Pro’s for your quote and you should make contact with them to obtain the best possible price for your job.”
Not very lawyerly and I know it means more money spent by me for leads but, if I could just get people to answer the phone I would be a bit more understanding that it’s just my lack of ability to sell my services! If HA implemented this method it would certainly get them more money that we can’t fight to get back because more people may actually respond. Makes sense to me!
MY CURRENT PROCESS FOR HA: For two weeks now, I turn my leads off every 24 hours for 48 hours at a time to keep the tire kickers away! I just get what I call ‘lucky leads’ that get notified that I accepted their request and they have been more likely to answer and completing two jobs this week… maybe a third if she calls back.
Am I happy, NOPE! Do I understand I must pay for advertising, YES! Should HA give my money back without question if NO ONE answers the phone, YES! Will I be renewing my account next year, NOPE (unless I can become a better salesman)!
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keep your leads off and when they send you an opportunity then you accept if the description looks legit. You only pay for opportunities when the other party accepts the connection. These leads always answer and are expecting my calls. Yes it costs more 30-40 per lead BUT its not bad when I can pass this cost onto the customer. I have gotten a couple freebees from people just searching google for home inspections as when I get reviews on homeadvisor it shows the location of the inspection and created more google results. Its not great for the industry but this is the only way my 1 year old company is still in business.
Adam, I’m doing exactly what you’re saying and still not getting any contact from many of those who accept. How are you responding to them when you get notified they want to connect? Are you calling immediately, sending email immediately, sending text immediately or waiting a bit for each so as not to be pushy or desperate?
I call these ‘Lucky Leads’ because I was lucky enough to grab them when they come in. I have over 25 other inspectors (probably more) in the Tampa area and some are quicker than I am on the ‘I’m Interested’ button! One would figure if someone said “put me in contact with a home inspector now for a quote” they would at least answer a text or email! I’ve only been doing the ‘Lucky Leads’ for just over a week now (I pause my leads every other morning) and have found some Lucky Leads to be more responsive but still many don’t respond after I accept. I’m pretty sure more than one have researched my profile and website before they clicked accept to my contact! Frustrating to no end and I’ve got 11 more months to fight this battle! Got two inspections this week from Lucky Leads so that will pay for all those tire kickers so far but I’ve got to improve my sales process in todays disconnected world!
It would be nice if Internachi could run Home Advisor out of business for Home inspector leads by investing in getting their “Find an Inspector” program at the top of the google rankings. Home Advisor is simply a middleman, taking a percentage of profit from home inspectors.
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