FetchReport Questions for NIck

I’d rather be asking these questions in the Members Only Area, but Nick doesn’t have access there.

!. Does the “new” FetchReprt plan still include the 100’s of thousands of Foreclosure Inspections you promised, if so how are the to be allocated to NACHI Members?

  1. If your plan is to list every Home that is for sale on FetchReport, who does the Marketing, who contacts the Realtors or Sellers?

  2. You mentioned spending a lot of time with the legalities, so what are the liabilities to both the Inspector and the Realtor who posts the link to FetchReport.

  3. With many NACHI Inspectors in the same area, how is this program going to be ran fairly, or is it going to be First Come, First Served?

  4. Are the Listing Inspection Reports going to require a fee to be paid by the potential buyer to view the report, if so have you done any studies about how many people who use the Web to find properties for sale would be willing to pay a fee to view a report that they could see for free by contacting the listing Agent? This is different from the Foreclosure sales where there are many more Investor type buyers who may be more willing to pay a fee to view a report.

  5. What benefit to NACHI Inspectors does the FetchReport program offer that we couldn’t do ourselves by offering to post Listing Inspection Reports on our own Websites as part of our Listing Inspection Marketing?

  6. When?

I have more, but I’m suffering from a Percocet hangover this morning, I’m sure there are many more questions from other members.

Nick, I think your program has potential, but you seem to be the only one who knows how it works, that doesn’t do me any good

This will hopefully work well for everyone. Traditionally the purchase of a foreclosure has always been “buy as is” through the lender or auction. So my question as Lewis had asked, who is going to pay NACHI members millions of dollars to inspect homes that are probably easy to sell without one?

I’ll answer some now and some later.

  1. There is less liability doing seller inspections than there is working for a buyer for various reasons found in http://www.nachi.org/sellerinspections.htm However I will say that the liability of the inspector is reduced by putting more time between the date of the inspection and the move-in date of the buyers, the liability of the inspector is reduced because the inspector’s clients are not buying the properties inspected, but rather moving out of them, and finally there is no liability in letting a million people see the report if they don’t end up buying the home. In other words, your report in the hands of someone who doesn’t buy the home carries zero liability. As for the agent, disclosure is increased with seller’s inspections and seller’s inspection reports contain language that recommends that a buyer do his own inspection report. Two inspections are better than one.

I’ll give you a worst case scenerio for fun: You inspect a home for a seller and tell him that his roof (which is actually shot) is perfect (you did a horrible inspection). The buyer has his own inspection done which reveals the roof is shot and that you blew it. Pretty bad scenerio huh?

This is still better than having blown it without a second inspector catching it for you. For you see, in any lawsuit there are 2 phases: The liability phase (in this case you are liable) and the damages phase (in this case the damages are zero)!!! Another inspector told the buyer about the roof before the buyer relied on your incorrect report and while the buyer was still able to get out of the deal or get a credit for the roof or whatever… so although you are liable and have egg on your face, there are no damages to anyone (except maybe your reputation).

So even in the worst case scenerio (that I can dream up)… there is much less liability performing an inspection for a seller than for a buyer.

I’ll try to find time to answer more soon.

  1. FetchReport’s main purpose isn’t for you to post a link to a report on your site (although it works fine for that purpose). You can already do that with most inspection software out there. FetchReport’s main purpose is to provide a large, national real estate firm the ability to post ALL the reports for ALL their listings on one site with unified download instructions, regardless of which NACHI member did the inspection and regardless of what software he used to generate the report.

Another benefit is that we have about $1,200.00 worth of gift certificates from Fortune 500 companies available at the bottom of each download. A viewer of a report for 123 Maple street (a report you the NACHI member performed and uploaded to Fetch Report) can also click checkboxes (that we’ve added) at the bottom of the report and print out gift certificates from HomeDepot, Lowes, Sherwin Williams, Mayflower Moving, and eventually the local pizza shop at 456 Maple street, along with your report. This puts added value into NACHI member’s reports at no cost to the NACHI member or the person downloading a NACHI member’s report. The discounts are optional for both the NACHI member (he/she can add the ones…if any… that he/she wants to each FetchReport report) and the person downloading (he/she can choose to print off the ones… if any… that he/she wants with each FetchReport report).

I’d like to eventually get the added value up so high that people order NACHI inspections, even if they have no use for or desire for an inspection.

This looks very good, Nick. Very, very good…

  1. Member Jay Keany has been working on getting us a bid for the signs. The signs go in the front yard of each home you pre-inspect telling people how to view the inspection report for that particular listing. Jay had a death in his family last week, but I’m sure we’ll hear from him soon.

Chris already designed and built the logo for the entire project. I have it. The logo will go on each sign although I think he’s designing a 1 color version of the logo to keep the sign costs down.

Nick,

Let me ask you this. Does this entire system of pre-purchase or foreclosure inspection reports rely entirely on each member here marketing this idea to the Realtors and sellers or whoever might be holding the title to foreclosed property…and then when or if this might be accomplished by selling this idea to each members Realtors, new contacts, etc etc, when the report is uploaded to fetch?

You don’t seem to be explaining how all these inspections are come in place.

Selling pre-listing inspections is a very hard sell in the Phoenix area, using this as an example.

Foreclosure inspections, as someone else already said are just about non-existent, since the building is generally being sold as is.

So could you elaborate on how all these inspections are to come in place rather than explain how the coupons will work on your website?

