This bad economy makes for great opportunities for home inspectors.

[Nick Gromicko]

All this has occurred since the economy began to slow:

• The number of inspections per client has gone up to 2.6 inspections/client due to inspectors offering more ancillary inspections.
• The percentage of inspectors who have gone out of business is greater than the percentage decrease in home sales which means there are currently more home sales per inspector.
• The number of commercial property inspections have increased.
• The number of mold inspections have increased.
• The number of homes being purchased by investors has dramatically increased. Investors inspect more homes than homebuyers and investors are businessmen and so pay more for the valuable information that inspectors provide.
• The number of home sales that are the result of foreclosure has increased to 45% of all sales. It is more important that foreclosed homes be inspected as they are often vacant and the buyers can’t rely on seller’s disclosures which are normally not available in foreclosure situations.
• Seller inspections are becoming more popular (thanks to InterNACHI’s www.MoveInCertified.com program). Seller inspections cause re-inspections (after repairs are made) and eventually buyer inspections (on the same home), thus increasing the number of inspections per home.
• It has become a buyer’s market which favors inspectors.

[James H. Bushart]

Can you provide the raw numbers from which you derived these figures?