Newbie considering buying a HI business-advice please!

[Carl Pennick]

Originally Posted by Michelle S. Cousins

Small world, Paul. I'm in Perranporth, not too far up the coast.
You're right, Cornwall is a beautiful place but this country has totally gone to the dogs, record numbers emigrating every year. I love Vancouver, I used to be airline crew and found myself visiting rather the place a lot, being on standby always meant a little trip to either Seattle or Vancouver!

Smaller world im from Essex

[Erby Crofutt]

Michelle,

I know of a couple of very successful multi-inspector companies with a female owner that doesn't do inspections. One of them NEVER did a single inspection. The owner does the marketing, scheduling, etc. The inspectors inspect. Works well for them.

You can do it!

[Michelle S. Cousins]

Hey Carl,
You being from Essex, does that mean you do your inspections in your slip-ons and white socks?

Note to those of non-British extraction: Essex is a county near London famous for jokes made about it's inhabitants. Wide-boy cockney geezers, the lot of 'em lol.

[Michelle S. Cousins]

Interesting comments, Erby.
There was a HI biz only just sold in Fort Lauderdale area which appeared to run like that. The husband concentrated on "other biz interests" and the wife simply scheduled the inspectors. It was priced just under the $400k I recall with an OB of $65k.
I think a multi inspector biz would likely be very different to a single operator and would be more likely to be anonymous and known as "XYZ Home Inspections" rather than "Jim Smith (and Team) Inspects Homes 4u", if you understand where I am coming from; if you took a call from a customer who did ask for the owner by name because they had been dealt with by the owner in the past then I would just explain that nowadays the only inspecting Jim Smith does is the 9th tee LOL and that I had taken over the biz, that I would make sure I sent out our most experienced inspector to do the job for him and that, in view of the fact I really appreciated his loyalty to XYZ Home Inspections I would come along too just so we could say hi and I could put a face to a valued customer. It might be a ton of bs but it plays on people's vanity and need to feel important, and basically he either takes an inspection from a different inspector of a company he has used before, or is faced with the task of finding another company where he also won't know the inspector.
Just my thoughts, would be more than happy for someone to tell me I'm talking a load of garbage

[poliner]

Michelle
The comparisons with UK home survey are interesting from pricing perspective. I used to undertake buyers repair estimates, home condition walk through for some of my clients in UK, charged equiv of $400.00 or so for 1-2 hours. no report, no liability, no hassle. For a similar service that I offer here, 3-4 hours, full report, loads of liability I would have to charge $3-$4K in UK.
This puts the Industry in perspective here as Inspecting homes is far far tougher this side of the pond.
The variety of architectural styles, componants is staggerring compared to UK, and even with over 25 years construction behind me I take nothing for granted and keep learning/ seeing new things each day.
The major issues here are the relative ease home owners can have a go at pretty major projects.
The Industry is not Nationally regulated in US or Canada and I can speak for BC there are a lot of undercut merchants about, I have 4-5 price shopping calls each week, which can get worse when things slow up. These guys can't be competed with if they are not paying their dues, explaining to clients can be a waste of time if they just want a cheapie job, It would be worth researching states from this standpoint as for example in Washington there appear to be 2-3 schools pumping out Inspectors, I did a course down there and out of the 15 or so guys only a couple seemed to still be in business, and one of those was out of state.

As for you buying a business I would say depending on you as a person it could go either way, as the Inspection process is as much a people thing as raw knowledge, but it can afford you great freedom and quality of life.
The major thing is marketing, it's is the toughest part of my business, there are huge cultural differences from UK I never had to market my construction company but here its major, I am sure you are up to speed!

[Terry Neyedli]

Originally Posted by Michelle S. Cousins

Small world, Paul. I'm in Perranporth, not too far up the coast.
You're right, Cornwall is a beautiful place but this country has totally gone to the dogs, record numbers emigrating every year. I love Vancouver, I used to be airline crew and found myself visiting rather the place a lot, being on standby always meant a little trip to either Seattle or Vancouver!

A plus for Vancouver if you settled here.
Four distinct seasons.
Great opportunities for diversified inspections on this side of the Rockies.
On the other side 7 months of winter and 5 months of bad sledding.
We are going for gold.
T.Neyedli