I would appreciate some advice on how to transition from a single inspector to a multi inspector firm. Pay structure? Part time vs full time employee. Contract inspectors, etc… Looking forward to hearing some tips and tricks of the trade.
Thanks all!
It all depends on what type of multi-inspector company you want to be. Are you sending single inspectors out or will you have multiple people inspecting on the same inspection (teams)? We use the team approach. With that our people are employees and receive an hourly wage or salary. If you are sending out a single inspector common practice is to pay a %,
If possible why not talk to some of the Inspectors in that company and see how satisfied they are and how long they have worked for that Company .
I do believe many who work for these companies are very satisfied and seem to stay with them for a long time ,
Do you like to work for your self or are you able to take orders on how to do things their way. .
or
I was talking with the owner of Elite: http://www.eliteinspections.com/index.php/inspectors at the Vegas convention. I believe that all 35 of their inspectors are InterNACHI members. Anyway, they make every inspector produce an InterNACHI certificate of completion from our list of courses: www.nachi.org/education.htm every week.
Anyway, if you want to emulate a multi-inspector firm, Elite would be the best IMHO. http://www.eliteinspections.com/index.php
Here is my recipe: fall off a roof and break your heel, hire a guy to help you while you recover. When you recover you now have a two man team capable of doing twice as many inspections! I pay him a % of each inspection and he is thrilled to death. I thing I learned from Preston was to not teach him everything about the inspection process as that would make it more difficult for him to do his own thing.
When I first started doing inspections I worked for a company as an employee that payed me 30% of inspections I did. Eventually got up to 50% in that same job. I did inspections on my own for 9 years and was pretty content.
Brad, My future advice is to skip the falling off the roof part and just hire the helper! Nice to have met you in Vegas. Mark
And today… they just went Certified Master Inspector: http://www.nachi.org/elite-group-certified-master-inspectors.htm
Never met these guys, but 30+ inspectors … You gotta be doing something right.
Never heard of them so I wanted to see where they are, what their web says, etc.
Their web site looked real impressive, but one of the links that came up on a google search was some sort of customer review site of sorts. Geez those folks out in California must be hard to please. These inspectors were very highly rated by many realtors and some buyers BUT they were absolutely hammered into the dirt by many buyers whining that they spent $250 for a home inspection and the inspector missed $$$$$$$$ lots of issues and nobody will return calls, etc.
Amazing to hear so many good things from realtors and so many negative comments from their clients and even a seller or two.
Tim (great name BTW)
I’m wondering some of the same too… keeping competitive and legit can be tough! When these conversations come up, there is always the employee vs. independent contractor arguments. And for good reason, it’s my opinion that if I have behavioral control and financial control, I have employees. Also, if my independent subcontractors don’t have their own business etc. they are probably employees, most State and Federal agencies probably agree.
Can you imagine having to pay 20-30 cents on the dollar for workers comp and trying to be competitive at the rates discussed here? Hard to imagine, right? I’d say very tough indeed. Maybe there is a way?
Some of us were talking about this in Vegas… along with a moral obligation to an inspector who may injure themselves, what about the property owner’s where a sub-contractor gets injured and the multi firm has no worker’s comp? There could be all kinds of scenarios there.
I’m wondering if someone has a viable business model to share and answer your and my questions.
Makes you wonder doesn’t it Dan ??:shock:
I have been solo, and up to 4 + myself. Now I am me and I have a helper when needed. I like to be small. Clients like me and and don’t want to talk to me and then have someone else show up. Realtors also like it this way. Anyway it’s all good and different strokes for different folks. I was multi and that was also good for other reasons. No right or wrong, and none better than the other, just different.
Jim
it sure is nice to have someone run the business if you take a week off. Also nice to know I would make a % if I was injured by having someone handle things.
I have one Sub, I trained and use. He has other business of his own (not inspection stuff). He gets 70% of everthing he does or $30/ hr if helping me on something, like a bigger house. If we do an inspection together and he writes the report, he deducts 30/ hr for my time. It allows him an opportunity to make good and gives me a break when needed. He will make over 40k this year part time so theroretically I made around 15-18k off him this year doing jobs I wouldnt otherwise be able to take on
Robert …
You must have a reason to pay so much. Most of us around here pay 30%-40% to an inspector that does a job, writes report, etc independently of us AND about $70-$85 per inspection if they are simply helping us on a job.
When I got into this full time in 1983, my instructors told us to never pay our help more than 50% of the fee’s ever. I’ve always lived by that
Average inspections are only 250-275. where would I find a quality guy willing to inspect a house my way for $100? figure it would take him around 5 hours. Someone I can trust to run things when away.
Blue Collar Construction guys work in our midwest areas for $25-$30 p/hr
Average 1600-2400sf house would take him 2-3 hrs on site / 1 hr on report.
Total time = 3-4 hrs / Pay him $125-$140 on a $275 fee
I in no way know anything about them or their biz but your quote would scream to me cheap prices, soft reports, and willingness to kiss realtors a s s s es and meet there part time schedules. Just saying. I would trust the other reviews WAY WAY more than that of realtors. But that is just my opinion based Solely on your statement. I repeat I know nothing of the group or company. Those prices sure seem low in my opinion. Hardly enough to go around I would think but doing a huge quantity would make up for the low price per inspection. I would rather do one inspection for a decent fee than 3 at a low price when it comes to Written Home Inspections.