Old inexpensive pre-listing inspection

So I just booked a pre-listing inspection for a 1930’s inexpensive home.

I love the idea of printing out hard copies of the report to leave at the home once they start listing, as a marketing technique. I am thinking of contacting my client and offering a discount if they would be willing to leave a stack of my reports out when they list the home. I have not used this technique before. My only hesitation is that maybe I should wait for a nicer home to do this. Thoughts?

Why wait if you like the idea then go for in now ( My Thoughts ) .
Let us Know if you do and how well it works … Thanks … Roy

You could have a sign up front with agent signs showing that this house is pre-inspected by Allegiance Home Inspection… contact your realtor for a copy.

Present it to the client as a marketing tool for the home. Suggest they go to staples and get high quality collated spiral bound color glossy reports and hand them out at an open house. Mention to the realtor how you have seen this increase interest and lead to higher opening offers. If they believe it works, it will work. AND you can get them to pay for it and advertise for you. If a listing agent believes it works they will do it every single time. When other agents believe it works, they will steal the idea.

I am sitting here now working on a report for a Seller. She happens to be a local broker that wanted this for marketing her home. Part of the package that she purchased includes the hard copy reports. She will proudly display the report in her very expensive home and it will be great marketing. Tell them up front that you will be providing reports to display at the open house and explain how it will help the potential buyers to see the home in a clearer light and take a lot of the possible post offer negotiation right off the table.

This is one of the few parts of the business that your sales skills need to shine. Sell them on marketing your business because it is good for them. Also, make sure to work the printing cost into the package. I estimate a single page with full color and pictures to be worth about $.50 each. Multiply that time say 50 pages in the report and then by 10 copies and you have yourself a $250 printing bill. I know for myself that the toner in my laser and the amount of color on a page is much less than that, but there is a $50 adder in the package to cover printing costs. I estimate that I am eating about $25-50 as well for the marketing.

I’m a bit confused about the value of doing this for your marketing.
You haven’t done the inspection yet, so what if the house is a POS? If you do your job it is not likely the seller will want to show anyone your report,
OTOH if the house is perfect, and your report says nothing is wrong, how does that help your marketing to buyers?
As an inspector it is not your role to sell the house, your role is to identify things that might be problems.
Some people might be inclined to wonder about your objectivity if a seller or agent is distributing your report to help make a sale.
And finally, say you give the house a clean bill of health, the buyer picks up one of your reports, hangs on to it, and something goes haywire on the house later, and the buyer decides to go after you? I would not assume that just because the buyer was not your client you are home free in this situation, maybe ask a lawyer.

  1. I did the inspection, it is an 8 year old custom built and was in immaculate condition.
  2. No house is perfect. I found roofing issues that will need to be addressed, some minor electrical, and a damaged heating duct. Mostly the report contains maintenance items and recommendations. The seller is very happy to know these items up front so that they can be addressed prior to the potential buyer bringing in an inspector and turning them into negotiation points.
  3. People can question my objectivity if they want but I am there to inspect the house and if they are not comfortable with my report it has verbiage in it urging them to have their own inspection performed as things change.
  4. I don’t give houses pass or fail, or clean bills of health. I report on my findings and allow the client/the seller/the buyers to determine what is important to them and what to address.

On this one specifically they called a roofer before I left and they will be able to attach a repair invoice right to the inspection report so that the buyers know that they took immediate action on the findings. Here, I will let InterNACHI sell their own programs: http://www.moveincertified.com/

Don’t miss much. I took great pleasure finding 11 pages of defects on a prelisting/mechanical inspection done by someone else last week. I am sure the seller is pissed

Just a word of caution. The State of Washington does not allow you to disclose information in the report without client permission. Do yourself a favor and get that “client permission” IN WRITING. Don’t set yourself up for a “he said / she said” argument. Attach that signed permission sheet to your contract for the required 5 years record keeping.

I just went through this with a home that was inspected 2 weeks earlier and those people had walked based on what the inspector told them. Not only did I find numerous issues the other inspector had missed, I also saw the $450 receipt for the electricians work to install a bonding wire for the water pipes. Yeah, the CPVC water pipes. I was surprised at the number of REQUIRED SOP items that were nowhere to be found in his report. And the story got worse from there… :roll:

Thanks for the word Stephen! I will need to make something like that up.

What is wrong with using the Move in Certified Inspection Program protocol and uploading the report on line and letting the interested potential customers print it out from that web site themselves?

Not necessarily true.

If the home has issues, the seller is thinking they want to disclose these things up front, so anyone making an offer knowns about them NOW rather than getting 10 days into a 30 day escrow and having the buyer pull out and walk over them.

I’m going to be doing an inspection soon on such a property. A broker is selling his mother’s house. He knows it’s not been updated since the 1950s. He knows there are potential issues waiting to be exposed. He wants me to inspect it and do the report so everything is up front so he doesn’t have to have to deal with the headaches of potential inspection issues coming up during escrow.