How to gage demand in my area

Hello folks, recently came across this resource in my quest of learning more about possibly starting a home inspection as a career. Just wondering if anyone had any tips on how to get a good idea on what the demand is for this service in my area. Somehow I feel doubtful that I will get a honest answer from local ‘could be’ competition.

I was thinking about emailing local real estate agents and asking them. Would this be to invasive?

I don’t want to go to far with this only to find out there is no demand for any more home inspectors in my area.

Where are you located?

Demand is only 1/2 the equation. You also need to know supply.

Demand in my area is great. So is the supply. Getting a foot in the door is easy. Getting the door fully open is difficult.

And even so, just to meet demand is not always the greatest reason to start a business. You have to really enjoy it and want it.

I love being a home inspector. So I’m all in.

I guess you could look into how many homes were sold last month, year, etc. then find out how many inspectors are in a certain area, and take it from there.

What in the world would you do with that information? I’d love to know.

Start your business and be the best the results will come!

I would like that information if trying to decide what type of business to start.

Lets say you would like to sell widgets and find out 10,000 widgets are sold each year @ 10 cents per unit.There are already 10 companies selling them with each getting a 10% share.This means they all average sales of 1,000 @ 10 cents or $100.

The point is if volume and profit are not there in a service area and you have no plans on relocating then Nick’s in the world can not make dough.Perhaps the O.P lives in the middle of a corn field and his best option is to drop ship retail items from websites.

Just being silly however as in pretty much any career choice we should all just do what we have Passion for because if it already exists as a field it must be profitable and if you have a passion you will be better than average.

Success will be attained by how determined you are rather than study of stats and as far as I know there are Home Inspectors at every corner of the States because you simply would be dumb to not get a Home Inspection.

McDonalds and the US Military are always looking for a few good hands.

Create demand…don’t react to it.

I am located in St. John’s, Newfoundland. I really do believe this would be a profession I would enjoy and thrive in.

I just would like to have some sort of idea if there was a need for home inspectors in my area. Right now from the little research I’ve done there are roughly 600-700 homes for sale in the greater st. johns area. Population is around 100, 000 and from a quick search on yellow pages I see around 30 home inspectors.

I know nothing will work unless I put in the work, but I just don’t think it would be was to try to start buisness in a already crowded market.

Where you are there are probably public and private agencies and or small business consultants who are able to get the information you need, there is data out there that will estimate how many home inspectors a given size of population can support, and how many are in business for the area you are in. A lot of these services might even be free. Start with state, province, or large city economic development departments.

Success in the home inspection business has nothing to do with supply and demand. In a free market, supply and demand quickly reach equilibrium. There are always about as many home inspectors as the demand for home inspections requires. Now that doesn’t mean all the home inspectors will be busy. Some will be swamped with work, some will stay mostly busy, some will struggle and some won’t get any inspection work at all.

If you are waiting for a freak time in the market (where demand for inspections is much greater than the number of inspectors required to fill that demand) to succeed… business is not for you.

I guess that makes sense, maybe I’m thinking to much in to this than I have too. I know I will be passionate about this type of work and I think I can succeed. I suppose that’s all that matters.

If you are just starting out, no matter how great you may be, it’s all about the marketing (and who you know).
You can be a wonderful inspector or any trade for the matter, but you have to possess marketing skills
or pay someone for that type of help.
Good luck! :slight_smile:

Just shoot for magnificence in all areas of your business. Utter magnificence. If you fall short, you’ll still likely be in the top 20% and that’s all you need to do well in this business.

Always be asking the same question about every little segment of your business… how can I improve that?