Charging For Unfinished Basement

[David P. Valley]

Originally Posted by jfunderburk

David, do you charge for "finished" garages?

Garages (finished or unfinished) are included in all my inspections. I do not raise my prices due to a garage or a basement, whether it's finished or not.

[James H. Bushart]

Originally Posted by dvalley

Garages (finished or unfinished) are included in all my inspections. I do not raise my prices due to a garage or a basement, whether it's finished or not.

Although he does not specifically say so, it would appear that the original poster calculates his fee by computing the square footage of the area he plans to inspect. If this is correct, it would certainly require him to calculate and add the basement and garage.

I agree with you, David, that a simple fee for "up to XXX sq ft" would include garage and basement, but I don't think that this is how Mr. Christopher sets his fee.

[tneumann]

If you didn't charge for unfinished basements around here...some of your inspection fees would be calculated on less than 1000 square feet.

There are tons of homes being built around here with 1000 square feet above grade and 1000 square feet below grade, oftentimes, the basement area is unfinished at the time of my inspection. However, I spend as much or more time in the basement.

I charge by the square foot, as do most inspectors, I use the county website to establish this square footage. If the county deems the basement area as livable square footage, so do I , finished or unfinished. Not because I'm greedy and want a higher fee...but because they may finish that basement at some point.....

JMHO FWIW BTW ILA

[staylor5]

I charge one set price for a one family and another for two and three family. I never consider square footage. That shouldn't matter anyway, unless you check every fiber of the carpeting.

[Peter C. Russell]

Steven, so you charge the same for a 1500 sqr. foot ranch thats 5 years old as you would a 2500 sqr. foot colonial thats 100 years old?

[Bruce A. King]

Large homes take longer but the most common house that I see fairly often is the 25-35 yr old, 2000-3000 sf with a tough crawlspace, 3 or 4 electrical panels, 2 or 3 disconnect boxes and total of 60-80 writeups.
Even though I add on for the age, these are more time consuming inspections than the old homes.

[mporras]

I charge an extra fee for crawlspaces.

In Oklahoma, almost all of them are: Nasty, smelly, really hard to get into, full of fungus, rot, mold, raw sewage, brown recluse spiders, crickets, daddy long legs, roaches, rabid possums, mushrooms, scorpions, skunks, snakes, dead cats, exposed live wires, mud, standing water, rusty nails, bones (I have found many bones in the crawlspaces here ), insecticides, pesticides, mice, rats, rocks, sticks, asbestos, glass, dead birds, sanitary napkins and toilet paper (around a leaking drain pipe)...etc....

There is NO WAY I do not charge extra for a crawlspace. I add $50.00, and I think that is cheap.

Attics and basements are part of my regular fee, however.

[ggreene]

Wyoming Or Not , You Guys Need To Raise Your Bottom On Pricing. Its Hard Here In Florida Too,but There Are Over 100 Hi In My County (most Nachi). You And Your Buddy Need To Have A Beer And Set The Minimum Price, There's Only 2 Fellas , Be Your Own Union Shop, You Set The Prices.

[dspencer]

I go by the SF in the MLS, and adjust my pricing to assume every home has a basement and if the MLS has it added as finished then its a plus me

[Erby Crofutt]

Expande your market to Scottsbluff/Gering. It's only 30 miles away and the valley population is around 40,000.

Raise your rates.

I charge extra for crawl spaces. $50.00

Remember vehicle costs alone are $0.50 cents or more a mile. 120 miles is $60.00. And how much do you charge for the two hours you spend sitting in the car to get there?

Sell yourself on value, not cost.

Say the seller drops the price $2,000 based on the results of the inspection. What's the real value in that. Beats the hell out of me. Too complicated to calculate $2,000 plus interst over 30 years, but I'll bet it's around $5,000 or so. Versus how much did you charge??? Around $195.00???

[jrivera]

Screw the basement, I've got a problem when they paint a rosey picture of "oh, it's a legal one family"...........and you get there and it's like a chop shop.........two maybe three kitchens, all sorts of friggin' doors and what looks like alley ways..........gees, the jackass that I am.........thats when you lose out, cause now that I've given them the price it's kinda hard to go back on your word, especially when the buyer wasn't painting the rosey picture. It was that d&*%#e bag realtor.



Mic

[Peter C. Russell]

Originally Posted by jrivera

Screw the basement, I've got a problem when they paint a rosey picture of "oh, it's a legal one family"...........and you get there and it's like a chop shop.........two maybe three kitchens, all sorts of friggin' doors and what looks like alley ways..........gees, the jackass that I am.........thats when you lose out, cause now that I've given them the price it's kinda hard to go back on your word, especially when the buyer wasn't painting the rosey picture. It was that d&*%#e bag realtor.



Mic

I use an inspection intake form whenever anyone calls for an inspection. It lists all the information as to how many rooms, baths, sqr. feet, any crawl spaces, garage, barn, any concerns you have about the property ETC. Works well for me and it gives me a feel for the house before I go there and very rarely do I get surprised

[Frank M. Carrio, CMI]

Originally Posted by prussell

I use an inspection intake form whenever anyone calls for an inspection. It lists all the information as to how many rooms, baths, sqr. feet, any crawl spaces, garage, barn, any concerns you have about the property ETC. Works well for me and it gives me a feel for the house before I go there and very rarely do I get surprised

Pete,
This is a good, sound, Professional way to approach this issue. I recommend that all inspectors do the same.

Many years ago I arrived on an inspection site for a "two" family home and was informed that an "addition" had been added.
The "addition" turned out to be an entire "Mother in law" home in the "backyard" of the the same property.

After that I started using a checklist and getting copies of the MLS.

[jrivera]

LIES, LIES.......... IT'S ALL LLLLIIIIIIIEEEEEESSSSSSSS


Mic

[Thomas E. Speerstra]

HI Gize,
Very interesting thread. I too will do nearly anything to avoid having the realtor in the middle of my deal. I did, however, run a test last summer with some amazing results. I received so much flak and resistance from realtors about "square footage pricing" that I picked a number and went to "flat rate pricing". Since the majority of homes inspected fell in the lower square footage range in my area, and I had adjusted things to the mid square footage range, I actually came out ahead of the pricing game. Oh, sure, I got bashed with some whoppers but when the season was over, I was considerably better off in the income department AND I made some really nice new realtor friends. (No, that is not an oxymoron)

P.T.S.F.P.

TS