I’m fortunate to have built a business in an industry that serves a ‘need’. As long as people buy and sell homes, and as long as people have jobs outside of the construction trades, there will always be a need for home inspectors. The thing about this job though is that it truly does serve the best needs of the client, and I love playing that role.
A home inspection often ranges in cost from $200 - $800 depending on numerous factors. I’ve never done a $200 inspection ($300 being my lowest) and I’ve never done an $800 inspection ($750 being my highest residential inspection) but you’ll find the range to vary based on the area. What makes the home inspection crucial is that for a fee of $350 or so, you get the benefit of hiring someone who does nothing but looks at and compares homes, to examine the $300,000 asset you are about to purchase to ensure that it isn’t about to fall over.
The best part though, is that the fee you pay me is 90% of the time simply an investment itself. If I do 30 inspections over the course of a month, then likely only 1 those homes would not zero problems (I could then get technical, and dig up that one thing that is out of code, but I won’t). Most homes simply have problems because no builder is perfect and neither is any homeowner. I find defects on NEW CONSTRUCTION all the time. Talk about sinking the boat before it has left the dock…
So the investment works like this: You pay me $350. I do the inspection. I run across 5 major problems. You ask the seller to fix them. They do. They make repairs at a total cost of $1,000. That is $1,000 that you did not have to spend, and thus you’re $350 investment just nearly tripled. Those repairs would have been yours. Those repairs could have been delayed and gotten worse. At the end of the day, hire the right inspector to find the problems, and the right Realtor to negotiate the repairs, and you can come out of the inspection phase as an intelligent investor.
Spencer Brothers, CPI
President
Sterling Home Inspection, LLC