 |
|
 |
 
How to become a home inspector & start a home inspection businessStarting a home inspection business and becoming a home inspector is very easy. Even in states like New Jersey who license home inspectors it is not at all difficult to get a home inspectors license and to get out there inspecting homes. Incomes range from just about nothing to $ 80,000 in a good year with many 14 hour days and six to seven day work weeks. The minimal technical knowledge required by most states can be obtained in a few weeks of school and sometimes within a week of field work. Notice what I wrote above. I used the word MINIMAL. When a person gets their drivers license they have the MINIMAL qualifications necessary to legally drive a car. Do they drive as well as experienced drivers? Usually not. Many new inspectors learn about homes while getting paid for clients, great for the new inspector, not so great for the client! If you want to become a home inspector do NOT forget liability for alleged errors or omissions that occurred during a home inspection allows clients to come after you personally for years after the inspection (most states allow this for two years from discovery if your client alleges fraud) so factor in keeping insurance for several years at $4000 to $ 5000 or so per year. Each home inspection takes at least five hours of time (see 2 paragraphs down), not one or two hours. When real estate transaction volume sinks your income drops dramatically. When real estate prices drop the quantity of complaints you get from previous clients goes up exponentially. Home inspectors typically are paid a percentage of the home inspection fee. I have heard of home inspectors being paid anywhere from $60 to $175 per home inspection. Think about it for a second, can your boss pay you 100% of what he or she takes in? Who pays for the insurance, vehicle expenses, marketing expenses, postage, people who answer the phones, vacation time, etc. Each home inspection takes a good 5 hours of time when all the off site time is added up, if you doubt this click on Where does a home inspectors my time go and Where does a home inspectors money go or try these free Excel versions you can plug your own numbers into moneygo.xls timego.xls. Newer drivers learn by doing, so do newer inspectors. Are newer drivers more likely to make mistakes than more experienced driver? Sure! Are newer home inspectors more likely to make mistakes than experienced home inspectors? While I have personally trained dozens of individuals to become home inspectors in the classroom, in the field and in New Jersey and ASHI approved CEU classes I can attest to the fact that some are highly intelligent people who have an excellent technical knowledge but hate running a business. Many are the exact opposite. It is unfortunate that a balance between the two is required for a home inspection business to be successful. I was once told by an older and wiser inspector when I began training to become a home inspector that technical knowledge was about 20% of the skill necessary to be a successful home inspection business owner. At the time I thought he was kidding however over the last 13 years I have grown to accept he knew more than I did. Being a home inspector requires technical knowledge, the ability to be a gymnast (think crawl space), the skill sets possessed by attorneys (yes, you must know ever aspect of real estate and home inspection laws or some guy in a black dress will teach them to you), the ability to work in disgusting houses (some people never clean up their home or after their pets), the ability to transfer thoughts into comprehensible words (both spoken and written) to be a psychologist and to deal with difficult people who are under stress. Starting a home inspection business requires those skills plus knowing 20x times that much about the law, the ability to create and stick to budgets, being part accountant, part marketing expert, part ad agency, part personal department, chief technical officer and a dozen other skills. I never once heard anyone who wanted to be a home inspector tell me they could not wait to run a business. It is sad but true that most people who start business fail. Something like 20% of business fail each year. Not the first year but EACH year. Home inspection business are likely to fail at a rate several times that. Get a hold of the oldest phone book you can and start calling home inspection businesses. Keep a count of how many "the number you are dialing has been disconnected" recordings you hear. Is it impossible to start a home inspection business that makes money? No but it is difficult and you should become aware of the risks and time involved prior to starting up a business and investing major amounts of time and money. How much money do you need to start a home inspection business? I suggest the minimum school training required by your state, plus the Carson & Dunlop DVD's, plus the videos from HomeExam and going out on at least 50 inspections with an experienced home inspector, if you think 50 inspections is too many then just go out till you go through 2 inspections in a row without missing anything - you may find 100 home inspections are not enough for you . Tools and equipment are also necessary. Count on marketing will cost about 5 or 10 times what you think it will. Also add in how much you will need to live for at least six months, as it is unlikely the company will make money for a while (like two years).
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Home Inspection Checklist -
New Home Inspection Checklist -
Home inspector training -
lung cancer asbestos -
How to become a home inspector -
Home Inspection Business - Mortgage loan rates - mortgage rate, second mortgage, refinance home rate information -
SiteMap -
list
SarasotaFloridaRealEstate.html
|
