InterNACHI starts looking at homes for sale to inspect for free. We’ll start with certain homes first, homes that are likely going to generate numerous report downloads. Those might be homes that are being auctioned off, homes that are in foreclosure, very expensive homes, vacation homes, and homes that are likely to have many out-of-town buyers interested in them. We offer to inspect the homes for free. We pay InterNACHI members full-price to do those inspections. In return, the seller agrees to permit us to offer the inspection reports online as downloads that can be purchased. When a consumer reveals himself or herself to be a serious buyer by opening up his/her wallet and downloading a report, we ask that consumer if they are working with an agent, and if not, would they like our listing agent to help them with their real estate needs. If the consumer answers YES, we connect the consumer and agent for free. The participating listing agent will get hot real estate leads at no charge. Those leads are very valuable to any agent. The seller gets a free inspection plus the added benefit of his agent being able to work the very consumers who showed some real interest in his home. The inspector gets paid in full for an inspection that carries nearly zero liability as InterNACHI is the client and we aren’t ever going to sue our own member. In the terms-of-download, we explain to each consumer who downloads a report that they aren’t the inspector’s client and so have to get their own inspections. We further incentivize them by giving them a free “We’ll Buy Your Home Back” Guarantee if they do. And it might be possible to get the listing agent to agree to reimburse them the $39 if they enter into an agency relationship with the agent. The inspector also gets two more inspection job opportunities from the seller: Once for any repair-verification inspections he or the listing agent might want done and once again on the home the seller is moving to, should he be moving locally. If he isn’t moving locally, we’ll try to procure that inspection for yet another InterNACHI member. And presumably we can do the same for other sellers moving from out of town into the original inspector’s market. As you can see, the program would then begin to generate many additional inspection jobs for the industry which is good for all inspectors. Every time an inspector’s report is downloaded by someone who ultimately doesn’t buy the home, the inspector suffers no additional liability either as there is no liability in a report being in the hands of a consumer who doesn’t buy the home that was inspected. And in each of those cases, those consumers who didn’t buy the home are still looking for a home and will soon need a home inspector. So in effect, we dropped samples of the product the InterNACHI members produces as professionals, the reports, with their InterNACHI member’s contact information on those reports, smack into the hands of consumers who all are about to need home inspectors in the InterNACHI’s member’s local market. It’s target marketing beyond all belief! Furthermore, the listing agent who has now benefited greatly from this system and who received free hot real estate leads is likely going to want to do it again on other listings she has and presumably would consider contacting the original InterNACHI member to do it all over again.
And the reason I’m meeting with Porch is because these homes are going to be inspected twice and issues are going to be discovered. It’s just a fact, no home is perfect. So either the seller is likely going to need to make a repair or two, or the buyer will likely have to make them. And so I am exploring ways to further incentivize adoption of this program by including something of value from Porch on the repair side. That’s the business they are in.
As expressed, I am all in.
I have only known you to do the best for InterNACHI members.
You think outside the box.
Nick, how do inspectors determine full fee?
bbarbour1
(Brad Barbour, CMI Wa. State Lic.#1226--W.S.D.A. License#87852)
24
Seems like MIC on steroids, except there was no charge when the report was put on the fetch report site.
In my market, I have had issues getting the sellers to do a pre listing inspection, If the market was insanely hot like Seattle, (I hear its allot of walk and talks, and some pre inspections there) I feel this program might take off in those areas.
My market is hot but not like Seattles. A pre-inspection is a form 17 on steroids, I think that’s some of the hesitation.
I have always banged my head trying to get some pre-inspections as I feel 1/2 the market is not being utilized, with that being said–If everyone (buyers) just went with pre-inspections, we would be back to having only 1/2 the market utilized.
Additionally, paying the inspectors the large fees, may become burdensome after the 1st year or so, I can see some tweaking on these fees “down the road” and the further we go “down this road” and the more successful this program becomes, the more the realtors will expect a $49 fee, and will totally leave us (the inspector) out of the loop on the fees we can collect. The realtors will get this confused with buyers inspection fees.
I can hear the realtors now…“how come you cant do this deal for buyers?” Or is that in the works?
I’m assuming this has to be available for all home inspectors (not just Internachi?), Wont there be a possibility of Antitrust (competition law) if you corner the market?
Is MIC broken? This is about data mining isn’t it? I mean that’s fine, we are all here to make money and stimulate the economy.
I think it’s very unique that Nachi is looking at this–I see on my ISN dashboard the vast amount of services I can offer to the client by transferring their information to a 3rd party, if/when those 3rd parties know that Nachi has a program like this, well… I think they’ll be excited.
First blush, I see our fees, or rather the expected fees going down over time. That is what concerns me, as well as the fact that I really don’t want anyone else dictating my fees. What kind of guarantees can be set up for the inspectors compensation?
I have a much better idea for parch than this nutty one. If it is referrals they need and want well those all get generated by us the inspectors. I have a plan where all inspectors can get compensated for the referrals for all the home repairs needed by sellers and buyers alike. Also the inspectors will benefit and we do not need to release or make public any private client information.
This will make the agent and sellers much happier and both the people needing the repairs and us inspectors.
It is really a no brainer for porch to implement. I will be polishing up the concept and details this week then contacting porch with the idea.
I don’t see any way we can do it for buyers. So that answer is no, it’s not for buyers.
Heck no, it’s only for InterNACHI members. We have no duty to non-members. I want all non-members to get out of our industry and quit stealing our jobs. It’s my duty to continually provide InterNACHI members with more and more competitive advantages over non-members to make it more and more difficult, every day, for non-members to survive. All of www.nachi.org/benefits is one big list of competitive advantages that either make InterNACHI members technically stronger, get them more inspections, allow them to offer additional inspections, command higher fees for those inspections, save money, expand their markets, improve efficiencies, increase their profit margins, or combinations of all of those.
I could only hope it gets to that.
No.
Yes. But instead of our industry’s data being mined, we’re going to mine data in the real estate industry. Two can play that game.
I have a much better idea for parch than this nutty, (Industry damaging) one.
If it is referrals they need and want well those all get generated by us the inspectors. I have a plan where allinspectors can get compensated for the referrals for all the home repairsneeded by sellers and buyers alike. Te agents will not get harmed nor the sellers or buyers. Also the inspectors will benefit and donot need to release or make public any private client information thus a win, win for all involved.
This will make the agent and sellers much happier and both the all the people needingthe repairs and us inspectors.
Additionally I have a way to expand this to include all inspections we do not just some random pre inspections. This will yield a much larger lead base for porch and more benefits for us the inspectors who ultimately are the ones driving all the clients anyway.
It is really a no brainer for porch to implement. I will be polishing up theconcept and details this week then contacting porch with the idea.
“Two can play that game” is an English idiom. It isn’t referring to a game of tennis or checkers. It means, in this case, that if others can try to mine data for their industries, the inspection industry can try to mine data from the real estate industry and use it to our advantage.