Home Inspection competition getting tough..

**Amaizing:roll:: We have a new idiot and stupid in our area. For sure you cannot fix Stupid-X. **

Home Inspection competition getting tough](*,)
Home inspections + 4 Point inspection + wind mitigation + infra-red survey all for $250.00 no matter the size of the house as long is in the panhandle of Florida.

How about that:freaked-:?? InterNACHI inspector and Licensed by the state of Florida. Infra-red certified and IAC2.

What fool will hire such a joker:-k. I bet lots of REALTORS screwing their clients:|.). Once again, licensing really help??? Yeah right!! This sucker must be starving and now he is killing the industry with his …
Want to know the name? His last name starts with H and end up with S. His company name start with Hour… inspections. Oh, by the way no competition for us just Fuccckkinggg$$$$$$ the system up.

He’s $55 higher than another guy who we learned about, recently.

Wow that’s some lowballing. How can they afford to buy donuts and knee pads?

We have a NACHI member in Springfield, MO doing “home inspections” on any size house for $195…but then, his wife is the real estate salesman who keeps him booked so they both split the commission when the house he inspects sells. Pretty cool racket.

You only have Nick to thank for that. Hell, at $239 for all of your education and a free NACHI membership, plus the right to do wind mits and 4-points. Hell, he didn’t have any over head costs to become a home inspector. He probably thinks he is making money.

Are you guys really threatened by this kind of competition? I actually like to refer ball busting shop-a-price clients to inspectors like this, kind of keeps the slugs of the world in one place where I can observe them.

Bruce Gregory
Florida Home Inspector 1167
Florida Mold Assessor 450
InterNACHI Certified HI# 10120503
http://HomeandBuildingInspectors.com

his wife is the real estate salesman who keeps him booked so they both split the commission when the house he inspects sells. Pretty cool racket.

Very unethical and should be illegal. We have a few doing the same thing here.
Same lowballing going on by fellow InterNachi members and a CMI at that. Really thinks alot of himself and his inspections. Followed many by him and found alot he missed.

wsiegel: Quick lesson in economics…

Each business person’s inclination to charge a certain margin over cost is not affected by those costs. If InterNACHI were to stop offering all it’s free membership benefits tomorrow, thus increasing the costs for all its members to operate, fee structures would of course go up across the board (just as they would if a law was passed requiring every inspector to flush $10,000.00 a year down the toilet), but that wouldn’t change any member’s margin.

It wouldn’t change the thinking of members who maintain healthy margins above their costs, and it wouldn’t change the thinking of members who maintain weak margins above their costs.

Put another way:

Two guys were buying watermelons down South for a dollar, driving them up North in their pickup truck, and selling them for a dollar. After a couple weeks they realized that they weren’t making any money. So they changed their business model by buying a bigger truck.

Increasing their costs won’t change their margins.

The margin in buying watermelons for two dollars and selling them for two dollars is the same as the margin in buying watermelons for one dollar and selling them for one dollar.

It’s not their costs that needs to increase, it is their margin.

Just a little biz 101 for you wsiegel.

Free member benefits and free memberships are two totally different things are they not?

Yes, but very related. The free memberships pay for the free member benefits.

Ok, I’ll bite…How?

How did you offering a free NACHI year membership with AAA classes to get them certified to meet the states requirement help me?

Proponents of Florida licensing…for years…were arguing as to how “raising the bar” would reduce their competition. The building inspectors in Florida even recruited home inspectors to join their ranks in an attempt to create the illusion that ICC certification or some other expensive testing measures should exist.

As one of their beloved typed on a message board that he thought to be free of spies, the idea at that time was to agree with home inspectors on everything they wanted just to get a law passed…and then they could much more easily tweak and fine tune it to meet their needs. Building inspectors, not home inspectors who failed to meet building inspector “credentials”, should be in control of these inspections and should be demanding thousands of dollars for a single fee.

The whole idea developed, in the minds of those home inspectors who were buying into it, was that a licensing law would reduce competition and drive fees upward.

Opponents argued that the opposite would be true since legislators are not in the business of reducing competition and eliminating opportunities for employment…at least, not on purpose. We argued that…once the science and art of being a home inspector were reduced to two or three easy steps, people of all shapes and sizes would flock to the opportunity of filling those few squares and purchasing a license that made them look as equally competent and qualified as the most experienced home inspector in Florida.

With all other things appearing to be equal and in an effort to garner business, fees that were expected to be increased into the thousands of dollars would actually plummet, we tried to tell folks.

