Anyone ever been “Blacklisted”? Today a realtor stated (texted) he will no longer be using my services as I am no longer offering a free reinspect. I’m new to the inspection business (1 1/2 yrs) and wondering if this is typical of a realtor to say/do. Found this article interesting concerning Appraisers and Black Listing. http://www.workingre.com/smoking-gun-allows-appraiser-sue-blacklisting/ Thoughts?
Good idea to hold on to that text.
An individual agent saying that they will not recommend you because of your pricing policies is hardly being blacklisted.
You need a website so that you can market directly to consumers and not be beholden to agents for your livelihood.
I believe that professionals deserve to be paid whenever they provide professional services. I charge a fee anytime I make a house-call, including reinspections.
Cevans, Blacklisted seemed to be right word at the time… it chaps my back side this agent believes it is his decision on who inspects his clients home. Shouldn’t this be the choice of the client? This is the agents text “future endeavors will not be utilizing your services. It is a business decision on my part as well”. That is in response to me telling him I will no longer provide a courtesy reinspect. Coming into the profession I am just surprised on how much agents control our clientele. If you are willing I am interested to hear the number of clients you receive via your website versus real estate agents. Most of my clients calls start like this: “My realtor gave me your number”. Either way it is a double edge sword. Sounds like I should just shut up and color!
Sounds like something to put on your website…
“I’m the guy who your agent doesn’t want to inspect your house”
The agent is not doing anything different than they were when they were recommending you over your competitors. You changed your pricing policy and no longer provide a free perk that the agent feels you should, so they left you. I agree that you should be paid for your efforts, whereas the agent didn’t think you deserved to get paid. But it’s only one agent.
My point was to minimize your dependence on agents (that doesn’t mean you should ignore them, as good agents can lead outstanding clients to you). When I read your post, I tried to find you. No problem finding you on TREC, but I couldn’t find any website, social media site, business listing or client review anywhere. The only place I could find you was on Inspectorseek (nobody actually uses Inspectroseek to find inspectors). If prospective clients can’t find you except through direct agent referrals, then of course you’re going to feel that agents have too much say in your business.
Get out there and establish your own business presence for the sake of your own prosperity. Charge what you’re worth and wow clients with the quality of your work and service and you will not be dependent on agents for your livelihood.
I have many excellent agents who refer their clients to me. However, if they all quit tomorrow, I would still have at least 5 times the request volume that I could service through client referrals, online reviews and my own web presence.
Good luck. Build your brand. Don’t cry over a lost agent who doesn’t have enough respect for you to think you should be paid for your services.
I’m the guy the listing agent and seller don’t want to do your inspection.
Dear Realtor
I an very sorry that this added free service will cause you to now add me to the “black list” as insurance, gas and overhead has continued to rise we have found it necessary to charge accordingly for out services. Of you would like i could add the cost of the re inspection to my base fee and we can still call the reinspection free!!!
I would be sure to return the favor when asked for realtor referrals and keep you on the same list.
Thanks for your comments and the conditional way you do business,i am sure you will be wildly successful someday
How often do you really need to provide a reinspection? Do you really need to charge for this service? Just questions to ponder given the situation. You really don’t want to lose customers. People talk and things of this nature, as small as they may seem to others, spread quickly. You cannot live off Internet sales. Retaining customers is important. Including realtors. We offer free lifetime support to our clients. This includes reinspection for specific items, basically, safety repairs that the lender or property required. For the 10 times per year we may have to do this it is worth it. Good deeds always come back to you in one way or another. We get a reputation of nickel and diming in this business. It is something I really looked at when I got into the business. A lot of my competitors charge for seemingly every step they take. People want to feel the service aspects, hear it, even if you don’t need to do it. It is a psychological thing for us. Your inspection will never serve to be good enough, for as we all know, it is only good until the first plumbing leak or roof failure. Go get your customer back. They liked what you offered.
You don’t need to tell agents your prices the will eventually find out but it is really between you and your client on any pricing policy. You are going to develop good relations with some and have some call you screaming. Don’t be concerned, develop your business with a good marketing plan that touches many areas you cas receive business, do a good job,keep learning and your business will grow. There will be bumps in the road, use them to your advantage.
With the amount of “churn” in the real estate industry, I wouldn’t worry about it…
Dom.
I got that email a few months ago from an agent I’d never heard of. The buyer’s agent said she would never recommend me again for the lack of a free re-inspect. I though it was funny because she didn’t recommend me in the 1st place - The buyer found me online. Don’t work for free.
Just ask the Realtor if they will forego their commission if the buyer doesn’t like the first house they look at.
Mike
Be transparent! You are selling something. It is something I do not like about our culture. It doesn’t give you a competitive advantage to not post your prices. Specially as younger folks purchase homes. They want instant info. People are also skeptical. We are as consumers. I don’t agree about not putting your prices out. I get 2 to 3 comments a week about it and how people appreciate knowing the cost going in. If you are interested in a tool at the hardware store, don’t you bring it to the counter for a price check if there is no price or two different prices tagged? Do you not hate when you are interested in something and the price box says, “call for special pricing”. Or simply “call”? 9 times out of 10, I move on.
I’m in lok step with Jeff on this. Buyers wanta know how much and we make it affordable for them.
Just like Jeff I charge $265 up to 800sf … Then $295 to 1,200sf …
Then $335 to 1,500 … Then $375 to $1,900sf … Then $415 to 2,300sf
AND so on up the line.
Re-inspecting. Define re-inspecting.
If the house is fairly close and I need to return as a courtesy to see the AC unit run or because I could not get a panel cover off due to stored items at the time of the inspection is one thing.
I NEVER, and I mean NEVER go back to any dwelling and “re-inspect” as a means to verify or validate that repairs were made or defects corrected. If I did, and I do not, I would NEVER charge a fee for that service.
As to the realtor’s comments, my response was that prices and services are negotiated between the client and the inspector. If the client really wamts me to do it, they are generally willing to pay for it.
It all depends. Some clients are the BEST, and you want to do what’s right for them. Some clients are difficult, and one may not be so willing to provide any service for free.
Again, the realtor should stay out of it.
- You cannot make everyone happy. Put your energy into the satisfied people.
- Use InterNACHI marketing and keep in mind your looking for 1 great client out of every 100 prospects.
- Privately celebrate not having to put up with an agent or client who does not like your business model. They will only be a problem in the future.
- Re-inspections are negative marketing; place higher risk on the inspector; usually cost you money. Negative marketing: Most repairs are poorly done or not done. When you report them it causes a problem and for some odd reason the burden of bad news is your fault. If its not done right they want you to tell them how to do it. Risk: You are approving the work of repair persons who should be accepting full responsibility for their service. If something is not done quite right you will get the complaint call. Money: It takes me 40 minutes to drive 25 miles in Dallas. About an hour to reinspect. 30 minutes to type a report. Total time about 3 hours. That dilutes the original fee by 40% to 60%.
- “Some” Realtors refer inspectors to delegate risk. “Some” Realtors who encourage re-inspections want someone to point a finger at if there is a problem later on. The art of real estate sales is to delegate risk and retain the commission. Home inspection is similar. The inspector looks for something wrong in order to refer an expert. Its all about risk delegation and you don’t want to be holding the football unless your paid really well. If the agents get $12,000 on a 200k home and you get $800 your not paid really well. Doing a free re-inspection is being the “risk patsy”.
- The fact is “busy” inspectors do not have time to do re-inspections. If your busy you do not care about people wanting free services. ***Marketing to find the customers that you want to work for is the answer. ***
Hear! Hear!
Many inspectors never understand what was just posted…most excellently. 