douglas
(Douglas Wall, CIE, FL Lic. Mold Insp #2)
1
Fun times in SW Florida
Looks like Lee & Collier Counties will have twice as many home inspectors as during the boom years of Real Estate sales. I have tried to keep the list on our website updated but they seem to add inspectors by the hour, I applied on Friday and received my license on Tuesday. I will not do home inspections but since we promote inspectors on our websites, etc (advertising) didn’t want any problems. http://radonmoldhelp.com/id12.html
We believe the next year will be exciting for the inspection industry so many newbies at once. Many will fail but there is always will some who make it, as in the past.
We have performed environmental testing / inspections for home inspectors for years and will continue to do so as long as we can. Mold Remediators / Builders / Management Companies seem to dominate our client base anymore but we still manage about 20 jobs a week for home inspectors.
Inspectors drop out like dead flies and always have… the difference that licensing brings is that you can quantify/count them easier (by watching the licensed list).
All of the guys scrambling for an inspector license were already doing inspections IMO… So what difference does it make?
I still don’t understand all the crying about licensing. Before if you wanted to do inspections you just handed out cards. Its not like its has caused somone to go “Crap!, now that there is licensing, I guess I better go and become an inspector.”
I think that once some of the part time guys, once they get their insurance premium they may say forget it
Yeah, but out of those 134 some are applications in progress and two or three of those might have a skeleton in their closet so in reality there may ONLY be 131 state approved HI’s in Brevard county…so far. Orange Co. has 137 so far but I think they have a whole lot more homes to inspect too. The guys chargeing 150 bucks for a full home there oughta be busy as can be.
OK…I must be ignorant. Please educate me because I am falling short somewhere. Why does this matter? If there were 10,000 home inspectors, what would you do different? I presently wouldn’t change a thing in my operation. So what difference does it make? I am serious, am I foolishly not taking something into account?
But just for fun: there are 449 active licensed inspectors in Dade and Broward Counties and 403 applications pending for a total of 852 inspectors in these two counties alone. Almost one third of all inspectors reside in these two counties.
So some loser got a license. He doesn’t set his alarm clock, does no marketing, won’t pay to advertise, his brochure looks like his wife created it at work, his cell phone battery is dead and he can’t find the charger, he’s sitting on the couch in the middle of the day watching sports, eating what’s left and stale out of the bottom of a bag of chips while farting.
Who cares? We’ll crush him without even trying. His license is a non-factor.
douglas
(Douglas Wall, CIE, FL Lic. Mold Insp #2)
13
Same with any business, in ours for example more trouble explaining why some wantbe mold assessor’s report doesn’t clear a cleanup job.
We each had someone send a report that was a joke last night, after 7 before we went home. Think we will start charging to look at pro lab or HI mold reports from now on.
Have a good day, gotta run, finishing a big job for the city of Ft Myers today.
Russ I do agree it should not matter, but it does because of supply and demand. Less inspectors demand higher prices. More inspectors they lower their prices.
I would not and have not done anything different, except explaining why I charge more.
We had a chapter meeting last Tuesday night with some new faces in the room. They each were newly state licensed home inspectors. I had the opportunity to speak with them and each of them have never done a single home inspection. Home Inspector licensing in Florida is an embarrassment to our profession. If the “intent” of the law was to protect the consumer, the state has failed miserably. I believe that the licensing law actually has the potential to cause harm to the consumer by giving them the false impression that a “licensed” home inspector is actually qualified.
The sadder thing is that since the current bill lacks any Standards of Practice, Code of Ethics or consumer protection the newly licensed home inspector is fully qualified in the eyes of the state who has decimated & diminished our profession completely.
I recently heard about a 3200 sq ft pool/ golf course home in merrit Island that got a $150.00 inspection. While the yahoos may make the rest of us look good in the long run they are going to sop up work, and make the proffession look bad in the short run. But I do agree with Russell, none of it has anything to do with how we run our buisinesses.