So far, it looks like we were right.

Russell: I hesitate to give you too religious of an answer, but here goes…

We’ve been accused of performing miracles by people who don’t understand how InterNACHI is able to provide its members so many free benefits and so many free success tools and so much free education and do so much.

How is this possible? Other associations offer nearly no benefits, no success tools, no education and do nearly nothing.

Performing this miracle requires a couple things: One of the main components is to look at InterNACHI’s overall inspector quality on average and then take steps to improve it. We do this in a couple of ways, the main one being member retention. Because we keep so many of our members, we end up with more and more veterans over time. Another is free education which makes our members better and better over time. Another is our success tools which lengthens the careers of our members. You get the idea.

Now to your specific question: Another is to target certain inspector wannabees and bring them into InterNACHI. Those wannabees are targeted because they are likely going to be good inspectors who get better over time and have long careers. I won’t reveal all the early characteristics that reveal such a wannabee, but I’ll tell you what one of them is: A desire for training. Show me an inspector wannabee who is voluntarily going out of his/her way to get trained and I’ll do everything I can to get that inspector into InterNACHI. If it takes a free membership for 6 months or a year, I’ll give it to him/her. Why? Because I know that an inspector who seeks self improvement will likely be a successful inspector, one who is smart enough to recognize the value of InterNACHI membership, one who improves over time, and one who contributes to InterNACHI and fellow members for years to come.

InterNACHI’s cup runneth over.

John, if this guy is doing wind mits he is a GC. RE agent spouse refers him, he does a quick lookover while holding $1600 camera, notes obvious deficiencies, collects $195 and submits estimate to perform repairs. Basically, he is being paid to provide estimate to repair. Bet the homeowner/buyer is told they need new windows, wood rot repair, gutters, doors, insulation, duct sealing, upgrade AC to 15 seer, roof on its last leg, etc…

Speaking as a GC/HI, only thing wrong with HI license is it allows joint license (GC/HI) holders to perform repairs. Know this goes against Nachi SOP but that is what is going on. GC’s see this as a way to gain access and get a little something to provide an estimate. I do not perform repairs on any home inspection and I also do not advise replacement where not necessary or it does not make economic sense even though just about every inspection template does this to “avoid lawsuits”.

I was just advised by my own insurance agent, wind mits are being offered to her agency for $35.00 flat rate, any size home. They are selling upgrades to the homeowner claiming huge discounts from carrier; 1 hr time plus $$100 materials for $695.00. You can’t advertise against this or convince the majority this is wrong - you’ll lose in the end.

“And that’s the way it is” (Walter Cronkite)

Nick - You being the marketeer that you are. I can see your point and it has validity (except for the miracle part, or should I just start calling you Padre Pio). But as with everything you do and every good marketeer does, you paint yourself the best picture possible to shine the best light on yourself. And very few do it better than you.

And yet you skip over the most obvious answer and that is, “new inspectors become members to try and add a ‘qualification’ to their weak Curriculum Vitae”.

Do I think you have an good organization. Yes, but that is because I particiapte in its activities, but I am only part of the 5% that do.

To me you are like a GYM. People decided to get into something, the sign up and are gung ho for about a month or two and then they fade off. But they feel guilty should they “quit”, so they just stay what you call a “member”. You get them to place shiny stickers on their cars, and place stuff on their websites. So then it becomes easier to pay a few bucks then to leave and change the marketing. Not because of what you offer, but its just cheap enough not to leave. Put the fees up to a $1,000 and see what happens.

If you feel you have the most educated people (not the ones here that participate and love the profession) but the other 9,900 that we never see. If YOU really FEEL that these people come here for the education. Then link their profile to the educational transcript. When you click on a name, have the educational transcript be public knowledge to EVERYONE. Then I think we will see what really goes on. I think you will see most do not even do the minimum requirements. But you don’t want that public information, because then people would point them out and then not meet the qualifications.

You will find that about 5% even take the classes and really contribute. The other 95% just find it a $289 a year qualification so they have something to put on their website to try and make it the great qualification equalizer.

I was a FABI member for 3-years and an on-again/off-again ASHI member for 7 years. Back in 2002 we were all about equal, that is the time when NACHI changed the model and began pulling away from the pack.

Today ASHI & FABI are a tiny speck in the rear-view mirror of the ongoing home inspection association shake-out. Who knows how this will end, but it is becoming obvious that not all of the associations will evolve into a great HI association like NACHI… warts & all.