Dale: No. An individual inspector can’t possibly sell something like this and certainly can’t do all the inspections for something like this. This requires a national (even international) unification of many home inspectors, ancillary inspectors, laboratories, software companies, upload/download systems, online agreements, askNACHI.org, etc… in other words NACHI.

As I said, the entire inspection business is changing… big time.

I understand that part of what you said Nick, but could you answer my question, or is all this just what you are trying to plan for the future?

Because in all actuality, what you have planned in your mind, might not ever work.

Is it changing on it’s own, or is it getting help or " forced " to change.

You’ve lost me again Nick.

I’m supposed to continue as I am, marketing Pre-Listing Inspections, and then I’m supposed to turn them over to FetchReport so that someone else can make money from them? Why would I do that, if I’ve already sold my Inspection? I’m in Idaho, I don’t really care about listings in Florida or somewhere out of my area, Being a local market, why wouldn’t it be more beneficial for me to provide a link on my Website that Local Realtors could link to and potential buyers could view, it would be a good marketing tool and provide more 'Hits" to my site.

What benfit to the individual Inspector does your National or World plan provide. Is FetchReport going to get me the Listing Inspections? In my area today there are approx. 4000 properties listed on the MLS, how is your plan going to get even a portion of these to pay for an Inspection? And how am I going to get those Inspections and how are you going to ensure they even go to a NACHI Inspector?

FetchReport appears to be a separate enity from NACHI, otherwise why would we have to agree to provide access to our NACHI profiles to them? How is FetchReport going to make money? Is this going to be something where they provide a “lead” and then we sell the inspection, or are they going to sell the Inspection and we perform it at their price? Why would anyone do an inspection and provide it to something like FetchReport for free?

You said you are going to work through the National Real Estate Companies, who’s going to buy our Inspections then, the local Brokers, the Agents, the Seller’s?

Another question just came to mind regarding your signs, why would I want to put someone else’s sign in the yard of a property I inspected if it didn’t have “Snowy Mountain Home Inspection” on it and direct other potential clients to my website and business?

It’s a BIG PLAN Nick, but you’ve yet to explain “where’s the money”, how are these, in my case, 4,000 Inspections going to be distributed fairly among local NACHI Inspectors?

The report is not yours. You sold it. It is your client’s (the seller or the real estate company or the foreclosure company). They can upload their report. And your client is trying to sell their property. Instead of interested parties looking at only a website listing or even a virtual tour of the property online… they can now click the “Review the Inspection Report for this Property” button on the agent’s site and it takes them to the FetchReport site containing the downloadable report.

By allowing your report to be downloaded by potentially hundreds of people about to buy a home in your market area, you’ve essentially put a sample copy of the product you produce (an inspection report with your inspection company contact info on it) in the hands of multiple home buyers about to hire an inspector in your market area… it doesn’t get any better than that in terms of target marketing for NACHI members.

Not necessarily, I could copywrite every report.

The same thing could be accomplished by me posting the Listing report on my own website with local Realtors linking to it, that way Surfers would see more than just my report.

If somehow these Listing Inspections are directed to me by FetchReport in a greater number than my marketing does, then it’s a benefit, if not then it’s competition.

You should make a page on the NACHI website outlining and explaining how this is going to work and how it is going to benefit individual inspectors, that may eliminate many of the questions, on the other hand it may create more.

Who is going to set the pricing for these inspections. I have a higher pricing schedule then some inspectors. Like the $139.00 Wonder

By offering a service, to all Realtors and Sellers nationwide, that only
NACHI can provide (turn key in all of its aspects), … then Realtors
and Sellers will be seeking out NACHI inspectors in the local area
to provide the needed pre-sale inspection. All NACHI members will
set their own prices and add-on services, just like they do now.

NACHI members will now have their reports exposed to Realtors,
Sellers and hundreds of buyers.

Those who use this service over and over (Realtors) will not be
seeking non NACHI members. This is a plus for NACHI members
as I see it.

Tons of potential buyers will see my Thermal imaging service…
and some who don’t buy that house, may call me later to
inspect another house shortly thereafter. I like the idea.

Foreclosures are a nice item. Realtors don’t like the liability
of selling the “unknown faults” that go with these types of
homes. A new breed of Realtor is getting used to the idea
that home inspections are very useful and protect them in
the long run.

And how is that going to be guaranteed? FetchReport offers a system where Pre-listing reports could be listed, but what is going to make those type of Inspections any more popular than they are today? The Real Estate Market than concerns Realtors and Inspectors is their local market, not the National Market, if someone does a search for homes in my area they will find Local Realtors, I could provide the same service locally to them that FetchReport offers Nationally and get direct hits to my own website instead of someone elses.

Thsi started out as a program for foreclosures, someone mentioned that FetchReport would collect $15 everytime a report was downloaded, how are they going to make money on Pre-Listing Inspections? The average home buyer is not going to pay to view inspection reports for the properties they are interested in, they would, after seeing a link to a report, just contact the Realtor and ask for a copy. So where does the “Profit” come from?

I still don’t get it but Nick will explain it as it comes to pass. I always was a little slow ( Little?? )

Nick, is it that we perform our inspections and get paid the price we set, whatever it is, then we sell it and download it to FetchReport at which time it becomes available to whomever accesses FetchReport to gain access to coupons etc…? Thereby making NACHI inspectors highly accessed?

I have not been given the go-ahead from our attorneys to discuss fee structure yet… but I don’t think I have to state a suggested price specifically for you all to know what my thinking on the subject is.

I think everyone is still trying to understand exactly what it is.