Pricing in my area

I just noticed that an inspector in my area is completing inspections on a 3000 square feet home for $ 330 with a free termite inspection included. I call his pricing along with the corporate vendor network programs that expect you to pay per month a joke.

Don’t worry about what he’s doing. Focus on providing your clients with a great inspection and you will be paid what your worth just as he is paid what he’s worth. Every town has low ball inspectors. If you look at more competition pricing you will find lower then them. Focus on your clients

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Call around and see what others are charging (or, have someone else do it.) and place your pricing a little above middle to start.

When you ever get a chance to read one of his reports… all shall be clear to you.

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Pricing in this entire industry is a joke. Most buyers do not understand how to differentiate between good inspectors and cheap ones because this is not a service they use often enough. Most realtors prefer the cheap ones because they don’t actually find anything. Don’t lower your pricing. Let the cheap ones go. Do a good job for your clients and your reputation will grow on its own.
Good pricing and multiple ancillary services are the key to being profitable in this industry. Don’t be the cheapest or the most expensive. Most HI in my area charge between $300-$650 for an inspection. I am usually around $500-550. I did 45 inspections last month, most of which had multiple ancillary services too. Only a few potential customers complained about the pricing, but I don’t care. They can use the cheap idiots. Maintain or raise your prices, don’t lower them.

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Well said Ryan. It always amazes me that some people will try to talk you down on the price or quibble over $50.00 or $100.00 while probably making the biggest purchase of their lives.
Like yourself, I do not lower my prices.

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That’s high for many of the lowballers in our area (you are in Ft. Worth). Some of the older, longer time lowballers have finally started to raise their rates to 12 cents/Sq. Ft. and still give away many services and junk.

REA love the lowballers since as Ryan pointed out they don’t find crap partly because they need to get to their second, third, fourth inspection of the day or they are just plain to stupid to see what’s in front of them.

Consumers love them because well they remind them of Wal-Mart and have Wal-Mart and K-Mart price shopper mentalities.

cheap

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It’s not as simple as price IMO. Since your client is ultimately paying for the finished product, which is your report I focus on the best report among the competition. When they shop around you have something more valuable to them. For clients that attend the inspection your Show & Tell presentation skills as you do the inspection adds more value. I get allot of complements and referrals because I take the time to explain what I am looking for and why. At the same time I get a feel for the clients skill or tolerance level for DIY repairs. As you know some clients are pretty damn good at DIY projects, then some can’t change a light bulb with out going to YouTube. As part of the show and tell you need to dress professionally and over train yourself to be more knowledgeable then your compensation, you can never know enough in this profession. Be consistent in your inspection method, same goes for your report writing style and your interaction with clients and realtors. Home inspectors according to the SOP are not code inspectors, but IMO it’s important to learn as much about the code as possible. I don’t mean quote the code verbatim, but know the intent of the code. The majority of the code is based on safety, both structural and health of the occupants. For example take a few seconds to explain the purpose of the GFCI vs an AFCI breaker or outlet. Make it simple one is to prevent electrocution and one is for fire safety. A structural example would be why deck ledger boards should be secured with something other than nails. I always say because the current homeowner has not has an issue, when you change ownership you the client may have a large extended family resulting in significantly more loading on the deck. So don’t get caught up in pricing, if you get better at your job you can get paid what your worth.

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I quoted a guy $507 a few weeks ago and he said can you make it $500. Nope! Now police, firefighters and vets get 10% off.

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I know what I have paid for inspections in the past and felt ripped off. The last home I purchased had some major items (that I saw on my initial walk through) that never made it on the inspection report. That is why I decided to become an inspector myself. My belief is if you charge a reasonable rate and provide a superb service, your rates in time will not matter as much as your reputation. This mindset netted me a lot of construction side work over the years. I am starting off with roughly a 10 cent/foot base price and going from there… I am also offering 10% to 20% discounts for Veterans, First time home buyers, etc… Economics 101 really, you don’t need to be the most expensive to make the most profit… By the same token, if you take pride in what you do, produce a quality product people want, and build a reputation to back it up, the price wont matter as much to people…

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I would like to see the report regarding the commercial inspection that I just lost on a 10000 SQ Ft building. The guy completed it for $500.

Offer to review it at no cost to see if anything was missed :slight_smile: You may just end up earning some future work from them.

That isn’t in my vocabulary…Nope!

You are special, Sir Roy, Yeap!

Thank you Brother Simon.