I am a new home inspector,but I currently run a construction buisiness,this year is a very tough enviroment.How are the inspectors doing?
Business is good in the Scottsdale-Phoenix area for me, I don’t know about the rest of the country.
Between commercial, residential, rental properties, foreclosure, roof and homeowner association inspections I stay very busy.
It sucks in SE MI. Not a lot moving, so not a lot to get. A lot of inspectors are closing their doors right now, which is allowing for more work for those of us able to stick it out. Good luck.
Our home sales are down about 25% to last year, which was down 50% from the previous year. One of the local buliders has not had a start this year, and has reduced their staff from 25 superintendents to 3. We’ve had several builders close their doors, and we have many, many partially completed homes with no work being performed, and completed homes sitting empty with for sale and for rent signs on the property. A spec home down the road from me has been sitting vacant for a year, and has a "priced reduced $50,000 sign on it. Our housing prices were down another 8% last month, which has brought us back to the pricing we had around 2003. Homes that were selling for $450,000 in 2004 have sold after a long time on the market at $250 to $300,000.
My inspection this afternoon is a brand new house that was completed at the end of 2005, has not been lived in, and the A/C has not been on. (got mold, anyone?) This (except for the A/C not being on) is a fairly common scenario.
The home inspection business is similar, except that we can diversify our services.
Colorado Springs is doing good. I wish I was able to do all of the inspections i am asked to do. I keep sending them to chapter members.
Henry writes:
Henry, does your CMI designation contribute at all to this success?
Yep! Especially when they ask me about the other associations and why i charge so much. They also like my stance that i do not market to Realtors. At the Southern Colorado NACHI chapter meeting we will go over some of the things i do to attract customers.
Like i told some one in another thread as a home inspector you should be able to make $25,000.00 in 2 months. If not you need to get with RR and Robert and check out all the tips the NACHI web site gives out and step it up. Right now i wish i was well enough to do all the requests i get.
This story says it all for Central Florida.