I’ve had a few realtors ask me about repair assessments. I had one realtor tell me that all home inspectors do repair estimates. She told me that a home inspection report is required to have repair estimates. I have always felt that a home inspector is there to provide information on the condition of the home, and cannot possible provide the cost to repair, dozens or sometimes hundreds of defects.
On the other hand I have found some services like repairpricer.com which offer this as a service. You upload the inspection report and they will generate a repair cost estimate.
My questions are these:
Does any one have experience providing repair estimates?
How do you price the cost of repairs if you don’t personally do the work?
Do you provide repair estimates for all defects or only certain ones?
I would suggest you talk to your insurance provider. They might not cover you providing repair estimates, even through repairpricer.com. I usually just tell the client that it would be terribly irresponsible for me to even attempt to provide repair estimates, as I do not provide those services.
IMO it’s never a good idea to provide repair or replacement estimates, because I’m not doing the repair or replacement.
I get asked all the time for estimates and I tell my clients 1. Only the contractor doing the work can give you an accurate estimate, and 2. if you call 3 different contractors, you’ll get 3 different prices and I could be way high or way low and I prefer not to give any of my clients potentially misleading information.
Repair Pricer is a good service. Charge a few bucks extra for it and go for it.
There is no liability if you have it spelled out in your agreement. Repair Pricer takes on that liability… and they even state that in their terms.
Just know that RP will provide a price for EVERYTHING in your report… so it is worth the effort to
Explain it to the client
Spend a few minutes going through the report yourself unchecking some of the tricky tack stuff you may have called out, so the estimate is not so large.
Do you know actual construction costs? Are you a skilled construction estimator? I’m a retired construction GC, now an inspector, and I NEVER give estimates with an inspection. From my past construction experience, computer estimating software is always way off. Forget the estimating software. I tell my clients that I’m not up to date with current prices and by giving even a wild guess, I’m doing them a disservice. Your realtors know inspectors will give repair prices that are always way too low. They are putting the blame on you for inaccurate estimates and assuring their sale and commission, at the expense of your reputation!
When a home inspector writes a repair estimate, he is speaking for someone other than himself and is accepting legal liability and accountability to his client for something he cannot control.
In the insurance industry where I work, estimates are considered little more than guesses written by people who are not doing the work. They are based upon an estimator’s best guess of the past costs of materials, labor, overhead, and profit and are considered a starting point but not an actual cost. Estimating software used by most insurance adjusters comes with the instruction that the guesses it produces are not definitive and are not intended to replace the bids of contractors who will be performing the work.
Written estimates from contractors who are immediately familiar with the costs of materials and labor will still provide a caveat that their estimations are subject to change upon a variety of factors and will place a time limit on their validity.
If a home inspector does not think his exposure and vulnerability to lawsuits is great enough already, adding the liability associated with providing an estimate for a repair that is potentially less than the actual cost to his client could bring him right up to that desired level of risky behavior. Prudent home inspectors, however, will continue to recommend further evaluations and estimates from qualified individuals, when necessary.
I have provided estimates a few times, but I really stay away from it. The few times I have provided an estimate - maybe 3 times in 19 years, I made sure they understood I was not a contractor, and I do not follow current material prices and availability, which can fluctuate and will affect the final price. Then any estimate I give is a very wide range. They usually then thank me for the extra effort and then contact an actual contractor for better pricing.
So many reasons I don’t, including those reasons given above. The other reason is that I do almost all of my own work on my property. I bet a lot of us inspectors do. So how would I have a clue how much repairing that wall will be? Your clients will also be constantly asking you for a reference for a handyman/plumber/electrician/deck repair, etc etc for their small projects. How would I know? I tell them (nicely) to ask someone like them who doesn’t do their own repairs - or ask a flipper if they just want to pay fewer dollars.