Educating the buyer is certainly required and and proper disclosure up front is critical to responsibly serving the client. I have every respect for the professional HI and would never assume that I can, nor would I want to, take the place of a professional HI.
Yet, that is exactly what you seem to be trying to do. If you are, properly, educating your buyers, you would do well to have them hire a professional to do these inspections.
I do home inspections, but also construction consulations and energy audits. I am state licensed, do many more hours of CE than is required, every year and have additional training and certification with regards to thermal imaging, mold, HVAC and Electric.
I have many contractors who hire me, outside of real estate transations, to help them find the cause of problems (water leaks, plumbing leaks, insulation problems, etc) and almost all of them, when they see the camera work, ask “How much does one of those things cost?”. The express interest in trying to do exactly what you are trying to do. I answer their question, but also inform them that the training costs a great deal more. It is then that they lose interest. It is easier and less expensive to them to just hire me.
If you buy a camera and use it to do what you are proposing, without the necessary training and experience, you are doing your clients a great disservice. And you are also opening yourself up to a world of hurt, regardless of any disclaimer you have them sign.
I don’t know what state you do business in, but in most of the HI licensed states, you would also be breaking the law. In Illinois, the ONLY people who can do home inspections, as part of a Real Estate Transaction, is a state licensed home inspector. Not code officials, Architects, Engineers or Real Estate Agents.
I’ve been involved in many deals that fell through because the roof is toast, the furnace is to spent or there is a rotten sill somewhere. What I’m trying to avoid is waiting on the HI to tell us whats obviously wrong with the house when I already have the ability to see most of it myself. After the glaring problems are addressed and the contract ratified, a HI is called in to solidify our findings and find everything else missed that could be just as crucial or dangerous for the homeowner, but hopefully smaller and easier to negotiate than say the foundation issues I may have found earlier.
My point is that, contrary to what you wrote, above, you DO NOT have the “ability to see most of it” yourself. If you did, you would be a home inspector, not an agent or broker.
Sure, you have some construction background, but as many foermer tradesmen who are now inspectors can attest, inspection is a TOTALLY different thing. I am not qualified to build a house and a general contractor is, similarly, not qualified to do a home inspection. Totally different head.
Buyers can’t afford to get into a pissing match 30 or 45 days into a deal over these repairs. The lending process is highly time sensitive and nobody needs to tie up earnest monies in a deal involving a house with substantial problems so it only makes sense to address this before the contract is signed if at all possible.
What 30 - 45 days? I do inspections and produce the report within the 5 - 7 day inspection window that most of the contracts around here specify. If the house has “substantial problems” the buyer can easily and quickly determine whether they want to walk away with their earnist money. I don’t see where you get 30 - 45 days.
Doing some initial IR work on the home is a way of progressing my profession and offering the customer information that could be very pertinent to there future in any given dwelling. If the home has no insulation in the walls whatsoever, I need to know about it. In a town that had little to no insulation requirements before 1982, I think it only makes sense. Can I figure this out in a few minutes with an IR camera? I would hope so…
“Progressing my profession…”? Your profession is being a Real Estate Agent, not an inspector. You are simply not qualified to do this without a great deal of specialized, and expensive, training, including field work.
Our housing market tanked in part due to adjustable rate mortgages and the increased monthly expense involved in keeping their homes.
Our housing market tanked because of a bubble caused by the government forcing lenders to provide loans to people who couldn’t afford them. Pure and simple. Good advice to your clients is not to enter into a deal that they can’t afford. I would give you the same advice with regards to this IR scheme you are proposing.
I submit that energy cost could do the very same thing. If the average homeowner’s power bill were to double, many households would be forced into a cash flow trauma that could push them very close to the financial edge and foreclosure.
So hire an energy auditor. This requires even more training.
Understanding the energy efficiency of any given structure is the future of real estate from where I sit and I’m just trying to find a way to address this need in a timely, effective manner. If I’m working on a deal that is “hot” so to speak, there may be little time to coordinate with other parties so having some elemental information in the same day may be a luxury in the future I can’t live without.
I** would submit to you that if you “don’t have the time” to do your own job (being an agent) then you certainly won’t have the time to do thermal imaging (properly) either.**
Hopefully, anything that I find at my level would encourage the homeowner to seek further advice from a professional which I will never claim to be. Good, yes, Professional, probably not.
Again, I appreciate everyone’s time.